John Knox has published a long and dense yet fascinating article, "Horizontal Human Rights Law" in January's issue of the American Journal of International Law. In it, he asks considers whether international human rights law, designed to prescribe how states may and...
I have repeatedly criticized the Bush administration for failing to recognize the Svalbard threat. Its policy of drowning the Polar Bear forces into submission might prove successful, but it also...
Some of us here at the Duck would put ourselves into the "relational" camp when it comes to how we approach Social Science. Among other things, this approach looks at social and political actors...
Anthony Arend at Georgetown University reports on a new campaign that many of us will want to support. Its promotional video, culled from the film Taxi to the Dark Side:Unlike many anti-torture...
NY Times: "Worries in G.O.P. About Disarray in McCain Camp"Politico.com: "GOP strategists mull McCain ‘blowout’" (as in he blows Obama out of the water in a huge win by like 50-100 electoral votes)So, which is it? Good year for McCain or good year for Obama?
Can you tell the difference between the views expressed by a human rights activist who worries mostly about humanitarian emergencies in Asia and those stated by a prominent neorealist American academic? 1: Realist thinking versus liberal talk:A. "...oil and strategic interests are what dictate Western policies, not their professed liberal values. All the talk of humanism or humanitarianism is just for public relations." B. "...public discourse about foreign policy in the United States is usually couched in the language of liberalism. Hence the pronouncements of the policy elites are heavily...
Via Matthew Yglesias and a quick google search I learn that the right-wing blogsphere is all in a tizzy over the fact that the Decemberists played at Obama's Portland speech. This apparently matters because:1. The left-wing mainstream media isn't reporting that some percentage of people clearly attended to hear the Decemberists rather than Obama. Ergo, Obama's not really all that popular. Or something.2. The Decemberists often play the Soviet National Anthem before their concerts. Given that they named themselves after the participants in an 1825 anti-absolutism rebellion in Russia and that...
How do electoral politics influence US foreign policy? Look no farther than Miami Dade County and US relations with Cuba. Cuban-Americans remain a highly mobilized electoral block in that state's largest county, and they tend to be single-issue voters, supporting the candidate who is tough on Fidel's Cuba. So, you have a history of candidates talking about the need to crack down on Castro to curry favor in the Cuban community and put Florida in play. Do a few hundred more votes in Florida really matter? Well, since 2000, making this point is like shooting fish in a barrel. Recall that...
If you haven’t heard about or seen the clip of Chris Matthews dressing down one of his guests, a conservative talk show host, you might wan to take a look. Aside from the sheer entertainment value of the thing, it might, maybe, be a turning point for the fall election.Matthews was in his regular Hardball segment where they have a conservative and a liberal radio talk show host to spin the issue of the day. They were discussing the Foreign Policy back and forth between Bush and Obama. The conservative guest launched into Obama as soon as Matthews started the segment, talking about how Obama...
Conservatives have a fundamental misunderstanding of appeasement. While it should refer to specific concessional policies offered to aggressors in order to avoid war, conservatives use the phrase haphazardly as a political bludgeon against domestic foes who favor negotiation and arms control instruments over more hawkish policies. The inevitable comparison is to Neville Chamberlain and Adolph Hitler.Everyone knows how that turned out.In 1988, even conservative icon Ronald Reagan was attacked by right wing critics for his successful negotiation of an Intermediate Nuclear Force agreement with...
This month I am teaching (for the first time) an intensive summer course. Since the topic is the "Politics of International Human Rights," and since I'm forcing my students to blog, all my blog posts for this month will concern human rights in one way or another.Let's begin with news from the American Political Science Association. APSA, which had contracted with New Orleans for its 2012 convention, is under pressure from a number of APSA sections to boycott the city because the state of Louisiana amended its Constitution to ban gay marriage or the recognition of "marriage-like incidents."...
According to President George W. Bush, the U.S. has been engaged in a "war on terrorism" for almost the entirety of his presidency. Indeed, he frequently laments the fact that he's been a "war President" despite not knowing in 2000 that that would be his destiny.Critics have often bashed the President for failing to urge the American people to make common sacrifices in support of that war. Even sympathetic voices say that soldiers have made virtually all the major sacrifices in this war.Indeed, rather than make sacrifices, the President has long encouraged the American people to live their...