The Duck of Minerva

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Peter Henne is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and Global and Regional Studies Program at the University of Vermont. His research focuses on global religious politics and the Middle East. His first book, Islamic Politics, Muslim States and Counterterrorism Tensions, was published in 2017 by Cambridge University Press and he is currently working on a book analyzing how states try to use religion in foreign policy. His scholarly research has been published in International Journal of Religion, International Studies Perspectives, Journal of Church and State, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, Politics and Religion, Religions, States and Societies, and Terrorism and Political Violence. In addition to the Duck, he has written for the Washington Post's Monkeycage, Political Violence at a Glance and The Huffington Post.

Recent Posts

The week before 9/11: A Different anniversary

The week before 9/11: A Different anniversary

by | 8 September, 2021 |

What was I thinking before I realized the world outside my campus was real? The foreign policy world is gearing up for the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 next week. There will be think pieces, roundtables and symposia galore. I will have a piece here on the Duck with some of my own reflections on what the anniversary means. But right now I'm thinking back to twenty years ago this week, and what I was doing at the time. That may matter as much as our reflections on 9/11 in trying to make sense of that horrible day. Blissfully waiting for the storm As I tell my students in the "about me" part...

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How Tunisia Could still be the Arab Spring* Success** Story

How Tunisia Could still be the Arab Spring* Success** Story

by | 25 August, 2021 |

Everyone is (rightly) thinking about Afghanistan, but I'm still thinking of Tunisia. Each fall I teach a Middle East politics class. And each fall I end our discussion on the Arab Spring with a debate over whether the Arab Spring actually mattered. Most students end up arguing that it didn't, or that its overall effects were negative. But they exclude Tunisia from this gloomy picture; they see it as the success story. This came to mind as reports have emerged that Kais Saied, Tunisia's President, has indefinitely extended his emergency powers, which effectively concentrates all power in his...

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Disentangling the Disaster in Afghanistan

Disentangling the Disaster in Afghanistan

by | 17 August, 2021 | ,

This is a tragedy, but not for the reasons some think. The day after the Taliban seized Kabul, Afghanistan's capital, I received a few media inquiries. I said it's horrible that the Taliban have taken over the country, but it was also inevitable; it's unlikely a sustained US presence would have led to any other outcome. At the same time, there is no excuse for the Biden Administration's apparent failure to plan for the withdrawal, especially concerning the safety of Afghans who had worked with the United States. I got the sense that wasn't what they were expecting to hear. They wanted to...

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Why you should care about Biden’s new Religious Freedom Picks

Why you should care about Biden’s new Religious Freedom Picks

by | 3 August, 2021 | ,

A (very small) corner of the policy world got excited Monday afternoon: the Biden Administration announced its picks for top international religious freedom positions. This is an area I've worked in for over ten years alongside my academic work, but it's one that few policy experts pay much attention to. The reason for our excitement is the the same reason everyone should be excited about Biden's picks. International religious freedom policy: The forgotten floor of Foggy Bottom US international religious freedom (IRF) policy officially started with the IRF Act of 1998. This law created an...

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How Quals can avoid becoming our own worst enemies

How Quals can avoid becoming our own worst enemies

by | 26 July, 2021 | ,

Simple steps to promote qualitative research in journals It happened again. After months of waiting, you finally got that "Decision" email: Rejection. That's not so bad, it happens to everyone. But it's the nature of the rejection that gets to you. The reviewers (you assume fellow quals) didn't engage with your careful use of process tracing, your intricate case selection method. They just questioned your findings, pointed out your imperfect data, and chided you for leaving out irrelevant historical details. Basically, the reviewer refused to engage with the qualitative methods that are...

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How do you kill a zombie argument? Middle East studies edition

How do you kill a zombie argument? Middle East studies edition

by | 6 May, 2021 | ,

I've started practicing mindfulness, partly to deal with the stress of being a Professor and parent of small kids in a pandemic, and partly to reduce the number of times I become unreasonably angry over bad policy arguments. I experienced a major setback this week, when I encountered yet another evidence-less argument on Saudi-Iran relations. What's worse, it looks like this zombie claim is not only refusing to die, but it is--in zombie apocalypse fashion--replicating itself and spreading. The offender was this article in Slate by Fred Kaplan. Reports have emerged of secret talks between...

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Not everything outside the Pentagon is “soft power”

Not everything outside the Pentagon is “soft power”

by | 29 April, 2021 | ,

As someone who works on religion and politics, I encounter the term "soft power" a lot. Most of the time it's in a good way; soft power is a means to advocate for policies that draw on our values but still advance our interests. But, occasionally, the term frustrates me. Too often it's used as a catch-all to address any foreign policy that doesn't involve military force or economic sanctions. If we want to advocate for a broader set of foreign policy tools, we need a better set of terms to describe them. Soft power Soft power was famously introduced by Joseph Nye in a 1990 Foreign Policy...

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The lazy Orientalism of Wonder Woman 1984

The lazy Orientalism of Wonder Woman 1984

by | 28 December, 2020 | ,

WARNING: Minor Spoilers for Wonder Woman 1984 ahead Like many Americans, I ended my Christmas day by paying $15 to subscribe to HBO Max and watch Wonder Woman 1984. The much anticipated sequel to 2017's Wonder Woman promised to make the horrors of 2020 fade for awhile. And it did, but only by replacing them with frustration and confusion. It...wasn't a great film. You can read why, or just watch it yourself. But what really stuck out to me was the particular sort of Orientalism it contained, a lazy Orientalism oblivious to its political implications but still problematic. Wonder Woman 1984...

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Restraint requires more than “ending endless wars”

Restraint requires more than “ending endless wars”

by | 1 December, 2020 | ,

Voices calling for restraint in US foreign policy are getting louder. A bipartisan community has grown tired of the tired consensus on America's role in the world and--thanks partly to the excesses of the Trump Administration--has had some success in shifting policy debates. I am generally sympathetic to this community, but worry that they are focusing too much on "ending endless wars." We should also encourage a broader sense of humility in America's foreign policy. "Restraint" as a viable foreign policy orientation came together in the past few years, although it's been building for some...

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Ant-Man as a metaphor for the modern professor

Ant-Man as a metaphor for the modern professor

by | 27 October, 2020 | ,

In Marvel comics and movies, Ant-Man is a super-hero who can change his size using a special suit and "Pym particles." When giant, he's...giant. But when he's tiny he keeps the same density as a regular human, giving him the ability to lift and move things much bigger than his insect size. The idea of shrinking in size but having to shoulder the same--or greater--burden resonated with me, and in a way feels like a metaphor for the modern professor. This thought came to me in response to a recent email from my university. We have a hybrid set-up, with some students attending courses remotely...

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