The Duck of Minerva

Stacie Goddard

Stacie Goddard

Recent Posts

Conquest by other means, Ukraine edition

by | 2 March, 2014 |

Over at the Monkey Cage, Henry Farrell suggests that President Obama is using the OSCE to give Putin an exit strategy. Farrell writes: Obama’s “phone call with Putin on Saturday suggests that the United States wants to invoke the old-style OSCE. It notes that Russia’s armed intervention is inconsistent with Russia’s commitments under the Helsinki Final Act (the agreement that established the OSCE), calls for “the dispatch of international observers under the auspices of the United Nations Security Council or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)... If Putin wants an...

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The power of mentorship: a reflection

by | 25 October, 2013 |

In the Monkey Cage’s recent symposium on gender and political science,  David Lake writes how important it is that our scholarly networks become less gendered, how male scholars must make an effort to mentor women in the field.  In my view, the importance of mentorship cannot be understated.  Without the support of several scholars in security studies, not all but many of them men, I may have indeed decided that this field was not for someone like me. In my first year of graduate school, I was beginning to see myself as more of an “IR theory” than a “security studies” student (yes, whatever...

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Women and the residential fellowship: a few thoughts

by | 22 September, 2013 |

In my email inbox last week was a notification of a fellowship opportunity.  Since I have a sabbatical coming up shortly—okay, in a couple of years, but time flies, right?—I eagerly skimmed the details.  It’s a fellowship squarely in my field.  The funding is pretty generous, probably enough to help me buy out some extra time at my institution, and finish the damn book that is core to my next promotion.  But at the end of the description, there sat the deal-breaker: “visiting scholars are expected to be in residence for the entire year.” I understand the advantages of residential...

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Syria and the problems of compellence

by | 30 August, 2013 |

To my mind, the situation in Syria has prompted an incredibly thoughtful debate within the political science community, one that undermines the idea that scholars have become irrevocably detached from policy. Ian Hurd and Charli Carpenter have written excellent pieces on the legality of chemical weapons and military intervention.  James Fearon contributed this superb piece on the strategic dilemmas involved in the US response.  And once again, The Onion has shown us all that it is the smartest game in town when it comes to foreign policy.Much of the conversation has concerned the question of...

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