The Duck of Minerva

Cullen Hendrix

Cullen Hendrix is Professor and Director of the Sié Chéou-Kang Center for International Security and Diplomacy at the Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver, and Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. His current projects explore conflict and cooperation around natural resources and the ethics of policy engagement by academic researchers.

Cullen Hendrix

Recent Posts

The Importance of Being (Pragmatically) Earnest

The Importance of Being (Pragmatically) Earnest

by | 8 February, 2021 | ,

Photo courtesy of the Guardian UK. When engaging with policy audiences and organizations, how can one be truthful when telling the whole truth may be counterproductive? This post is part of an occasional series discussing the ethical dilemmas that arise when academics engage with policymakers and the broader public. This series is part of the Rigor, Relevance, and Responsibility project of the Sié Chéou-Kang Center for International Security & Diplomacy, which seeks to make ethical considerations an integral part of policy-relevant research and engagement. The program develops knowledge...

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Ignoble Lies? The Problem of Prosocial Lying in the Economics Profession

Ignoble Lies? The Problem of Prosocial Lying in the Economics Profession

by | 23 November, 2020 |

Photo credit: pixy.org under Creative Commons license. This is a guest post by George DeMartino, professor of international economics at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. This post is the first in an occasional series discussing the ethical dilemmas engendered when academics engage with policymakers and the broader public. This series is part of the Rigor, Relevance, and Responsibility project of the Sié Chéou-Kang Center for International Security & Diplomacy, which seeks to make ethical considerations an integral...

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Ignoble Lies? The Problem of Prosocial Lying in the Economics Profession

Do Policy Recommendations = Policy Relevance?

by | 24 August, 2020 | , , ,

Whether scholars embed policy recommendations in their work is a flawed measure of whether work is policy-relevant. Across a series of articles and book chapters, Michael Desch and Paul Avey have argued international relations scholarship is declining in policy relevance, with IR scholars falling into what Stephen Van Evera has called a “cult of the irrelevant”: a hermetically-sealed professional community that values technique and internal dialogue over broader societal and political relevance. As evidence, they cite data demonstrating a marked decline in the frequency...

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