Today, the Human Rights Campaign celebrated the two-year anniversary of President Obama signing the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell," a move that officially allowed lesbians, gays, and bisexuals to serve openly in the United States military. Soon after, I wrote a...
Morning Ducks! Here's your Monday morning round-up: South Asia: The US has informed the UN, in compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, that the US military detained more than...
I am a very bad Jew: the kind who not only married a shiksa, but pretty much only does Hanukkah and Passover. Well, the wife's out of the country for the entire holiday this year, but Lyra and I...
It's that time of year that Dutch people living outside of Dutchland are beginning to hate: the time of Zwarte Piet. To be fair, the feast of Sinterklaas, a holiday that displays none of America's...
The final 2012 Presidential debate was a decisive "victory" for President Obama on both style and substance. Romney's tack to the center left him with no other arguments than to invoke the resolve fairy and to call for a large increase in defense spending. The dominant narrative among the pundit class seems to be that Obama won and that Romney did well enough for the debate not to matter. I've decided against making judgments about the political impact of debates, so I won't comment on that. The dominant narrative among international-affairs commentators is different. We found aspects of it...
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) includes a right that many grad students and professors probably feel is constantly under attack: the right to leisure. It’s there, clearly laid out in Article 24: “Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.” Whenever I introduce the UDHR to a room full of undergrads, I always get some smart aleck in the front row that is quick to associate the document with some sort of lofty, unattainable ideal because of this right. What exactly is the right to leisure? ...
REK: I am pleased to guest-post my friend Dave’s longer, fuller version of a book review he wrote for CSIS. My thanks to CSIS as well. If you aren’t reading Dave yet, I’d recommend it. “Is America listening to its East Asian allies?: Hugh White’s The China Choice” David C. Kang For all the recent attention on increasing tensions between the U.S., China, and East Asian countries, regional balance of power dynamics remain muted. The past few years have seen increased Chinese assertiveness, which has led many to expect that East Asian states will flock to the side of the U.S. This has not...
The staff of the Duck of Minerva is very pleased to announce: (1) the first-ever blogging reception at the International Studies Association (ISA) annual convention; and (2) the Online Achievement in International Studies (OAIS) Awards. Thanks to the generous support of SAGE and the efforts of SAGE editor David Mainwaring, we will be hosting a reception at the 2013 International Studies Association Annual Convention in San Francisco. Details to follow in updates, but the reception is scheduled for the night of Thursday, April 4th. A number of prominent bloggers will give brief Ignite-style...
I'm guessing we'll get more of the standard fare tonight: that the Benghazi attacks were bad; that Iran has to be deterred (will Romney bring Bibi's bomb sketch?), that Syria is tragic, that the Arab Spring is scary, and that China and Russia are both really mean. Afghanistan will get some attention, Iraq almost none. Apparently, Bob Schieffer is not going to address a broader list but if he does, here are three issues I'd like to see addressed by the two candidates: 1. The debt, budget deficits, American hegemony, and American consumption are inextricably linked --...
Dan Drezner is very unhappy about the outline for tonight's foreign-policy debate. If he's got the list of sections right, I'll be pretty outraged as well. So I guess we'll just talk the drinking game. My suggestions: take a swig of your favorite beverage whenever you hear: "resolve," "apologize," "values," "economy." "credibility," "unravelling," "strength," "exceptionalism," "that's just not true," "energy independence,"and "kill." David Shorr preps us for the pain and suffering. Morton Abramowitz tackles "American Exceptionalism," which seems relevant. More Linkage below the fold:...
To the best of my knowledge, no prominent peer-reviewed article in political science has reported a difference in the frequency with which the United States enters into conflict under Democratic presidents relative to Republican presidents. That's not because no one has looked for such a difference (I know I have). It's because, to date, no one has found one. This is the file drawer problem in action. Now, we want to be careful not to over-interpret that. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. There could be lots of reasons why we might fail to observe such a difference even if...
No, not conscription (see what I did there), but sports drafts where teams take turns picking the next generation of superstars/busts. I am inspired to think about this as October is when anxiety of academic job aspirants begins to spiral. The thread du jour is whether the job market is "fair." As some get heaps of love and attention, others do not, leading them to ponder their fate. But if we think about the job market as a draft* (despite the fact that there really is no set order of who goes first), then some stuff makes sense: * Am focusing on NFL and NBA as they are better known...