the international study. welcome patrick james. >> thank you very much maria. >> before we get into the actual politics, why the lord of the rings rather than another narrative to try to explain the theories of international relations? >> the short answer is it says extraordinary completeness and complexity is the world. if you took all of j.r.r. tolkien's writings and put them together you would have the most completely specified and is it world the world that has ever been created. or example full language is the one can speak detail so accurate that you can charge phases of the moon at different points of the of the storyline in their absolute correct so the reason i say that is the complexity of the story is enough to rival human history itself. >> so now the "lord of the rings" has, i think you have in

your book 14 languages. how many different species and story lines? >> the answer is, depending upon how would measure such things, literally thousands within the movies which collectively in their expanded versions were something like 11 hours long, major significant characters and plot lines that are literally not even mentioned that off. it would probably go on as a series for several years. >> lets talk about those things, justice and orders a very big thing in international relations how are these exemplified in "lord of the rings"? >> at constant struggle maria between the two. up in the more of when you have come in a more orderly things you have the more unjust than vice versa and we look at reducing storylines in situations to see if you will how those things trade off because the person reading the book, anyone picking us up and

saying i would like to get a sense of what international relations are about, various trade-offs and i can give you examples if you would like, we struggle with in middle-earth. the characters are right there for you and me in the real world. let's get the time machine and your family popular yourself that you are in trouble with the public and the congress is in the process of falling to the republicans. do you do the right thing in rawanda's to send in a relatively small and cheap forced to shut down the genocidal alternative we do you forego justice and preserve your own political position by instead staying out of her wand and remembering that the public was still pretty mad about the debacle in somalia and that question answers itself. >> what about in the book? >> in the book we see an extraordinary and very

black-and-white struggle. this is not a book for people who like shades of gray in that there are various villains and very virtuous heroes but at the same time there are flaws and while there is an ultimate struggle between the evil in this book, the there are interesting characters who have twists and turns in them and if you want to concentrate on someone the right places to start is arguably the most interesting and messed up character in the book. >> first of all let's address the black-and-white issue. isn't it the case were scholars especially political scholars like me, we want to get our audiences to think about things in the gray. does this black-and-white idea do that? >> is a wonderful throwback maria to a world and remember much of this was written in the first half of the 20th century this in some ways is good

assault for moral relativism. if you look at the store and those of you who know it will know exactly what i mean, you will see the characters are often tormented. who wants to preserve the safety of his people but is also struggling with the means for doing that. in his case for instance he finally gives in to his darker nature and he pays with his life he endangers the entire mission of the so-called fellowship of the ring and there we see getting in if you will to evil resulting in a very bad outcome. >> so you mentioned, andy's said he exemplifies. >> he exemplifies within i think human nature that there is no absolute determinism and all of us have the potential for good or evil and he has been marketed for most of our listeners so viewers will have a sense of who

column is, he's this extraordinary high-tech character who has the jekyll and hyde personality. he is akin to the delightful hobbit creatures who were among the the most important were taken asante also has a darker side who is obsessed with the very evil ring of power that jeopardizes the safety of the entire world and often throughout the story, crucial developments go back and forth in terms of whether this needle part can stay strong enough to assist the fellowships members and the character we can talk about or whether regrettably a darker side golam takes over and threatens the world. >> so now you have also written a book about how golam represents a certain paradigm or a model in international relations. it's the imperialist model. >> that's right.

and the storyline very briefly golam murders another character with a friend and eagle finds the ring the first act of evil that the ring causes because of its own hand here and evil. what does that have to do with that? the river folk are simple creatures who live by the river and lake to fish and would never heard anyone yet when this high-tech device arguably into fantasy world and away is that wmd, the weapon of mass destruction, as soon as it's injected into the simple location of the river folk, golam is obsessed with the ring and he uses his magical powers to disappear and becomes cannibalistic and ultimately over 500 years of unnatural extended life due to the fact that he has the ring and commits many heinous acts. this is seen if you will as a comparison to the effects of high technologies going into

parts of the world that were innocent and pristine and causing terrible things to happen. some people have read the book that way. >> so now that is one of the many ways of looking at international relations and you have characters representing the other models. for example the liberalism. who do you see as representing realism? >> realism, the regular format that is very aggressive called offense of realism. it's a sense that people live for the gain of power relative to others and they want to expand if you will and they are naturally quite imperialistic. a storyline example involving the two wizards who went over to the dark side and is starting to help help the dark lord and scheme with him. he has been overtaken if you will by the rising power. the unofficial leader of the free peoples have a terrible confrontation and the jargon and

