George Gallup - what have you started? The traditional methods for a state to know what overseas publics are thinking are changing. Instead of relying on your embassy staff’s alertness, your spies’ intelligence and the word of dissidents, we’re reaching the point...
Earlier this week, Tufts professor Dan Drezner tweeted that his Theory of International Politics and Zombies book has now sold more than 10,000 copies. That's a huge total by academic standards and...
I was not inclined to see this film because the trailers made it look like a dumb comedy about an annoying Jar-Jar-Binks-esque alien with a potty-mouth and some equally dumb human sidekicks. But...
I know it is hard to believe, but while most of the academic world is enjoying the last few weeks of university break, down under in Kiwi-land we're in the thick of the academic year. This year I...
Emperor Bahadur Shah IISource: Wikimedia CommonsThe din of the Great Rebellion of 1857 will continue to echo into our era, marred as it is by ongoing wars and insurgencies in Muslim lands. I believe that a careful study of those events are pertinent for American and European students of global politics today as they attempt to contextualize the challenges to American military might and Western cultural hegemony continuously pulsating onto the global stage from the remote corners of South Asia. A chronicle of 1857 is also useful to understand the fragility of a multicultural society in the...
I've had it. Recently I was asked to review a book that will not be named for a journal that will not be mentioned. It was by an author with a pretty good reputation with an excellent press on a subject that I am well informed on. (I won't mention names. Dan can take him or her to the woodshed later.) I thought I would be doing the field a service and forcing myself to read what I thought would be an entertaining book that I might not otherwise have the time to read. The problem: it is f&ck*ng mess.Actually that really isn't the real issue. The real problem is that I am absolutely positive...
So, I will ultimately come back to climate change and public opinion in this country, but when I haven't been handwringing over the debt ceiling, I’ve been preoccupied by the humanitarian tragedy unfolding in Somalia and East Africa more broadly. I'm going to tackle this topic in a couple of parts since this post is already quite long. The United Nations estimates that as many as 11 million people are being affected by the current crisis, seen as the worst drought in the region in 60 years (see the FEWS NET map of the extent of the crisis below).Why is this crisis emerging now, and why are...