Whether scholars embed policy recommendations in their work is a flawed measure of whether work is policy-relevant. Across a series of articles and book chapters, Michael Desch and Paul Avey have argued international relations scholarship is...
In her review of my 2012 IO article on identity and security in democracy, Charli asked a very important question: how do we know other states are democracies? I think this question, writ more...
This is a guest post by former Duck of Minerva blogger Daniel Nexon. The views that he expresses here should not be construed as representing those of the International Studies...
Pregnancy has consistently been treated by the US military as a costly inconvenience, and proof of women's weak, unreliable and unpredictable bodies. In particular, there are concerns about the...
Still trying to make sense of Benghazi. Some inside info on the mixed messages coming from Obama's Syrian policy. Meanwhile, Assad opens an Instagram account. More mixed messages from the Obama administration on drones, too. This can't be good. A lot of congressional staffers don't see a link between diplomacy and national security. Two years of statehood and things are getting messy in South Sudan. What's at stake if Obama cancels the summit with Putin. Frenemies? Interns at The Nation bite the hand that doesn't feed them. And, after nearly forty years, Philip Schrodt is retiring from...
Here is your Thursday late morning linkage. Let's start with a couple of stories about getting out to the field. Kim Yi Dionne writes about the challenges of taking her toddler to Malawi during field work (on second thought, maybe not!) U.S. diplomats confined to Kabul and can't visit aid projects as military drawdown deprives them of protection for field visits In environmental news, here is some fracking and Google-related chatter and more: Environmental research group study claims efficiency more than fracking drove U.S. greenhouse gas emissions reductions of late Back and forth by...
Editor's Note: This is a guest post by Brandon Valeriano of the University of Glasgow and Ryan C. Manes of the University of Chicago, Illinois. Brandon asked if we could run a bibliography on Cyber Security, and we happily agreed. If anyone else is interested in submitting bibliographies to be archived at the Duck of Minerva, drop us an email. It is that time of the year again - that time when everyone considers updating their syllabus. So you have an interest in cyber security but have not taken the time to develop a reading list. Well here it is, I have, unfortunately, dived into the...
That one can pose a rational model that predicts preventive war does not make it the right model or necessarily do justice to the facts of the case.
This is a guest post by Peter S. Henne. Peter received his PhD from Georgetown University in May 2013, and was a Fellow at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia during 2012-2013; he is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. His research focuses on religion and foreign policy; he has also written on terrorism and religious conflict. In his latest blog post on Foreign Policy, Stephen Walt calls for a re-evaluation of the United States' approach to counter-terrorism. One statement--really a quick...
Polling stations are opening in Zimbabwe, and, if one's Facebook feed is to be believed, some enthusiastic voters have already spent a few hours queueing (and winter mornings in Zimbabwe are *cold*). Today's elections are notable for a few reasons: they're the first elections since extensive state-sponsored violence in 2008; they mark the formal end of the coalition government inaugurated in the aftermath of that violence; and they are the first elections to occur under a brand-spanking-new constitution. Comparisons to Kenya's March elections have flown fast and furious. So what's new?...
Here at the Duck and elsewhere, there has been much discussion of the gaps between academia and the policy world. I took part in a program that seeks to bridge that gap--the Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship--which I have mentioned here before. One thing I did not discuss here before is that such experiences can put one in morally challenging situations. Whenever Guantanamo comes up in the news, I am reminded of this. Why, see my tale belowe: I was on the US Joint Staff in 2001-2002 when the US picked up six Algerians in Bosnia and sent them to Guantanamo....
Editor's Note: This is a guest post by Alexandre Debs and Nuno P. Monteiro, both of Yale University. In it, they discuss the causes of the Iraq War, a subject of some recent discussion at The Duck of Minerva. This post discusses their forthcoming International Organization article, which is now available as an "online first" piece and will be free to download for the next two weeks. Tomorrow we will run a response by David Lake [now available here]. In a forthcoming article in International Organization, “Known Unknowns: Power Shifts, Uncertainty, and War,” we introduce a...