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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Featured
PhD-in-Hand? Why?
Inside Higher Ed must be having a slow news week.[1] Today, they are reporting on the APSA 2014-2015 Graduate Placement Survey as if it’s brand new. The report actually came out in early December. ...
Interested in critical international politics?
The Gregynog Ideas Lab, a thinking space for scholars interested in studying global politics from a range of critical, postcolonial, feminist, post-structural and psychoanalytic traditions, takes...
Bringing Iran in From the Cold
Even as western sanctions are lifted in response to Iran’s dismantling crucial, large-scale elements of its nuclear facilities, critics continue to believe that Iran is preparing to cheat on the...
More Featured Posts
Theory is Dead, Long Live Theory: The End of the Great Debates and the Rise of Eclecticism in International Relations
Editor's Note: This is a guest post by David A. Lake. It is the 15th installment in our "End of IR Theory" companion symposium for the special issue of the European Journal of International Relations. SAGE has temporarily ungated all of the articles in that issue. This post refers to Lake's article (PDF). A response, authored by Phil Arena, will appear at 10am Eastern. Other entries in the symposium--when available--may be reached via the "EJIR Special Issue Symposium" tag. The field of International Relations...
Schrödinger’s Cat and the Tenure Vote
As I post this today, senior faculty in my department are voting on my tenure case. I don’t really know how to describe what I’m feeling at the moment. It’s a combination of zen-like calm that I’m finally at this juncture in my career and a feeling of total and utter panic at the small-but-ever-present chance that things could go wrong. The odd thing: it’s not that I’m oscillating between these two states -I feel both at the same time. In a very real way, I’m Schrödinger’s cat: although I can’t be both tenured and denied at this university - at this very moment - I’m both. How did it come...
Friday Nerd Blogging: Two for the Price of One
This mashup is just delightful (only slightly NSFW) The true test of a nerd is whether they can spout Monty Python and the Holy Grail line for line. Well, this video makes the old movie look new again:
Obama’s Dienbienphu Moment?
We have a pretty good literature on how presidents use and manipulate their information and propaganda advantages to move public opinion toward their positions on the use of force. Both bottom –up, rational public arguments and top-down elite cueing models look at the institutional advantages of the presidency such as the bully pulpit, privileged access to information transmitted though classified intelligence and diplomatic channels, forging special access to the media, and the benefit of a history of Congressional and public deference to presidential leadership. But, when and under what...
Symposium — Maps are Theories, Cartographic Errors Make Flawed Debates
Editor's Note: This is a guest post by Janice Bially Mattern. It is the 15th installment in our "End of IR Theory" companion symposium for the special issue of the European Journal of International Relations. SAGE has temporarily ungated all of the articles in that issue. This post refers to Patrick Thaddeus Jackson's and Daniel Nexon's article (PDF). Their post appeared earlier today. Other entries in the symposium--when available--may be reached via the "EJIR Special Issue Symposium" tag. Jackson and Nexon’s map of IR theory presents a different perspective on the field. The authors are...
PhD or Not a PhD
It was perhaps appropriate that yesterday's tale of a young pundit's career unraveling due to falsely claimed PhD coincided with the first meeting of the Doctoral Research Seminar I am teaching. Elizabeth O'Bagy had given the impression that she had finished her dissertation, but apparently not so much. After tweeting about it, I got some push back--how big of a sin is this? Do academics have a role in gate-keeping/outing those who lie about their credentials? My answers: big in academia and hell, yeah. To clarify this, let's focus on what a PhD is. It is not a certificate that says you...
Symposium — The Most Important Emerging Theoretical Clusters in IR? Not What You Think
Editor's Note: This is a  post (mostly) by Patrick Thaddeus Jackson. It is the 14th installment in our "End of IR Theory" companion symposium for the special issue of the European Journal of International Relations. SAGE has temporarily ungated all of the articles in that issue. This post refers to PTJ's and Daniel Nexon's article (PDF). A response, authored by Janice Bially Mattern, will appear at 10am Eastern. Other entries in the symposium--when available--may be reached via the "EJIR Special Issue Symposium" tag. To begin with the punchline: we feel that the state of international theory...
Syrius Morning Linkage
If you are like me, you have been transfixed by the unfolding story on Syria, the diplomatic gambit that has forestalled an imminent military strike. Alongside this important news has been the more picayune question of a Syria intervention advocate falsely claiming her academic credentials from my alma mater. Lost in the midst of all this Syria drama is the fact that the United States Men's National Team qualified for the World Cup. In my one vaguely nationalist refrain, we are going to Brazil! Read on about all of these things... It's an open question whether the Obama administration has...