The Duck of Minerva

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Joshua Busby is a Professor in the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas-Austin. From 2021-2023, he served as a Senior Advisor for Climate at the U.S. Department of Defense. His most recent book is States and Nature: The Effects of Climate Change on Security (Cambridge, 2023). He is also the author of Moral Movements and Foreign Policy (Cambridge, 2010) and the co-author, with Ethan Kapstein, of AIDS Drugs for All: Social Movements and Market Transformations (Cambridge, 2013). His main research interests include transnational advocacy and social movements, international security and climate change, global public health and HIV/ AIDS, energy and environmental policy, and U.S. foreign policy.

Recent Posts

It’s That Time Again: A Call for New Guest Bloggers

It’s That Time Again: A Call for New Guest Bloggers

by | 16 September, 2016 |

We're kicking off a new school year, and we wanted to send out an invitation for a new crop of guest bloggers. We're really hoping the Duck will continue to be a place for diverse perspectives on international relations. As you may recall from our last call to arms, here is our policy on a guest blogging stint on the Duck: So here’s the new policy: anyone with a PhD in IR, plus some expertise in some substantive global policy issue area, and a willingness to post at least 200-500 words, at least once a week, can apply to become a guest for a six-month rotation. If you’re interested in a...

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Is there a connection between the Northwest Passage and the South China Sea?

Is there a connection between the Northwest Passage and the South China Sea?

by | 13 September, 2016 | ,

This is a guest post from Hannes Hansen-Magnusson, a Lecturer in International Relations at Cardiff University (contact by email: Hansen-Magnusson”at”Cardiff.ac.uk or via twitter: @HansenMagnusson) For centuries the political struggle over the legal status of global oceans was presented as one of mare clausum vs. mare liberum. These concepts concerned the possibility of movement as well as rights and responsibilities of seafaring nations and coastal states which had sometimes been the subject of small-scale physical confrontations at sea, such as the so-called Cod or Turbot Wars, but also of...

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Remembering 9/11: Open Thread

Remembering 9/11: Open Thread

by | 11 September, 2016 | ,

What were you doing 15 years ago on 9/11? What do you remember? How should we remember that day, given the momentous impact the event had on the direction of U.S. foreign policy and global politics? I woke up in my Adams Morgan basement room in the house where I was living to the sound on the radio of a hip hop station. Suddenly, they broke into news about the attack of the first plane on the World Trade Center. And, given that this station's morning programming was kind of joke-y programming, I was at first incredulous. I think I soon after turned on the TV and then woke up one of my...

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Global Environmental Governance Syllabi – Open Thread

Global Environmental Governance Syllabi – Open Thread

by | 3 September, 2016 | ,

As I blogged earlier today, climate change has not gotten sufficient attention from political scientists. Part of the problem is that few people teach graduate classes on the environment. I didn't take one in graduate school and basically had to teach myself the topic. This past spring, I taught a full 15 week graduate class for MA students on global environmental governance, expanding a previous global health and environment class in to two separate classes. There are potentially large start-up costs for someone who wants to teach a class in this space. So, I'm going to start an open thread...

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Climate Change and #APSA2016

by | 3 September, 2016 | ,

With the G20 set to commence in Hangzhou, the United States and China today ratified the Paris Agreement, making it increasingly likely that it will enter into force by year's end. This is a momentous occasion in climate diplomacy and speaks to the increasing political salience of this topic. Yesterday, here at APSA, there was a fantastic roundtable on what political science has to say about this issue. The roundtable included some of the leading up and coming scholars writing about climate change including Jennifer Hadden, Johannes Urpelainen, Jessica Green, David Konisky, and Steven...

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What Am I Reading? Inaugural Feature on Global Health #1

What Am I Reading? Inaugural Feature on Global Health #1

by | 22 August, 2016 |

I'm on leave this year so my regular blogging might be a little scant, but I thought I'd introduce a new feature which is a periodic series "What Am I Reading?" I'd like to flag what I'm  reading on different topics, namely health, the environment, and foreign policy. This first one is on health. Zika Last week I had a piece on the Monkey Cage in the Washington Post on the Zika virus, presenting some empirical work on what frames might generate public concern and, in turn, more impetus for Congressional funding for Zika control My colleague Abigail Aiken finds a potential increase in demand...

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Persuading Republicans to Dump Trump

Persuading Republicans to Dump Trump

by | 5 July, 2016 |

I have one more Trump post I have to write. My first bemoaned how Trump could possibly be competitive in the presidential race and the second lambasted Trump's positions on domestic and foreign policy. I have no illusions that I'm convincing anyone who isn't already convinced he is a danger to the republic. However, should you read this and have friends in your orbit who are flirting with supporting Trump, here is some ammunition for your Facebook feed, dinner conversation, passenger pigeon, what have you. Basically, my hunch is that people will listen to you because they know you, but they...

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Trump on Policy: Consistently Self-Serving

Trump on Policy: Consistently Self-Serving

by | 5 July, 2016 | ,

In my last post, I lamented that Donald Trump is the presumptive GOP nominee, despite his outrageous series of slurs against different groups, his lies, and unscrupulous business practices. Before exploring what arguments might persuade Republicans and undecideds to vote against Trump, what other substantive objections are there to Trump? Trump has policy stances and utterances, based on some gut check about what outrageous thing might rile a receptive audience and keep him in the news so that he doesn't have to pay for TV ads. His style is based on improvisation and pandering, so he...

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