Professor Julie Kaarbo discusses Foreign Policy Analysis.
Episode 4: Julie Kaarbo
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Sexism in Political Science
There is a discussion on PSR about sexism in political science, with most folks concurring that it is still an issue with some deniers pointing out that support groups for women are exclusive, too. ...
An American in Canada – Thoughts on Going Abroad for a Job
I never thought that when I started grad school I’d be relocating to another country. Then again, when I got the job in Canada, it did not really occur to me that I was “really” leaving the US – on...
Greece: a Shakespearean Tragedy
In the Greek bailout episode the Greek government has been behaving much like the self-pitying Antonio from “The Merchant of Venice,” while the EU has been posing as a rather heavy-handed Shylock....
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Sexual Harassment in Political Science and International Studies
The last two years saw some major stories in my corner of the blogsphere concerning sexual harassment. Colin McGinn's resignation from the University of Miami saw widespread discussion across the academic interwebs, even if we didn't say much about it. McGinn's case seems not terribly unique in philosophy, as the What's it Like to be a Woman in Philosophy blog has been chronicling for years. Sexual harassment at science-fiction conventions is also an ongoing problem. Genevieve Valentine's treatment at Readercon produced an online firestorm last year. Some of the discomfort with Brian's...
Where Are All the Republican Realists?
In light of the brouhaha between Chris Christie and Rand Paul over foreign policy, conservative columnist Ross Douthat opined in The New York Times that the Republican Party seems to be missing the sort of realist pragmatists of old that might have mediated between these views. He attributes the realist decline to them being out of step on domestic politics and just not really liked by different factions on foreign policy. He writes: However, I’m doubtful that Christie will ultimately take this kind of split-the-difference tack, because with the eclipse of foreign-policy realism within the...
The (American) Job Market and Interpretive Methods in Political Science
M. David Forrest, a soon-to-be-assistant-professor of American politics, forwarded the following letter to the "interpretation and methods" listserv. He agreed to let me post it at the Duck. Given the methodological heterogeneity of our readership, I thought it would be of interest. It reads: [I am an American Politics scholar who primarily uses interpretive methods and methodologies (IMM) and recently came off the Assistant Professor job market. Several weeks back I shared some thoughts about my market experiences with Peri (Schwartz-Shea) and Dvora (Yanow), who most of you know. At their...
Resistance is Not Futile.
A claim common among opponents of a treaty ban on autonomous weapon systems (AWS) is that treaties banning weapons don't work - suggesting efforts to arrest the development of AWS are an exercise in futility. Now this claim has been picked up uncritically by the editors at Bloomberg, writing in the derisively titled, "No Really, How Do We Keep Robots From Destroying Humans?": "Bans on specific weapons systems -- such as military airplanes or submarines -- have almost never been effective in the past. Instead, legal prohibitions and ethical norms have arisen that effectively limit their use....
Wednesday Addams Linkage: Special Andragogy Edition
Sorry for the lack of Wednesday linkage posts recently. Bizarrely, on a day when I undertake an intercontinental move, I finally have time to catch up on linking. To commemorate the end of summer teaching and the brief respite between summer school and real school (hey, didn't I join academia so I could have summers off?), here's some links about teaching. Nineteen observations about teaching by Andrew Joseph Pegoda, especially 3, 4, 6, 7, 11, and 18, but not 17. [Inside Higher Ed] Today's Word Power is andragogy, which refers to how to teach adults--an enterprise many Duck writers and...
Favela Ninjas and Apartheid Samurai
Neill Blomkamp's "Elysium" packs a punch for an action sci-fi film even if its punches don't land. So yeah ... Jodie Foster doesn't give her best performance and the other roles for women in the film are completely lame. A beefy Matt Damon, bless his heart, is poorly cast. The core plot line doesn't make much sense. Look, let's face it, there is just no way Blomkamp can match the brilliance of his earlier hit, "District 9." Nevertheless, this film plays well with a range of contemporary possibilities/anxieties in the Global North: post-human bodies, surveillance drones, biometrics, the...
Belated Friday Nerd Blogging: Meta Heroes
I am on vacation so I am a bit late with the FNB. This 2014 film looks like a heap of fun--when superhero impersonators stop impersonating and start hero-ing:
Monday Morning Linkage
Hey, y'all... Here's your linkage... Enjoy. Kapil Patel argues that a growing awareness of India's declining conventional deterrence vis-a-vis China has led it to create a new mountain strike corps of 40,000 men. Alec Metz at Registan reviews this year's Eid message from the sub-literate but charismatic Mullah Muhammad Omar. Ajit Sahi argues that despite the very significant flare-up in Indo-Pak tensions last week along the Line of Control, India needs to engage more, not less, with Pakistan to end the conflict. Buddhist-Muslim violence has flared in Sri Lanka as the Myanmar conflict...