Academic debates about NATO-Russian relations are deeply entangled with policy preferences.
Confronting Biases in Policy-Engaged Research: The Case of NATO and Russia
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Friday Nerd Blogging: Does Cosplay at Conference Panels Render Pop-Culture Research Less Serious?
An argument broke out about this question after the "Star Wars and International Security" panel at ISA this month. A few people on Twitter and PSRM (or so rumors have it) say dressing up renders...
Gender, Rank and IR: Missing Role Models
Last week, I asked a question online that was asked of me and then I asked at the ISA two weeks ago: Can you name women of color working in the US or Canada who do IR and are full professors? At the...
On The Terror and Feeding of Trolls: Or, Why I Aim to be an Equal-Opportunity Non-Reporter of DAESH-Inspired Terrorist Incidents
I was among those last week, after hearing about the events in Brussels, who tweeted or Facebooked in solidarity with Belgium... but also in solidarity with civilians killed in Ankara, Baghdad,...
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A Tale of Two Poverties: Sachs versus the world
Interpreting evidence related to poverty and development is never straightforward. Neo-liberal supporters of free market economics tend to point to economic growth as evidence that global inequality is stabilising, while those "closer to the ground" often point out the limitations of economic measurements and encourage a broader understanding of the everyday signs of exploitation and inequality in countries around the world- classic Development Studies 101. Evidence of this sustained divide between those who talk about poverty and those who seek to understand global economic inequality can...
The American Civil War as an Illustration of War to Forestall Adverse Shifts in Power
A prominent "rationalist" explanation for war concerns commitment problems created by the anticipation of rapid shifts in power (see also here and here). When a state expects that the mere passage of time will lead it to fare worse in a potential future war against its rival, the rival's inability to credibly promise not to exploit its future power by demanding a revision of the status quo can lead tempt the first state to attack so as to forestall (or at least slow down) the shift in power. The canonical example of this was provided by Thucydides, who wrote in History of the Peloponnesian...
Gender and Inclusion in the Profession
The Monkey Cage has launched a symposium on the gender gap in academia. Jane Mansbridge, Barbara Walter, Sara Mitchell, Lisa Martin, Ryan Powers, Daniel Maliniak, Rick Wilson, Ashley Leeds, Beth Simmons, and David Lake will explore a range of issues over the course of this week. I know that this symposium will lead to a productive discussion that will move us forward. My political psychologist side would like to see this as well as other conversations about diversity and equality also touch upon perceptions of inclusion. Social and organizational psychologists have long highlighted the...
ICC Victory over Immunity in Recent Clash with al-Bashir
[Note: This is a guest post by Andrew G. Reiter, Assistant Professor of Politics at Mount Holyoke College] In 2009, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Darfur and expanded those charges to include genocide in 2010. Yet al-Bashir recently claimed immunity as a head of state and requested a visa from the United States to travel freely to New York to participate in the UN General Assembly and return safely to the comfort of his palace in Khartoum. In a “Marbury v. Madison”...
America Being Driven Into a Ditch: Thursday Morning Linkage
We continue to degrade the U.S. brand, weakening America's ability to serve as a force for attraction around the world. Why would anyone want to emulate this particular crappy model of democracy? In terms of security, 70% of our intelligence community at the NSA and CIA have been furloughed (James Clapper and the WaPo raised the specter of a possible increased threat from terrorism and depending on your view of how active plotters are against America and its interests, you might find this logic persuasive). In terms of doing the nation's international business, staff at U.S. government...
What Terrorist Attacks Don’t Tell Us
This past week, terrorists struck Westgate Mall in Nairobi. Al Shabaab, a Somali Islamist organization, claimed responsibility. Frustratingly, we still know very little about the attackers, their origins, or the Kenyan security forces’ response. And the news about the last just keeps getting worse. But there has been some analysis of the attacks – by both journalists and academics. In one of the most widely-circulated pieces, Somalia specialist Ken Menkhaus suggested that the attacks were a sign of desperation, the last gasp of an organization that had run out of an intra-Somalia game (also,...
Flying While Academic
Changing apartments last weekend really brought home the fact that I have been flying way too much lately. I counted 18 long haul toothbrushes and countless little mini toothpaste tubes. If you need earplugs and sleep masks, I am your man. The odd thing about flying as an academic is that I just was not doing it right till recently. We spend lots of time diving deep into our chosen research topics, but very little time exploring the things that might improve the quality of our lives. As academics, we often fly a lot to conferences, meetings, and school visits, but take whatever flight is...
Syria and US’ Commitments Under the Arms Trade Treaty
Secretary of State John Kerry signed the Arms Trade Treaty last week, which can be read here in its entirety. Humanitarian disarmament groups hail this as a victory. Guns rights groups call it a travesty. Signing the treaty probably won't matter much in legal terms for the United States. NYT editorial opinion aside, ratification is highly unlikely. The US is known for signing and not ratifying humanitarian treaties: international agreements to which it is (or was once) party in the dreams of the Executive Branch alone include the 1977 Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, the Rome...