The Duck of Minerva

Steve Saideman

Steve Saideman is Professor and the Paterson Chair in International Affairs at Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs. He has written The Ties That Divide: Ethnic Politics, Foreign Policy and International Conflict; For Kin or Country: Xenophobia, Nationalism and War (with R. William Ayres); and NATO in Afghanistan: Fighting Together, Fighting Alone (with David Auerswald), and elsewhere on nationalism, ethnic conflict, civil war, and civil-military relations.

Recent Posts

Tuesday Pre-Dusk Linkage

by Steve Saideman | 7 January, 2014 |

With the year barely begun, we have already seen much over-the-top, endless self-promotion, so I will try to avoid that trap. Instead, we should note that while the Duck is not just about applying pop culture to IR and vice versa, it does seem to be with us, including shedding insight on events in Ukraine. The end of the old year/beginning of the new year is a good time to take stock of things. Chris Blattman does so at his blog.  I point to it because nearly all of his top ten posts are individually worth linking to, so as a collective they are very much worth a quack in his direction....

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Harry Potter and the Questionable Metaphors: Sino-Chinese Addition

by Steve Saideman | 7 January, 2014 |

People may have wondered why spend so much time thinking about what pop culture says about international relations.  They have have pondered whether dedicating entire class sessions to Harry Potter and the International Relations of Ethnic Conflict might be misguided. I can now officially and completely say to such un-named people: feh!  Feh, I say! Why? Because the Sino-Japanese dispute is now an exercise in Harry Potter-one-ups-man*-ship! The only winner in all of this?  J.K. Rowling, of course.  What is so very striking about this, besides justifying my time spent reading/watching/writing...

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Friday Nerd Blogging: Winterfest Depression Edition

by Steve Saideman | 27 December, 2013 |

Sorry folks, but with intermittent wifi in the US (my mother-in-law is a neo-luddite), the best I could do was this: Indeed, I spent part of this break reading less of a dissertation than I should have.   So, yeah, there's that.  May your New Year's Resolutions prove to be more resolute than me.  

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Friday Nerd Blogging: Seasonal Silliness

by Steve Saideman | 20 December, 2013 |

In the spirit of the holidays, here's a fun movie trailer that actually kind of depicts a war on Christmas.... ok, a war on Santa. H/T to OTB for providing the video.  And a big H/T to the Duck-sters out there who read our stuff here, give us comments, and otherwise make this place a fun place to hang out.  Oh, and Happy New Year, too!

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Quacking is Dangerous to Your Health?

by Steve Saideman | 19 December, 2013 |

I might have to re-think this whole life choice.  Tenure is supposed to mean more than just job security--that it is about academic freedom.  To teach and research in ways that may not always be popular and certainly in ways that are not politically desirable.  Yet in the past couple of weeks, we have seen that tenure may not be all that it is cracked up to be. The more famous case right now is at U of Colorado at Boulder where a prof seems to have been retired a wee bit early because of how she was teaching prostitution.  To be clear, the topic is quite germane (this was not a math class)...

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Tuesday Afternoon Linkage: A Dish Best Served Cold

by Steve Saideman | 17 December, 2013 |

I hope cold links are good as the temperature up in Ottawa is now just at 0F (known as the temperature where dogs whine and snot freezes in one's nose). Anyhow, here are my last links of 2013: Lots of stuff out there on the Chinese Air Defense ID Zone, so here is one that clarifies what it is and what people are getting wrong. The Aussies are out of their Afghanistan combat mission this week.  Here is a document that captures the details of the effort.  I found the Aussie case in my new book with David Auerswald to be the most fascinating because it was the most deceptive case.  The...

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The Good Old Days

by Steve Saideman | 12 December, 2013 |

When people lament about how broken academia is now (for example Higgs of Higgs-Boson), I am so tempted to generalize about the olden days: Many, if not most, jobs were not advertised publicly and many job processes were really old boys networks at work.  The job market may not be efficient and does induce heaps of stress, but it is probably better than the olden days. Speaking of old boys, how many jobs were held at any level by women?  By non-white folks?  Things are not perfect today, but compared to forty years ago?  Oy. Speaking of gender, there is still sexual harassment today but now...

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Friday Nerd Blogging: Solving 21st Century Defense Procurement Challenges

by Steve Saideman | 6 December, 2013 |

The effort to develop a single 5th generation fighter plane has been a challenge for the US and its allies.  The F-35 is very expensive and may underperform.  The quality of debate about this plane has varied.  So, we turn to the experts for a reasoned discussion of the F-35 and an alternative: Does that help make up some minds?  Ok, so a Boeing subcontractor made it, but I find it convincing... do you?   H/T to @drfarls for the suggestion

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