The Duck of Minerva

Mlada Bukovansky

Mlada Bukovansky is Professor of Government at Smith College.Her research focuses on the evolving norms and institutions of the international system. She has written on revolutions and changing conceptions of sovereignty, corruption and anti-corruption regimes, the World Trade Organization and agricultural trade, and U.S. responsibilities in a changing world order. Her current work focuses on international ethics and on the challenges to the liberal international order. She has a longstanding interest in the intersection between the study of history, especially the history of political thought, and that of international relations.

Mlada Bukovansky

Recent Posts

Defining Corruption

by | 23 January, 2010 |

So the U.S. Supreme Court has decided that limits on direct corporate spending for political campaigns violate the First Amendment rights of corporations (hey, corporations are people too!). The New York Times has a good overview, plus links to the actual decision. Since I've done some work on corruption in the past, and regularly teach a seminar on Corruption and Global Governance, this decision has resonated with me and I can't help being shaken up.Let's consider a commonsense definition of corruption: the abuse of public power for private gain, or the use of private means to shape public...

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Susan Strange was (mostly) Right

by | 30 December, 2009 |

I just re-read Susan Strange's article, "The Westfailure System" in the Review of International Studies 25, 3 (July 1999). In either early 1999 or late 1998 (depending on the editorial schedule of RIS), she wrote:"I have put the financial failures of the state-based system first because my current research has convinced me that it is the most acute and urgent of the current threats-without-enemies. If we do not find ways to safeguard the world economy before a succession of stockmarket collapses and bank failures eventually lands us all in a 20-year economic recession -- as the history of...

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A Seat at the Table

by | 21 December, 2009 |

In a scathing analysis of the Copenhagen summit, The Financial Times published the following side-bar vignette:Barack Obama’s meeting on Friday evening with the leaders of the major developing economies was perhaps the most farcical event in two weeks of mayhem. At 7pm, the leader of the world’s biggest economy was due at a meeting with Wen Jiabao, Chinese premier, in a backroom barred off from the rest of the conference with heavy security.Mr Obama strode in, according to US accounts, discovering as he did so that his planned interlocutor was already there – deep in conversation with...

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