Ghana votes.  Egyptian protesters move from Tahrir to the presidential palace. Rio's Olympics clean-up uncovers policemen collaborating with drug cartels. Chronicle of Higher Education visualization of gender and publication records across disciplines and over time. ...
Apologies about the lack of morning linkage today. Things were hectic and I simply forgot. Because it's Doctor Who season....
It increasingly looks like Romney is gonna lose. Intratrade now puts that likelihood at 75%. Now it’s my understanding from the American politics subfield, in which I took exactly zero courses in...
The often maligned aspiration for a "Concert of Asia" appears to be even more unlikely this year as Japan and China trade barbs at the UN and spray water cannons at each other over the...
Today I presented some thoughts on Henry Farrell's International Studies Association panel on "Transnational Politics and the Information Age." The panel, which included Joe Nye, Dan Drezner, Marty Finnemore and Abe Newman, looked at the subject fairly broadly:Public debates over the politics of the information age have been dominated by a battle between cyberoptimists, who believe that the Internet will lead to a fundamental transformation of social relations and cyberpessimists, who claim that the Internet will either have no effects or harmful ones. These debates partially map onto...
So the US is supposedly going to pivot to Asia and start worrying more about China. This makes sense (which is probably why we won’t do it). The Middle East has become a pretty terrible sinkhole of American power. Increasingly the verdict on the war on terrorism is negative, and we should probably retrench from the Middle East (but we won’t because of the religious right’s interest in the region). Mearsheimer argued that if it weren’t for 9/11 we probably would have focused on China a lot earlier. Kaplan sketched how the US would defeat China in a war. I argued a few years ago, at the height...
Just in time for Game of Thrones' Season 2 (which happens inconveniently right in the middle of ISA), Foreign Affairs has posted this constructivist riposte to the foreign policy commentariat's realism-worship-fest from last Season (warning: contains Season 1 spoilers):Commentary by foreign policy analysts on the first season of HBO's Game of Thrones stressed its supposed underlying theme of political realism. Thus one writer claimed that the TV show and the George R.R. Martin novels on which it is based "clearly demonstrate the power of might over right," and another agreed: "In this kind...
My colleague Kate Weaver has written a nuanced take on this blog on the race for the World Bank presidency, that whoever succeeds Robert Zoellick will have an especially tricky go of it ensuring the organization's relevance at a time of fiscal austerity and changes in the global balance of power.Since Kate's post, opponents of the U.S. nominee Dr. Jim Kim, currently head of Dartmouth College and formerly head of the World Health Organization's AIDS initiative, have become more vocal. There is something unseemly about the criticism being leveled against Dr. Kim, and for the record, I'd just...
Forget about whether we are too narrow, too closed, too whatever. Instead, figure out this: can I make time for Ultimate at the ISA in San Diego? Yes, yes, you can. Due to popular demand, I have organized a time and a place for an informal game of Ultimate. As the picture below shows, there is a field next to the hotel that we can use for a quick game. All you need to bring are white and dark shirts and your enthusiasm. I will provide the frisbees and the field markers. No cleats, please. This will be a spirited but low intensity game. I am staying at the Hilton if you need to contact...
[I wrote the bulk of this post very late at night while suffering a bout of insomnia. In the end, I ran out of energy and called it quits. Thus, I've edited the post for the purpose of clarity and style. Major content updates are in blue text (bad idea, now abandoned].[2nd Update: I called this post the poverty of IR Theory not the poverty of IR. There's a difference.]PM's post on getting into political-science PhD programs continues to provoke spirited debate. Of particular note is reaction to his claims (echoing Dan Drezner) about the importance of mathematical and statistical skills. As...
The call for papers is below the fold. International Studies Association-Northeast
Annual Conference
2-3 November 2012
Tremont Plaza Hotel, Baltimore, MD, USA
Submission deadline: 29 June 2012The annual conference of the International Studies Association-Northeast (ISA-NE) will be held 2-3 November 2012 at the Tremont Plaza Hotel & Grand Historic Venue in Baltimore, Maryland. ISA-NE invites paper and panel proposals on any subject related to international studies, broadly defined. Topics might include international relations theory, international law and organizations, foreign policy,...
My original post suggesting that Putin’s bogus reelection might be cause to eject Russia from the BRICS got a lot of traffic and comment (both here and on my own site). It’s gotten to the point where it’s just easier to summarize my responses to a general set of critiques. It seems there are three main criticisms: 1. I exaggerated; Russia is still a great power. 2. I didn’t provide enough data and links. 3. I don’t really ‘get’ Russia, or I’m just recycling western propaganda. (In passing, I find it curious/frustrating as an author that what I think is my more creative and fresh work in the...