World Politics of Disco Elysium

Vic Castro is an independent scholar with a PhD in political science (2024) from the University of Copenhagen. Their work has been published in journals including Security Dialogue and European Journal of International Security. They are a former Communications Officer for the STAIR section of ISA.Nicholas Kiersey is Professor of Political Science at University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. His research addresses austerity, biopolitics and the crises of the neoliberal capitalist state. He is currently working on a book about socialist governmentality and the cultural political economy of the end of capitalism.

• Part 1: An Introduction to Disco Elysium 1. Introduction to The World Politics of Disco Elysium 2. What Kind of Cop Are We, Detective? Community Engagement on r/DiscoElysium Bart Part 2: Disco Elysium and Late Capitalism 3. “I have holes in my brain” – The Traumatic Memory of the Commune of Revachol 4. “Thought Cabinet”: Imagining Ludic Alternatives to Capitalist Realism 5. The Detective Dandy and the Marxist Hypothesis: Disco Elysium as Critique of the Millennial Left Part 3: World Order, Liberalism, and Security in Disco Elysium 6. A Real Kerfuffle: Sovereignty and Intervention Beyond the Pale in Disco Elysium 7. The EU and Disco Elysium – Second-order Representations as Vessels of Criticism 8. Who Bears ‘La Responsabilité?’: The Objective Violence of Liberal Order in Disco Elysium 9. Imaginaries of Ontological (In)Security in Disco Elysium Part 4: Oppression and Liberation in Disco Elysium 10. “I don’t want to be this kind of animal anymore!”: Unthinking Policing in Disco Elysium 11. Vows of Blööd and Flesh: The Aggrieved Entitlements of Fascist Ideology in Disco Elysium 12. Decomposing the Body Politic: Sick and Disabled Resistance in Disco Elysium 13. The Ecstasy of Ruin: Sartre, Euphoria, and the Pleasure of Undoing Part 5: Conclusions 14. Playing like: Disco Elysium and the making of IR subjects Afterword. Calling IR to the disco floor