The following is a guest post by Jay Benson and Eric Keels. Jay Benson is a Researcher at One Earth Future (OEF), with research focusing on issues of peacekeeping, civilian protection and intrastate conflict. Eric Keels is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in Global...
There is a certain theatre to the Global War on Terror (GWoT). From the opening sequence of 9/11 to the shock and awe campaign’s projection of American sovereign power through the broadcast of the...
As Josh has already noted, grandee of IR Stephen Walt published a condemnation of US professional schools of IR, calling them broken and claiming that while there is superficial innovation the ‘rot...
This is a guest post by Betcy Jose, Assistant Professor of Political Science at University of Colorado-Denver “This is a really good school, and now it’s like a war zone.” This is how one parent...
One of the most predictable elections is just around the corner: even Google has already proclaimed Putin the winner of the presidential race of March 18th 2018 in Russia. The only marginal hiccup for the authorities might be a low turnout, but a couple of viral videos are already scaring the bejesus out of the electorate: if they don’t show up and vote for you-know-who, somebody else will be elected and they will make each family house a gay man in pink pajamas in their apartment! Surprisingly enough, Putin will have a wee bit of competition on the ballot after all. Pavel Grudinin [I am...
IR program rankings are out in Foreign Policy. Discuss. Steve Walt has a provocative column in the same issue that I'm sure he didn't title that suggests "America's IR Schools Are Broken." The argument isn't strictly the familiar one from him about methods but that scholars seeking influence in policy circles have rallied around conformist consensus positions: But perhaps the biggest limitation in today’s schools of international affairs — at least here in the United States — is their tendency to reinforce the stale bipartisan consensus behind “liberal hegemony” and the necessity for “U.S....
Layna Mosley is Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research investigates the politics of sovereign debt, and the effects of global supply chains on worker rights. She joined the WAKS Editorial Board in November 2017. Website: laynamosley.web.unc.edu/ or find her on Twitter at @thwillow. Duck of Minerva readers may have noticed Max Fisher’s recent New York Times Interpreter piece, addressing Taliban attacks against Afghan civilians. On Twitter, Fischer reported that he “made an effort to quote only women in this.” Six of the seven experts...
Katie Couric, in a tweet last month about the Olympics , wrote: “I do think the Olympics is unique in that it transcends politics.” This view is pervasive in Couric’s formulation, but takes on a subtler tone in the argument that the Olympics is political only in circumstances of the “exceptional.” For example, writing for the Atlantic in 2012, Armin Rosen constructs a narrative of Olympic politics within the context of Cold War rivalries. For Rosen, the Olympics was not always apolitical: “the Olympics were once a particularly bright flashpoint in one of the Cold War era’s tensest...
I tend to complain a lot about the NATO 2% expectation--that members are supposed to spend 2% of their GDP on defense stuff, which probably makes more more Canadian than anything else I do (I don't skate or watch hockey much). This is aspirational and countries are supposed to reach it by 2024. I have written much about why this is problematic (it tends to make Greece look good, which is a clue; doing is more important than spending, etc), but today I want to focus on the heart of the matter: 2% is a measure of input and nothing else. The basic idea is if we all spend a significant hunk of...
Imagine if your town had been especially fire prone with fires that threatened to spread to the rest of the city. City officials created a fire prevention fund for nearly 40 parts of town prone to fire. While work remained to be done, the funds ran out. Elected political leaders decided that since the town had not experienced a significant fire for two years, there was no need to spend any more money. That strategy make little sense, but it appears to be the one the Trump administration is adopting by failing to renew funding for CDC and USAID disease prevention efforts in about 40...
The past week has not been a good one for global health. What gives? I can only come up with one explanation: the Trump Administration is doing its darnedest to disprove the argument in my new book. In Global Health Governance and International Society (out on the 8th! Perfect for Valentine’s Day!), I argue that the emergence, growth, and ‘stickiness’ of global health politics reflects a shift in an international consensus about our collective obligations to address health concerns in other countries. We’re moving from a largely state-based system that only sporadically considers health...
A co-authored post by Dr Leena Vastapuu and Dr Maria Martin de Almagro. The first elected woman head of state in Africa, President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, has just stepped down from her office in Liberia. Her successor George Weah assumed the position on 22 January 2018. In a recent interview with CNN entitled “Why Africa owes a debt of gratitude to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf”, President Sirleaf and journalist Chude Jideonwo had the following exchange. Chude Jideonwo (CJ): You are in your final days as the first female president of an African country. When you step down, there won’t be any more....