the people who are encountered are often turned off but the concept such as bandwagon plays a key role in offense of realism. it is appropriate for me to bandwagon, that is rolled down the hill and joined the site that is winning and if you see the movie makes a long impassioned plea which is really extremely dishonest and sneaky of course and says we should join him. he's going to win anyway. let's do that. this communicates some old concepts and a lot of staying power international relations that we see bandwagoning. for example smaller states that joined in with hitler's germany during its early days of successful conquest. certain parties joined in with hitler rather than balancing against him and salomon the wizard who has gone over to the dark side bandwagons with the evil and incredibly powerful cell run whereas gandalf speaks for another realism called balancing.

it's about how you choose to employ your power. sarah mond says let's divide up this oils and salomon -- gun gun.says let's balance against him because he does not share power. >> you said gandalf in the book was a representative of what we call in political science rational choice and wouldn't take rational choice be for the side that's winning? >> the answer is that if they calculate properly, the correct answer is no interestingly enough, because they have also been looking ahead rather than being myopic and saying it might sound great to be on the is very much like winston . like hitler who is bandwagoning or in a fantasy world is a lot like will lasso the rational thing to do is to actually join the

weaker side and try to balance. as one of the american revolutionary said, you must hang together or hang separately. >> my favorite model is constructivism. how did we see the international relations of constructivism and the lord of the rings? >> the answer is answers we see it in so many places because to do this in a way that is accessible as we do in the book, we have to try to avoid kind of discussions. constructivism is about studying ideas. saying do you know what? it's not just the weapons that matter. it's the power of ideas and if we look at the story of the "lord of the rings", here is one example of this, that actors, key actors and i mentioned a few, and it's a big complex story so bear with me as i bring in more of them, if you look at

a character like frodo who was the ring bearer, he is looking at the world around him and you'll notice we can introduce multiple theories with a single character. he has to come up with if you will an idea of what the world is it about black and white? in other words to construct the world and as the world and izzy grew up in this idealistic throwback to early modern england in a pastoral place called the shire. everyone farms and there's no ugly machinery or industry. he must reconstruct his view because here is his initial view that he chose to have his adventures and given bald in the "lord of the rings" story. who cares about the other side of the world? many would call that if construction of -- whereas he begins to construct a more liberal cooperative worldview as in i must join in with this fellowship because even though

we hobbits, we are little weak creatures who live in our simple shire would like to stay there and we would like to be left alone, that isn't realistic anymore so he learns and discovers and he changes his worldview and so to do with their companions of his. we can follow their storylines and they'll fall for the the same way. there's a famous line for a pink one that people really like from the two towers movie and book, where one of frodo's hobbit companions is speaking to this living tree type creature and they are trying desperately to helpful to free peoples to they are not sure that this character says you are part of this world. and it causes them to look back at themselvethemselve s as if they had allowed themselves to to -- they had constructed a

shell around themselves but here's the problem. it doesn't always hold true. the shells but down in the forest burns. >> it's all interconnected. >> is interconnected and interdependent as the so-called liberal who tell us do not try to pretend especially under conditions of globalization that there are airtight compartments in this world and we can stay in one and keep the rest of them out. >> let me remind listeners as we are speaking with patrick james in the book is called "the international relations of middle-earth" learning from 'lord of the rings'" and assist callers ercolano and maria. are there other models that you actually have found in character for almost every one of them. the critical theory. how do you find critical theory gives you a basic sense of what it's all about. it does not say in the sense of galileo explaining in natural science but instead look at ir in terms of what is right and

wrong. so how is this fantasy world and bear in mind tolkien told kind anybody could use the word critical theory so bite definition what is so fascinating about the fantasy world as you will find areas that have been created recently long after his death in the mid-1970s, that amazingly the great character to talk about here, someone who doesn't make it into movies and his name he is kind of a cantankerous cousin if you will to these large mobile treelike creatures who ultimately got away to join the good guys and help out. old man willow was actually nasty and mean and the storyline is left out. we see him trying to devour the little hobbits and early in their time away from the shire they are ignorant of the outside world. they might lie down and resist

