The year 2014 is nearly on us, and reflections on World War One are already weighing down bookshop shelves. In my own research, I've stumbled across an odd tendency: that whereas in Britain the cause of World War One, if not its conduct, attracts strong supporters as...
To my mind, the situation in Syria has prompted an incredibly thoughtful debate within the political science community, one that undermines the idea that scholars have become irrevocably detached...
The Chinese state media could perhaps be forgiven for mistaking  fictional Battlestar Galactica blueprints for future US fleet schematics this week, given this. This incident has me thinking about...
Syria updates: The White House's public assessment of last week's chemical weapons attack. Deborah Avant -- Action is not synonymous with intervention. Is there a moral argument for intervention?...
I am teh sick, so this will be short. Dan Trombly on the future of power in world politics. Bhartendu Kumar Singh on Sino-Indian defense talks. Somalia's achievements and challenges. Robert Farley looks at the future (or lack thereof) for aircraft carriers. Ned Lebow does Theory Talks. Check out Ned's mention of PTJ and Stefano Guzzini as part of a third great cohort of IR theorists! And also: Jay Ulfelder has "suggested readings for forecasters." BLTN: Madeline Ashby's fantastic post from November called "Whining isn't Sexy." Phil Arena provides his M data. Laura McKenna argues that the...
Here is a second helping of mashup (spoiler of GoT season 1), so good: Too good.
Homeland is the series for national security folks. Walking Dead is the series for those belonging to the Drezner cult. Combined? Oh my.
It's the Ides of March.  Be careful out there.  Here's a random selection of this week's reads: How Fear made America.  Scott Lemieux reviews Ira Katznelson's new book Fear Itself:  The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time. Anatol Levien questions the  "endgame" in Afghanistan. Ken Roth asks what rules should govern drone attacks. Charles Hunt on the on-going challenges of peacekeeping in DRC. North Korean propaganda video of life in the United States. Missed this earlier -- the four stages of Putinism. The guy who put internet freedom on the "grown-ups table" is leaving the State...
In this post, I seek not to defend the actions or priorities of a non-existent misanthropic being, but to defend the practice of analyzing models that assume human behavior mirrors that of Homo Economicus.  (I hope you'll forgive me for choosing a slightly misleading title in order to preserve space.) It's easy to criticize those who assume that human beings are ultra-materialistic, narrowly self-interested, willing to collect all available information (and perhaps in possession of information that isn't available), and immune to mistakes.  I have never met such a creature and hope that I...
Here is your Thursday morning linkage: - Breakthrough in the ongoing CITES meeting on the trade in endangered species, five shark species are listed, providing greater protection as shark finning for wedding soups in Asia threatens many species of shark with extinction - Vietnam and Mozambique are warned at CITES meeting to curb their consumption and poaching of rhino horn respectively or face trade sanctions - White House petition on behalf of Omid Kokabee, University of Texas graduate student I blogged about a couple of weeks ago - Stephen Walt reminds us that the reason the U.S. is so...
I performed a similar operation to Scatterplot, e.g., estimated the results of the current poll by assuming equal weighting for both the 2013 and 2009 poll results (explanation). For the Departments that moved from ranked to unranked in the 2013 rankings I assumed a 1.9--as it looks like 2.0 might be the cutoff for ranking schools. I forgot to include the actual rankings, though, so my spreadsheet (direct download) only includes scores. If someone wants to do a better job, feel free to start with the spreadsheet I created. Or just make your own. I haven't checked my work, but it looks like...
Casy Hogle reports on a World Peace Foundation panel on public-advocacy campaigns, which featured the Laura Sey and Amanda Taub. Edward Hugh on the decline of Portugal. The costs of the "eating local" movement: agriculture in the "global south." Daniel Martin Varisco: "life without honor." Adam Eluks: "a rack city on a hill: unsolicited advice to landpower and seapower." And also: The Disorder of Things has a new forum on "critical methodological and narrative developments in IR." Andrew Liptak discusses John Campbell, Astounding magazine, and the "golden age" of science fiction. This is my...