[Note: This is the first of two guest posts on life in the Liberal Arts Colleges from Sarah Stroup and Amy Yuen, both Associate Professors of Political Science, Middlebury College] Job market season is fast approaching, but information about those jobs can be scarce....
As many who read this blog will note, I am often concerned with the impact of weapons development on international security, human rights and international law. I’ve spent much time...
I have a new article up this morning at Washington Post's Monkey Cage, responding to those who have previously tried to classify Bernie Sanders as a "pacifist" (Krauthammer who calls his view "part...
Russia is currently riding high on the geostrategic landscape, despite a trove of domestic economic woes that stem partly from Western sanctions. But Vladimir Putin has successfully wagged the dog...
On April 13th, the Centers for Disease Control reported 358 travel-associated Zika virus disease cases in the U.S. spanning 40 states and the District of Colombia. The U.S. territories of American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico reported 471 locally acquired cases and 4 travel-associated cases. Since Zika is primarily transmitted by the Aedes species mosquito, the numbers of Zika virus disease cases are anticipated to rise once mosquito season is in full swing in the U.S. Yet, Congress has thus far refused to approve the $1.8 billion in emergency funding President Barack Obama...
This is a guest post by Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham (@kgcunnin), Associate Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland. Foreign Policy recently published our article on women and the tenure process in International Relations. The article centers on the challenges women face and offers some suggestions on how to manage them for pre-tenure women based on our experiences. We conclude the article, in part, with a call to allies (i.e. people who are not, or are no longer, affected by these biases or are in a position to address them). Here, I offer 8 ways that such...
Tomorrow is Earth Day, and there is a push in the climate community to encourage states to sign and ultimately ratify the Paris Agreement on climate change. With each of the last 11 months having been the hottest months on record and 93% of Australia's Great Barrier reef experiencing "coral bleaching" from record-breaking hot ocean temperatures, the stakes for the world are high. The #ParisAgreement was an historic event. Time now to sign and implement it! https://t.co/ydZ2Xj1DR3 #Means4Me pic.twitter.com/iQDlUYexBJ — The Climate Group (@ClimateGroup) April 20, 2016 April 22 is the first day...
On April Fool's Day, Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders did an interview with the New York Daily News, perceived by many to have been a botched performance. Yesterday, the New York Daily News followed up with a piece entitled "Bernie Sanders Doesn't Know Enough About Foreign Policy, Pros Say." (The 'pros' cited were not some representative sample of beltway illuminatis but rather various Clinton foreign policy advisers who will reportedly be circulating a letter saying as much in the next days.) As an IR educator I'm delighted that foreign affairs is looming large in a national primary...
In 1941 Heinrich Himmler, one of the most notorious war criminals and mass murders, was faced with an unexpected problem: he could not keep using SS soldiers to murder the Jewish population because the SS soldiers were breaking psychologically. As August Becker, a member of the Nazi gas-vans, recalls, “Himmler wanted to deploy people who had become available as a result of the suspension of the euthanasia programme, and who, like me, were specialists in extermination by gassing, for the large-scale gassing operations in the East which were just beginning. The reason for this was that the...
I’ve been wanting to write a Duck post about the experience of a woman with visible minority status in IR for quite some time now. I was waiting for the right moment. So thanks to the American Political Science Association (APSA), the professional association for US-trained political scientists, the moment has come. Yesterday morning, an email came from a friend with a screenshot. The screenshot showed an attractive Asian woman in a frilly top who looks like she’s having a good time looking into the camera. I was confused. Then I read the blurb next to it: this was a promotion from...
This is a guest post by Theo McLauchin (@TheoMcLauchlin), Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Université de Montréal When is a norm not a norm? I ask this question when I read Colin Elman and Arthur Lupia’s vigorous defense of the Data Access & Research Transparency (DA-RT) initiative in APSA’s Comparative Politics section newsletter. I think Elman and Lupia try to have it both ways. Their piece argues, first, that journals need to adopt norms of openness. It then argues, in defense of DA-RT against a series of concerns that it will bring the editorial hammer down on many...
This is a guest post by Juergen Altmann and Frank Sauer. Juergen Altmann is a Researcher and Lecturer at Technische Universität Dortmund, a specialist in military technology and preventive arms control and among the first scholars to study the military uses of nanotechnology. Frank Sauer is a Senior Research Fellow and Lecturer, Bundeswehr University Munich, a specialist in international security, and is the author of Atomic Anxiety: Deterrence, Taboo and the Non-Use of U.S. Nuclear Weapons. Autonomous weapon systems: rarely has an issue gained the attention of the international arms...