Blogging is an exercise of academic freedom, like writing journal articles or books. Blogging is something that has evolving norms and rules, like writing journal articles or books. However, given its nature, the evolution of the field, and the evolution of...
Editor's Note: This is a guest post by Stefano Guzzini. It is the 12th installment in our "End of IR Theory" companion symposium for the special issue of the European Journal of International...
Just a week ago, NPR's Planet Money reported: "The government of Ecuador has abandoned a plan that would have kept part of the Amazonian rainforest off limits to oil drilling. The initiative was an...
Editor's Note: This is a guest post by Vivienne Jabri. It is the eleventh installment in our "End of IR Theory" companion symposium for the special issue of the European Journal of International...
Consider this a prompt for an open thread. I'm looking for books to recommend to students to both give them a hint of what academic political science is "really" like but also to get them excited about the systematic study of politics. No single book can do it all, but a summer reading list can at least prod people to look in the right areas. So here's my list; additions welcome. Putnam and Campbell, American Grace: Fascinating survey of religion and politics in American life Cohen, Karol, Noel, and Zaller, The Party Decides: Who makes presidents and why? Gelman, Park, Bafumi, and Shor, Red...
Something extraordinary happened in Europe this week. Enrico Letta, Italy's Prime Minister nominee, upon being tapped to form the next government made a bold press conference announcement that his primary objective upon taking office will be to end Italy's austerity program and join other leaders calling for an end to austerity across Europe. Presto! The bond markets did not go berserk. Contrary to wide expectations, instead of punishing Italy investors remained calm and did not proceed to increase its borrowing costs. And voila, the euro crisis has come to an end. News also spread like...
The International Criminal Court is often accused of being “political” or “politicized” in its selection of situations and cases. What has become most problematic for the Court’s credibility and impartiality in this regard are the situations and cases that have not been selected, and the criteria and discourse used to justify such omissions and imbalanced prosecutions. Specifically, the “gravity threshold,” which the OTP uses to justify who is prosecuted and who isn’t, is politically problematic for the ICC. Prosecutorial strategies that target only one side of a conflict are frequently...
Red lines or red lights on Syria? It's not just about Syria. What if the Tsarnaevs had been shooters instead of bombers? Playing out academic feuds in the press...Reinhart and Rogoff respond. Fodder for PTJ: What do scientifc studies tell us? Very persuasive: I spent three hours yesterday on the tarmac at O'Hare delayed by an FAA furlough hold as a result of sequestration -- passed the time reading Mark Blyth's Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea -- scathing rebuke of neoliberalism. If you are keeping score, Spain's unemployment just topped 27% -- 6 million -- with more...
It has been a week or two since we have FNB-ed. After last week's events, we could use some extra silliness:
There is so much criticism of the academic enterprise these days, asserting that professors are too focused on research and not enough on teaching and not enough on relevance to the policy world. These critiques are hardly new, but bear more weight in a time of austerity. It is easy to point to some work that seems hardly relevant and some professors who seem least interested in engaging the “real world,” but I am constantly reminded of the opposite—professors who become deeply engaged in policy-making one way or another. Tuesday night, I had the honor of being invited to the Canadian...
If last's week Thursday morning linkage was Africa-themed, this week's links are China-related and inevitably harken back to the events in Boston: Laurie Garrett, as she is wont to do, wonders if this recent bird flu outbreak in China is "the big one" Beijing air is so bad they are canceling recess, kids at grave risk Oh, and Shanghai air sucks too China's shale gas revolution has yet to begin (Armond Cohen thinks it will take too long to take off) Japanese tree die-off blamed on air pollution from China New bilateral effort between U.S. and China to address climate change Chinese demand for...
The difference between pets in Diablo III and Torchlight II. Blah blah blah Game of Thrones blah blah credible commitments blah blah blah prisoners' dilemma. Taylor Fravel says that China hasn't abandoned no-first use. Pavel Podvig demolishes "SDI ended the Cold War" claptrap. Key graf: "The evolution of the Soviet attitudes toward SDI suggests that the main factor that contributed to the ending the confrontation of the Cold War was the willingness of the United States and the Soviet Union to engage in a dialogue on reduction of their nuclear forces. The only result that the SDI program was...