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

The Whole of Government Needs a Game Changer

The Whole of Government Needs a Game Changer

by | 22 June, 2013 |

Here are some recent phrases that entered the policy lexicon in the last few years that I absolutely hate – “whole of government” and “game changer.” There is a faddishness to tropes in the policy arena that proliferate, that capture a certain sentiment of the moment that soon become over-used. Earlier, it was “tipping point.” I kind of hated that one too. These words are useful short-hand. Ah yes, a game-changer, that which changes the game, a dramatic development that upends our understanding of what will transpire. Yet, strung together with other stock phrases, you end up with policy...

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Thursday Morning Linkage

Thursday Morning Linkage

by | 20 June, 2013 |

Above, I've posted another photo of the crack Duck blogging team (that's me upper left, my dissertation advisor is lower right). Right now, I'm en route to a conference in Norway so my 22 month old son has prepared the following post of Thursday Morning Linkage. (Well, if he had, there would be lots of posts about dogs. He loves dogs.) In any case, you're stuck with my persistent interest in conservation, energy, and health issues. More polio vaccination workers killed in Pakistan, twenty this year A long expose on poaching, even more troubling news about the criminal syndicates involved in...

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So Should Policy Schools Have PhD Programs?

So Should Policy Schools Have PhD Programs?

by | 18 June, 2013 |

So, I teach at a policy school, and though our core pedagogical enterprise is the MA program, we have a small PhD program that is a mix of political science, economics, and maybe a dash of public administration. Though I have not worked closely with that many PhD students, the ones I have worked have been superb. Still, the job market being as it is, it is always tough for graduates of our program, like any other, to land an academic job. The thing I wonder is: Is it harder for PhD graduates of policy schools to get a job compared to those who graduate from disciplinary programs? Our...

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Is There a Right Way to Do Development?

Is There a Right Way to Do Development?

by | 15 June, 2013 |

In our newish MA program in Global Policy Studies, it turns out "International Development" is the most popular concentration. Now, many of our students who are interested in this "specialization" have what I call a distinct project-based approach to development. They think of international development as projects foreigners go out and do. Since most of our students are from the United States, they envision themselves doing development the same way I did as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ecuador where I served from 1997-1999 (the photo above is of a quinoa export project I worked on with some...

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Thursday Morning Linkage

Thursday Morning Linkage

by | 13 June, 2013 |

There has been plenty of commentary on Edward Snowden (Nexon, Toobin, Roger Simon, interesting counterpoint from Jack Shafer here), but I'm a little bit amazed that important government secrets are entrusted to a 29 year old high school dropout who unilaterally gets the chance to decide what's in the national interest. I respect the idea of whistleblowers, but something about the tone of interviews with this guy struck me as dime store political philosophy from the Wachowski brothers. To the business at hand: here is your Thursday morning linkage! On the lighter side, cheetahs are effective...

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Who’s on Duck?

Who’s on Duck?

by | 6 June, 2013 |

Having been newly promoted to permanent contributor, I'm delighted to join the esteemed Duck blogging crew (pictured above) on a more long-term basis. I'm looking forward to more lengthy substantive blog posts beyond the Thursday updates. I feel like I've been trapped in reviewer hell for weeks, just as it looked like I was clearing my inbox of book and article reviews, I kept getting another one in and the pieces always looked vaguely interesting. Taking note of Dan Nexon's recent post about the difficulty journals have in getting reviews (let alone quality ones), I determined that I had to...

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Thursday Morning Linkage

Thursday Morning Linkage

by | 6 June, 2013 |

Ok, last week, I mentioned with anticipation how much I was looking forward to Game of Thrones. Little did I know it was the Red Wedding episode. I've looked for lighter fare stories this week and only sometimes does the world oblige. On the hopeful side of things, here is some good news: A look back at the millions of lives saved through PEPFAR: 10 years later A photographer captured all of the rare birds of paradise species in Papua New Guinea The EU moves to curb overfishing with lower quotas: enforcement and removal of subsidies still key A new cheap vinegar test can help cut cervical...

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Thursday Dinklage

Thursday Dinklage

by | 30 May, 2013 |

If you are like me, you are pining for your next installment of Game of Thrones (and the Memorial Day week off was cruel, though not as cruel as the torment we have seen of late). In the meantime, I give you your weekly dose of Thursday Morning Dinklage. Top stories this week: Steve Walt puts the flawed but necessary peer review process in perspective Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb's letter to oft-dead Mokhtar Belmokhtar for his unwillingness to be a good team player has been translated and is a classic (I sense a new Sahel version of The Office) Belmokhtar's group pulls off some new...

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Thursday Morning Linkage

Thursday Morning Linkage

by | 23 May, 2013 |

Here is your Thursday Morning Linkage. I'm going to start off with my usual conservation theme before turning to some other topics like a kerfuffle over mapping racial tolerance and the World Health Assembly (going on this week). Amphibians are in trouble all across the U.S. and world (disease, climate change, farm chemicals), along with bees and bats, nature is trying to tell us something Chinese bear bile farms are generating an uproar - in China! Fish have been moving to cooler water for decades in reaction to climate change Did you see the cross-national map of racial tolerance that lit...

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Thursday Morning Linkage

Thursday Morning Linkage

by | 16 May, 2013 |

With the semester coming to an end, time to hit the Internets and start blogging more regularly. I've been meaning to write one for months about the poaching crisis. It's coming. In the meantime, here is yet another story on the corrosive effects on governance by Sudanese elephant poachers in the Central African Republic. Elsewhere, it's not been a good week for the Obama Administration but good news for team O, the media agree that the Benghazi mess has been overblown: David Brooks on the scapegoating of State Department hand Victoria Neuland Jeffrey Goldberg concurs that Susan Rice was not...

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