The Political Science of the MCU
The politics of superheroes
The hard-working staff here at Drezner’s World is off on a mini President’s Day weekend trip. Regular missives will return on Tuesday.
In the meanwhile, however, please enjoy my latest for Foreign Policy. It’s a review of The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, an edited volume by political science professors Nicholas Carnes and Lilly Goren. An excerpt:
With great power comes great expectations of an edited volume, and The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe clocks in at more than 400 pages, suggesting that political scientists could—in the words of Captain America—“do this all day.” At their best, books like Carnes’ and Goren’s use popular culture to court new readers and then use political science to inform them about what makes the cultural artifact tick. While only a superficial knowledge of the Marvel universe is required to comprehend the material, I would recommend some familiarity with political science….
For those interested in political theory, gender theory, the politics of representation, and the MCU, this is a must read. I will confess that as someone also interested in international relations, I found the Carnes and Goren volume a bit wanting. My review closes as follows:
The biggest gap in Carnes and Goren’s book is the absence of, um, foreign policy. Most of the chapters are concerned with questions of domestic U.S. politics or political theory. Political scientist Stephen Saideman’s chapter discusses civil-military relations, but beyond that, there is little mention of traditional international relations questions. That is not due to a shortage of subject material: The question of whether Black Panther’s Wakanda can be an isolationist superpower, for example, merits further exploration. How great-power politics on Earth will progress after the reveal of alien civilizations like the Skrulls or the Kree seems like an important topic too. And don’t get me started on the effect of time travel on credible commitment mechanisms.
Perhaps the greatest irony of the MCU is that over time, even as its characters become more representative, the MCU universe has been drained of the political institutions that we take for granted. In other words, the MCU now looks like our world—in every way but its politics.
Read the whole thing — and if you’re into the MCU, then definitely read the Carnes and Goren volume!
Talk to you all again on Tuesday!
Thanks for excerpting contributors' comments! Now I can go to the grave happy I never paid for and read this book.
C'mon, political scientists. Do better.
"The biggest gap in Carnes and Goren’s book is the absence of, um, foreign policy. "
Maybe the guy who wrote "Theories of International Politics and Zombies" should take a crack at this topic.