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

Emotionally Trumped

Emotionally Trumped

by | 4 July, 2016 |

Is there such a thing as blogger's block? I suppose there must be. I've found the whole Donald Trump saga to be emotionally exhausting. It's hard to write more than 140 characters about this presidential race. How is it possible that he could or will be the nominee of a major party? Which groups has he not offended? This weekend it was the Jewish community's turn after Trump retweeted an anti-Hillary picture that featured a six-sided star and a background of dollars. A news organization tracked down the origins of the image on a neo-Nazi thread on a message board.  This is not the first...

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The UK and the EU Referendum

The UK and the EU Referendum

by | 22 June, 2016 |

The UK's vote on whether to remain in the European Union is tomorrow. I'm having trouble squaring a fearful nativist UK with the country I knew when I lived there from 1993 to 1995 completing a second undergraduate degree in international development. The UK I knew was eclectic and increasingly multicultural, with its cultural scene perhaps even more comfortable than the United States in drawing on diverse influences to produce fantastic art. This was pre-Cool Britannia and pre-Tony Blair (and also before the Iraq War and the global recession), and there was an undercurrent of optimism that...

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China’s Great Contradiction

China’s Great Contradiction

by | 18 June, 2016 | ,

This is a guest post from Barry Buzan, Emeritus Professor at the LSE For the past decade or so, China has been in the grip of a growing contradiction (in the classical Marxist sense) between a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) still deeply Leninist in its outlook, and the increasingly capitalist society that the CCP’s highly successful economic reforms have created. As Jonathan Fenby has argued, the CCP remains unbendingly committed to remaining in power in perpetuity. Yet as knowledge, wealth, organization, information and connectivity spread through Chinese society, that society becomes...

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Foreign Policy Salience and the 2016 Election: Evidence from the ANES Survey

by | 23 May, 2016 |

With each passing week, Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, makes statements that challenge the basic operating assumptions of U.S. foreign policy, whether it be through his nonchalance about a trade war with China, repudiation of alliance commitments to NATO and Japan, or honoring the countries' debts. The question that emerges from this: does the American electorate care? While presidential candidates have to pass some semblance of a commander in chief test of credibility with the electorate, the conventional wisdom is that foreign policy rarely matters much in U.S....

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The Paris Agreement: When is a treaty not a treaty?

by | 21 April, 2016 |

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...

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Building social science knowledge on public attitudes and autonomous weapons

Building social science knowledge on public attitudes and autonomous weapons

by | 16 March, 2016 |

This is a guest post from Michael C. Horowitz (@mchorowitz), Associate Professor of Political Science and Associate Director of Perry World House, University of Pennsylvania Last week, Charli Carpenter published an important piece advancing the conversation about public attitudes, public conscience, and autonomous weapons. Her post critiqued my recent article in Research & Politics on public opinion and autonomous weapons. As a former Duck contributor, I am excited to return and further the dialogue (for a longer version of this post that contains more detailed responses to some other...

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The Anthropocene and the End of Large Fauna? Will Political Scientists Show Up?

The Anthropocene and the End of Large Fauna? Will Political Scientists Show Up?

by | 4 March, 2016 |

Geologists now say that humans have had such an impact on the earth that we have entered in to a new age, what has been termed the Anthropocene. On some level, this is a political statement, but on another level, it could be an observable layer in the physical surface of the earth that future generations will excavate to find plastics and garbage. This era, and soon, may also spell the end of large fauna. Elephants. Rhinos. Giraffes. Vultures. Lions. Tigers. Leopards. Polar bears. These could be all be extinct before I die. And that would be an unimaginable travesty against nature. I've...

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Transforming Markets and Social Movements

Transforming Markets and Social Movements

by | 18 February, 2016 | ,

Why do some transnational advocacy movements have more success transforming global markets than others? Can we look to look to differences in market structure for a preliminary account? Why were AIDS advocates able to achieve extended access to antiretroviral medications for millions of people while climate campaigners have struggled to achieve comparable gains? This week, International Studies Quarterly published an early access and ungated version of my article with Ethan Kapstein where we examine how the structure of markets shaped the differential scope for climate and AIDS advocacy....

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Speaking Truth to Power: A Response to Walt’s Lamentations

Speaking Truth to Power: A Response to Walt’s Lamentations

by | 30 January, 2016 | ,

This is a guest post from Eric Van Rythoven and Ty Solomon. Eric Van Rythoven is a PhD candidate at Carleton University studying emotion, world politics, and securitization. His work is published in Security Dialogue and European Journal of International Relations. Ty Solomon is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Glasgow. He is the author of The Politics of Subjectivity in American Foreign Policy Discourses (2015, University of Michigan Press), and articles in International Studies Quarterly, European Journal of International...

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India, Air Pollution, and Climate Change

India, Air Pollution, and Climate Change

by | 30 January, 2016 |

Over the winter break, I spent ten days in India, in the capital New Delhi and Mumbai. I was immediately struck by the awful air quality as I walked out of the airport in New Delhi. Delhi's air quality is as bad or worse than Beijing's, though perhaps that fact isn't as widely known. The air was visible and thick. I thought my glasses were dirty but then I realized that it was the haze which crept in to the interior halls of the hotel. I couldn't capture the air quality in a photo but I found a perfect encapsulation reading Tom Hale's fine book on global governance policy gridlock. I was...

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