The Duck of Minerva

Josh Busby

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.

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Recent Posts

Will 2016 Be a Foreign Policy Election?

Will 2016 Be a Foreign Policy Election?

by | 30 September, 2015 |

The Third Way project, a centrist Democratic policy outfit, has just released an interesting survey on public attitudes going in to the 2016 election.  They make two arguments that I think are worth exploring, (1)  the foreign policy advantage Democrats briefly enjoyed in the wake of the Iraq War has dissipated and (2) foreign policy may be more salient in this election than in the recent past.  My general take is that foreign policy, barring a crisis, isn't a big driver of voter decisions in presidential elections. That said, it could be an important issue for a more significant segment of...

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Foreign Affairs Iran Deal Poll – Congrats You Have Nearly an All Male Panel

Foreign Affairs Iran Deal Poll – Congrats You Have Nearly an All Male Panel

by | 10 September, 2015 | ,

It looks like the Obama administration has secured 42 votes for the Iran deal in the Senate, enough to filibuster even a vote, and despite today's machinations in the House, the Iran Deal will likely go through. Indeed, when Republicans agreed back in May to a review process that would require a super-majority in both chambers to overturn the deal, the die was already somewhat cast.  Still, I'm thrilled that supporters have been able to hold the line in the face of a multi-million dollar campaign against the agreement. In the final days, we're seeing a surge in efforts to get views on the...

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Getting Your APSA Preconference On: The Politics of Markets

Getting Your APSA Preconference On: The Politics of Markets

by | 2 September, 2015 |

I just got out of a half-day APSA pre-conference short course on the politics of markets, firms, and interest groups organized by the sociologist Edward Walker and political scientist Patty Strach. Having attended Thad Dunning's short course on natural experiments in the past, I think there is a lot to be said for alternative formats to the traditional panel of papers and discussants. This morning, 9 panelists each reflected on a common set of questions with two discussants, Ed and David Vogel, weighing in on our remarks. Fellow panelists including a number of folks who study American...

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So You Would Like a Job at a Policy School

So You Would Like a Job at a Policy School

by | 19 August, 2015 |

So, in another installment on the job market front, I thought I'd weigh in with some thoughts on possible differences of job postings and hiring  processes at policy schools. Admittedly, this is an idiosyncratic take having just worked at one of them, but I think there may be some generalizable aspects from my own experience. I have also passed through two others as a post-doc. If my institution is any indication, policy schools tend to be heterogeneous interdisciplinary places which can make faculty coordination and hiring processes even more fraught than in a disciplinary department. So,...

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Convincing Waverers to Support the Iran Deal

Convincing Waverers to Support the Iran Deal

by | 14 August, 2015 |

When the Iran Deal was announced and supported by the P5 of the UN Security Council, I would have thought that the tide of elite opinion among US lawmakers would break  in support of the Deal, possibly including some Republicans (maybe Jeff Flake?), possibly enough to filibuster a no vote in the Senate. Now, it comes down to whether President Obama has the votes in either the House or Senate to forestall a veto override of what will certainly be no votes by both chambers to the deal. While it still seems likely that the president has the votes to prevent an override, possibly in both the...

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The collateral damage of performance metrics

The collateral damage of performance metrics

by | 12 August, 2015 |

This is a guest post from Daniel Mügge who is an associate professor of political science at the University of Amsterdam and the lead editor of the Review of International Political Economy. In two recent posts, Cullen Hendrix, and Daniel Nexon and Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, have tabled important pros and cons of Google Scholar (GS) as a base for measuring of academic performance. And the flurry of reactions to their blogs reveal just how central and touchy and important an issue this is. The debate so far concentrates on gauging the "quality" of an individual scholar, and how different...

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Open Foreign Policy Thread Tonight on GOP Debate

Open Foreign Policy Thread Tonight on GOP Debate

by | 6 August, 2015 |

I will be live-tweeting the foreign policy dimensions of the GOP debate tonight here. Readers may want to chime in here on this open thread with the pre-, during, and post-debate reactions. It may be the silly season in the GOP primary, but with the Iran deal pending before Congress, these are consequential times. Yesterday, I live tweeted President Obama's address on Iran and will be synthesizing my observations on the deal and the politics surrounding it in coming days. Get your popcorn and laptop out tonight and stay tuned for the main attraction on your TV. BTW, as ever, I encourage...

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A Storify post on Cecil the Lion

A Storify post on Cecil the Lion

by | 30 July, 2015 |

People who follow this blog know that I'm not jumping on the wildlife conservation bandwagon. I taught a course on global wildlife conservation and have blogged about it repeatedly here on the Duck. So, here are my thoughts on Cecil the Lion, the lion killed by an American hunter in Zimbabwe, where I wade in to advocacy, sport hunting, the value of animal life compared to human life, why we have an emotional reaction to iconic wildlife but not animals we eat, Internet vigilantism, and more. These include a series of tweets and exchanges I had with others over the past several days. My main...

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7 Further Thoughts on Being A Better Job Market Candidate

7 Further Thoughts on Being A Better Job Market Candidate

by | 23 July, 2015 |

Amanda in her inimitable style has written some very persuasive guidance about the job market. Let me add a few thoughts about what else you can do to prepare. If you've already been socialized to want an academic job, then you better be ready for a rough slog. Unless you happen to be among the  handful of students who get all the attention and plum interviews this job market season, you are likely to get a couple of interviews and at worst none at all. As Amanda said, most of this is out of your control. The job market sucks. There are thousands of people chasing too few jobs. Imagine you...

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4 Things the US Can Do to Reinforce China’s Actions on Climate Change

4 Things the US Can Do to Reinforce China’s Actions on Climate Change

by | 21 July, 2015 |

Sarang Shidore and I have a new paper for the Paulson Institute on what the US can do to encourage China to do more on climate change (in English and Mandarin).  China recently reaffirmed its pledge to peak emissions around 2030 and to increase non-fossil energy to 20% by the same year. China also announced a new target to reduce CO2 emissions per unit of GDP (its carbon intensity) by 60 to 65 percent below 2005 levels. How can the US ensure that China sustains and even accelerates progress in this direction? Our starting premise is that air pollution is a more salient issue in China than...

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