the tree and unfortunately because they are not aware of such things, they risk being devoured and gnarled to death if you will. where does the critical theory,, and? to two old man willow intruders in his domain called the old forest always mean trouble. what do they do? that burned the trees. they chopped them down. this of course is critical theory expressed in terms of seems like a villain. he's trying to devour these hobbits but now we transport ourselves to his domain. what is happening to him? people are coming into his territory, even right next to his doorstep and pulling out axes and cutting him or his relatives down if you will. already caught on, old man willow is essentially a creature so it encourages us from a critical theory standpoint to step out of the ikea. the trees are just what would waiting to happen for fireplace

and maybe for example we might want to rethink what we are doing with the amazon. >> then also it brings in the issues of justice and the entire system and how the system works, either just or in just and beats into conflict. >> you are absolutely right in the book is a wonderful struggle between myself and my wonderful collaborator who i like so much, and maria as i think a quite it was abigail wayne. she is a very fine scholar and she was at usc at one point in more devoted to critical theory whereas i am much more on the call it if you will natural science side of things. she is more interested in justice. i'm more interested in order not to the exclusion of the other so the book is written in a sense an explicit debate encourages the reader to say people have been thinking about order for the five pages and now people

have to think about the applications for justice and vice versa. >> isamu widger co-author who integrated feminism? >> yes. i am actually more known as an exponent of what is called rational choice theory with the application of economic models abbey as she is nicknamed is quite expert on critical theory, in particular gender-based analysis where obviously as different as you can get in our approaches in this field. each one serves as a naturally and we feel confident to say you just went too far there. the book in other words tends to have in my humble opinion a very pragmatic balance sense between not obsess over justice to the point where we worry that things all the time. at the same time we are not so callous that we want order badly enough that we don't care that one person has everything. the tricking thing is we know

where is that a perfect balance in any given context? >> and you have the sense that the "lord of the rings" allows that debate to come through. >> precisely because if you look the hierarchy of power you have different races, called more ethnicities. you have the humans and you have the elves that are long-lived, extremely intellectual erudite, very distant but also i'm afraid they have flaws such as being condescending and somewhat self-absorbed. at the other end of things powerful creatures, can can you have the hobbits who are pint-size, physically not very strong or generally not very knowledgeable with a few exceptions about the outside world and then much more fantastic creatures with strengths and weaknesses, dwarves are short is physically quite powerful, incredible engineers but here's their flaw. they are obsessed as well.

notice the problem here, that they might not care much about justice. as long as they have a lot of many of characters that go over the edge into evil, the so-called forks and here we come back to the question of moral relativism. they have no redeeming characteristics and that of course is the very extreme kind of character to have. they are the creations ford tormented if you will, elves. >> and marks you describe as part of the realist model prototype. >> there is a memorably evil character has a very exciting congregation in the movie version with one of the most heroic characters. he is the king in waiting, the leader of the free peoples and eventually the king. he has a confrontation with the leader of a type of hybrid that powerful stronger than normal

larger and capable of traveling in daylight. he is rather miserable and an abominable creature. the leader epitomizes realism and that he goes on a murderous rampage. all he cares about is offensively destroying his enemies. and otherwise he is monomaniacal he wants power and he wants to destroy things and he does not have if you will and the concerns for justice. to him the order is they dominate and the free peoples don't. >> he almost sounds like he belongs in another model, like you know in the peerless model. >> yes which is essentially a historical type of version of realism and in the 19th century the great powers of europe sailed the seas, took kind of bad

reading of charles darwin caused is extremely inferior people, colonize them. and the neocolonial type of assessment through these places and savaging them that had previously been undisturbed. episode of a climactic part of the film called the scouring of the shire if you read the "lord of the rings." what happens sadly enough for the hobbits and and this would bring the movie so i didn't put it in. when the hobbits go back home to their idea what shire, it's not like it is in the movie. in the book it has been taken over by a decrepit pathetic reduced version of the evil ceremony who i mentioned a few

get this point closely, they have created an ugly industrial shire, it's filthy and polluted and its trees and meadows are full of industrial waste. there is smoke everywhereverywher e. in a sense what this is pointing out also about war and its consequences is there is no victory without also loss. the shire when they come back they have to fight another rearguard battle and destroy his occupying force of evil man and the hobbits are now because of their battle-hardened experience they will come back and return to the shire. they come back and they lead a hobbit rebellion. some hobbits at died and some beautiful things, in particular if you would call the bridge between the hobbit and the "lord of the rings" -- make their something called the party tree big beautiful tree that has been destroyed and turned into fire

