Bustamante, Kevin E. 2024. Waltz with Me: Structural Realism and Structural Racism in International Politics. Security Studies 33 (5): 742–767.

ABSTRACT: A chasm separates International Relations (IR) scholars interested in race and racism. Conventional scholars treat the topic in a reductionist manner, choosing to focus on unit-level factors such as racial attitudes and identities. Critical scholars are more structural in their approaches but reject traditional causal explanations. I argue that Waltzian theory is a bridge between these two approaches, offering structural causal arguments with wider policy relevance. The essay reckons with critical critiques of Waltzian theory and outlines structural realist approaches to structural racism.

Find the manuscript here or email me for a copy.

Bustamante, Kevin E. Racial Hierarchy and the Balance of Power: Race War in Merze Tate's International Thought (Conditionally Accepted at Journal of Race, Ethnicity, & Politics)

This article recovers the international thought of Merze Tate, the first Black woman to earn a Ph.D. in government from Harvard’s Radcliffe College. I reconstruct Tate’s classical realist approach and show how she applies it to the causes of disarmament failure and views race war as a challenge to global racial hierarchy. Tate’s realist approach highlights an alternative approach to racism in international politics that centers the international distribution of power. I make my argument through a close reading of Tate’s early writings in the 1930s and 1940s and compare it to contemporary writings by W.E.B. Du Bois, Alain Locke, and E.H. Carr. The article makes three contributions: it recovers Tate’s intellectual legacy and advances recognition of early twentieth-century black women thinkers; it develops the Howard School of International Relations’ contributions to IR theory; and it enriches our understanding of racism in the international system.

Working paper available here. 

Direct Democracy, Political Awareness, and Identity (Revise & Resubmit at Political Behavior)

This article examines how identity shapes political awareness of ballot propositions. I argue that political awareness is affected by individual characteristics and the political environmental and that both of these are structured by identity. I argue that identity-salient initiatives produce particular incentive and opportunity structures that lead to differential rates of political awareness. I test my argument in two ways. First, I leverage 131 Field Poll surveys conducted in California that capture awareness of more than 180 unique ballot propositions between 1970 and 2014. With over 370,000 observations, I show the existence of gender and racial awareness gaps on traditional measures relating to bonds and taxes. These gaps are eliminated or reversed on identity-salient initiatives like immigration, carceral policy, and reproductive rights. Second, I shed light on one of the underlying mechanisms by comparing daily proposition coverage by the leading English and Spanish newspapers between 1992 and 2006. With over 4,000 observations, I demonstrate systematic differences in how mainstream and ethnic media cover ballot propositions. The article contributes to our understanding of the kinds of politics that Blacks, Latinos, LGBTQ Americans, and women are aware of.

The Myth of Nuclear Prestige (Book Project)

Why Do States Go Nuclear? Ethnocentrism and Racism in Predictions of Proliferation

Race and Support for Nuclear Weapons Use (w/ David Ebner)

White Dominion: The Strange Case of German Intervention in the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895)

Competition and Racial Equality in Elite International Clubs