Alongside research and teaching, most tenure-track jobs come with some expectation of service.
Strategic Service on the Tenure Track
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Academia
The Leakage Between Political Science and Policy Goes Both Ways
Political Science isn’t sterile laboratory. The discipline is riddled with politics and deeply influenced by policy concerns.
How Can We Vaccinate Against Viral Political Science?
Some political-science lab leaks are more difficult to control than others.
The Democratic Peace isn’t a Virus
Paul Musgrave has written an important piece discussing how ideas developed within academia can have profoundly negative effects when they escape into the wild of the policymaking world....
More Academia Posts
Explaining the Academic Job Market To Friends and Family
This topic came up on twitter--how do we get our friends and relatives to understand the academic job market? My first take: don't bother. It can get really confusing really fast. I consider my family well-educated, yet deep into my career, my mother thought that my appearances on TV and radio would help me get another job. Nope. Given that job market season is approaching (sorry!),* here's my listicle of things you have to explain: 1. The Adjusted Bar Closing rule: you can't go home, but you can't stay here. Few grad programs will hire their own products at all, and very, very few hire...
The U.S. Versus China . . . Versus the Rest?
This post comes from Steve Weber, Professor at the I-School and Department of Political Science and Director of the Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity at the University of California, Berkeley, and a co-director of the Bridging the Gap project. It has become common in 2018 to hear that the United States and China are locking themselves into an Artificial Intelligence 'arms race'. While global politics will certainly change in the machine learning era, the supposed 'arms race' between the US and China may turn out to be less interesting and relevant in this world than the relationships...
Building Policy Networks
This post comes from James Goldgeier, professor of international relations at American University, Visiting Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a co-director of the Bridging the Gap project. You can follow him on Twitter @JimGoldgeier. Earlier this month, we held our annual Bridging the Gap (BtG) International Policy Summer Institute (IPSI) for faculty and postdocs who want to be more publicly engaged and policy relevant. Scholars who want to pursue this type of work need to keep in mind a point Duke professor and BtG co-director Bruce Jentleson always makes: Faculty...
#MeToo, Feminism, and Anti-Feminism: a reflection from Sweden
This is a guest post from Linda Åhäll, a Lecturer in international relations from Keele University, UK. Follow her on Twitter at @DrLindaAhall This is the sixth post in the series on #metooacademia An Australian newspaper described #MeToo in Sweden as “the biggest Swedish women's movement since women secured the right to vote almost a hundred years ago”. Here I offer my impression on events in Sweden during 2017 and examine: What is distinct about the #MeToo movement from previous movements for women’s rights and/or against gender-based violence? I identify three interrelated themes in the...
The #Metoo Movement and Postcolonial Feminist Dilemmas: Reflections from India
This is a guest post from Swati Parashar, an Associate Professor in Peace and Development at the School of Global Studies, Gothenburg University, Sweden. She tweets @swatipash This is the fifth post in the series on #metooacademia #Metoo started as a twitter hashtag, but has no doubt become one of the most effective, visible and also controversial feminist strategies across time and space. While it has been embraced widely for its ‘impact’ factor, it has also revealed the faultlines and dilemmas in feminist strategies and activism. In this short piece, I want to draw attention to the...
#Metoo: The Realities of 25 Years and the Challenges Ahead
This is a post from the Duck's Stephen M. Saideman, Paterson Chair In International Affairs, Carleton University. This is the fourth in the series on #metooacademia It is not surprising that #Metoo was the overwhelming choice for the Pressing Politics Panel. Not only has this been one of the big stories of the year, but the difficult situations facing women in their various professions have been of much concern for years. In my own corner of the internet, I have found that of the ten blog posts with the most hits, four are those that address sexism and sexual harassment in political science...
Pressing politics: #metoo and UK Universities
This is a guest post from Katharine A. M. Wright, a Lecturer in International Politics at Newcastle University. Her research focuses on gender and international security institutions, including NATO. In this blog posts she reflects on the issues raised by #metoo in relation to UK Universities. Follow her on Twitter @KAMWright. This is the third post in a series on #metooacademia. Sexual violence* is endemic and structurally imbedded in our higher education institutions. For those of us working on the ‘front line’ of the academy, this is increasingly difficult to ignore and never more so than...
Pressing Politics Panel on the #Metoo Movement
This is a guest post from Sara McLaughlin Mitchell, F. Wendell Miller Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Iowa. This is the second in the series on #metooacademia. Like many female academics, I have experienced #Metoo moments. As a graduate student, I was invited to a visiting faculty member’s apartment expecting multiple people to be there. I found myself alone and being propositioned for sex. As a married assistant professor, a senior faculty member at a conference invited me to his room after we had been drinking together. In both cases, the professors...