with. >> now i know you said you're co-author wrote the feminine chapter but i wonder, you have an entire chapter 4 so little in another. the lord of the rings didn't have much -- of women at all and i wonder if that is part of the feminist critique of international relations theory as well? >> well said. in fact he gives the women even a smidgen of their time. they actually have to change the storylines. in the book for instance there is a memorable rescue scene where the character, if you will the partner ultimately for the she isn't elves and she does not frodo from the minions when he has been stabbed. he is going to turn into if you will a sort of ghastly zombielike creature. he needs desperately to get to where the elves the elves have the sanctuary and their powerful medicine. he is rescued by the beautiful darwin in the movie but the character, a male elf rescues

frodo in the book version. our wind's character is pumped up in the movie is compared as compared to what she would be in the book. other characters, the few female characters that really matter is not exaggerated. we haven't mentioned her yet. she is arguably the most powerful single and subtlety of middle-earth and she isn't often an ancient one. unless they can get the rank we are talking about, he gets it in all the world follows -- falls to him. wise and has some elements of mind reading powers as well. that is implied. she is powerful and important. the leading feminist character in the book and it's fascinating when you think about how long ago this book was written. she is if you will as close as you can get to being a sort of female ivanhoe knifelike character. she wants to fight alongside the men and she is vigorous and

capable of doing so but they won't let her. she actually has to disguise herself and assume the identity of the phonyite called stern helm. she becomes a warrior for her kingdom. row upon being allied with gone gun door the principle kingdom. they are very norse. they remind you of the people who lived in a viking type environment and they are great horseman. she actually has to disguise herself and she plays a crucial role in a very late battle scene in the movie. if she isn't there, there's a saying about these horrible black writers pursuing frodo at one point. the leader of them cannot killed by a man. he is ultimately slain by a small hobbit who is not going to be allowed to fight either. in other words the feminist critique is there are women who can do things but that man can do and now here's where of some i've feminist fans would get

annoyed. this is called liberal feminism. the idea is that you and i should have equal opportunities as should everyone and you might then try to excel in the ways that i try to excel. different variants were strands of feminism reject this saying no women actually are different and here we get into another storyline that is not in the movie but in the books. remember i mentioned those large fantastic living trees? they are all guys. they are all masculine. the wives left. they found the up session with trees annoying. annoying. the wife stopped at the gardens were more exciting. notice the environmentalism but notice also that toll keen possibly anticipated this. one strand of feminism argues that the liberal model where everybody should have an equal opportunity and try to excel in a democratic capitalistic society is one kind of feminism but another one, we say we want

to be different and make sure we don't want to assess what you have historically have obsessed over. even those nuances can be found and i returned to my first , how many novels out there have this when we get into subvariants of explanations of our world then we find entire characters? >> speaking of complexity the other aspect of the book, and i should remind people it's called the international -- "the international relations of middle-earth" learning from 'lord of the rings'." so five is the author and this is the scholar circle and i'm your host maria. you call them levels of analysis, kind of a scholarly term but it's like how to really understand conflict. you said in "lord of the rings", just like in world war i, you could look at it from these various goods.

you can look at the systemic reasons why world war i happened and similar to "lord of the rings" and you can look at it from that structural elements like the state or you can look at it through the individual like the young man who decided to shoot the archduke. >> that's right and what is so fascinating, i will give one historic comparison. if you look at things that are true to all three of the wars that we choose to look at, they are very well no cases and obviously the lord of the rings is the fantasy world. why did it happen and then the causes as well of world war i that you just mentioned but also the war in iraq which is more recent in our times. one of the things that is in the "lord of the rings" as well as those other two cases, people have argued wars are precipitated by a week and are experienced and/or bad leaders quote unquote who showed bad world war i we have combination

monarchical systems where was the best and the brightest and it was sold decrepit monarchs like the kaiser for instance in germany, the czar in russia who because they are there only through privilege and not confidence are really not very skilled in diplomacy and not very able to repent the outback of world war i. after that assassination you referred to. now iraq. a nonpartisan statement but i think it's said fairly that experienced foreign-policy and tended to listen arguably to people who wanted to precipitate the war. her hep c moved impetuously without appropriate evidence regarding wmd. that can be seen as leadership and later on the intelligence was proven not to have been there. here is the fun part. if you are trying to get these ideas and compare them to "lord of the rings" has its own decrepitude to talk about as well.