With any luck, the myth of Patient Zero being responsible for HIV/AIDS in the US will finally be completely put to rest. Gaétan Dugas may not be a household name for most, but he’s the man who has largely been blamed for HIV/AIDS in the United States. Dugas was a gay...
Mass media in the US often portray Donald Trump as an American version of Putin, if not his puppet. But it makes sense to take a closer look at the essence of Trump’s and Putin’s appeal to their...
We Americans try to resolve the civil wars of other countries--sometimes heroically and successfully, sometimes clumsily, sometimes tragically worsening the violence. But these days, peace needs to...
I've been invited to join the cast of guest bloggers here at Duck of Minerva, and as you may have expected, the first thing I thought of was "well, I've made it, and... now what am I supposed to...
When I walk down the street, I don’t see signs saying “Tedros for WHO” or “Vote Szócska.” The television and radio airwaves don’t have endless campaign commercials ending with the tagline, “I’m Flavia Bustreo, and I approve this message.” Sania Nishtar does not hold large public rallies in sports stadiums to bolster her candidacy. Neither David Nabarro nor Philippe Douste-Blazy do phonebanking. These facts don’t distract from the fact that there is a vigorous and hotly-contested electoral race for the Director-General of the World Health Organization. Think of the current period as the...
The reactions I’ve received to some of my recent op-eds have led me to reconsider the relationship between scholarship and politics, and to question the role of social capital in shaping scholarly opinion. Over the last several months, I have published some pieces that have strayed from what had been my consistent “liberal Zionist” position. One investigated the dark underbelly of Tel Aviv (where I visited the remains of Palestinian villages with Israeli “decolonial” activist Eitan Bronstein). Another (with independent historian Peter Eisenstadt) challenged the “empathy” discourse prevalent...
There’s an interesting debate going on over at openGlobalRights. Drawing on their recent Social Problems article, Neve Gordon and Nitza Berkovitch provocatively accuse human rights quantitative scholars of “concealing social wrongs” by using quantitative cross-national data that does not account for the disproportionately high voter disenfranchisement among African Americans. Todd Landman and Chad Clay, two scholars known for their use/production of quantitative human rights data respond to Gordon and Berkovitch, saying that their piece ignores much quantitative human rights scholarship...
Russia has been one of the spectres haunting the US presidential election. President Obama’s latest press conference is a case in point: Mr. Trump's continued flattery of Mr. Putin, and the degree to which he appears to model many of his policies and approaches to politics on Mr. Putin, is unprecedented in American politics and is out of step with not just what Democrats think but out of step with what up until the last few months almost every Republican thought, including some of the ones who are now endorsing Mr. Trump It is rather bewildering for a Russian observer: the party that gave...
This is a life or death election for women and girls all over the world. True, many precious human rights and civil rights are on the line. Those rights--and the lives they protect--matter deeply and urgently. I chose the title of this essay to honor the Black Lives Movement and the civil rights story of which it is the most recent chapter, not as a challenge or a condition. And in many ways, the path to equal human dignity for women in the United States has tracks which run alongside the road to the vindication of rights for black Americans. It is not a coincidence that the last sixty years...
It should come as no surprise to anyone that a political scientist like me gets really excited about elections and campaigns, and we’re currently in the thick of a doozy of a campaign season. Candidates have splashy websites and brochures, and they regularly meet with voters to pitch their candidacies. Whoever wins will take over an organization whose standing in the world is up in the air—and the winner will have a big job restoring the organization’s place in the larger global landscape. Of course, I’m talking about the campaign for the next Director-General of the World Health...
Thanks to the Duck editorial board for having me join to guest blog for the next six months. I'm looking forward to being part of the conversation here. I bring experience working with the Senate on humanitarian and national security issues, with non-profits on detainee treatment and disaster response, and in teaching which included a course on national security law as it relates to the conflict against ISIS. I've also volunteered in military hospitals and in the field after disasters, and watched relatives suffer from terrible illnesses like Alzheimer's Disease. These last experiences, and...
While the election of Antonio Guterres as the UN’s new Secretary-General was hailed by many, it has sparked renewed debate about gender issues in the United Nations system. While Guterres has a distinguished resume—including time spent as the Prime Minister of Portugal and as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees—this election cycle was also the focus of an unprecedented (and, ultimately, unsuccessful) campaign to get the United Nations to elect its first female S-G. The Campaign to Elect a Woman UN Secretary-General highlighted the candidacies of several qualified candidates, including two...