This is a guest post submitted by Paul A. Djupe, Denison University Political Science, who is an affiliated scholar with PRRI ; Amy Erica Smith, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Iowa State University; and Anand Edward Sokhey, Associate Professor of...
Okay Ducks, here are your links from South Asia and Beyond! Marshal Mohammad Qasim Fahim, the Vice President of Afghanistan, has died of natural causes at age 57. Â Marshal Fahim fought along side...
I know it has already been a week, but I'm still thinking about the Oscars. Not the fashion (boring!! predictable!!), or the hostess (boring!! predictable!!) or the winners (boring!! predictable!!),...
This is a guest post by Idean Salehyan. There has been a lot of hand-wringing and debate lately as to whether or not academics are engaged enough with important policy questions (See Nicholas...
Christopher Preble has a solid critical review of Robert Kagan's new book at The National Interest. Preble is particularly concerned with the free-rider problem:EVEN THOSE inclined to believe Kagan’s assessment of the international system and America’s role in it must contend with one central fact that Kagan elides: the costs of maintaining the status quo are substantial and likely to grow. That is because Washington’s possession of vast stores of power—and its willingness to use that power on behalf of others—has created an entire class of nations that are unwilling to defend themselves and...
H/T Steve.
Dan Drezner asks "Dear realists: please explain Russia":I raise all of this because a few days ago Charles Clover in the Financial Times wrote an interesting story about Russia's foreign policy in Syria:A respected Moscow-based military think tank has published a report that is likely to fuel more questions about the wisdom of Russia’s uncompromising support for the Syrian regime. It concludes that Russia really has few – if any – fundamental national interests to defend in Syria.... Russian support for Syria appears to be more emotional than rational, according to the Centre for Analysis of...
Robert drove a great deal of traffic to the Duck with his provocative posts on retrenchment and US alliances. His efforts to "grade" allies by strategic importance has led to some interesting results and fascinating discussions. But I think he's working with an overly narrow view of what alliances are good for. Here I agree with Steve Walt in general, although I have a somewhat different spin. Robert's analysis treats alliances as if they are basically cooperative security arrangements, produce little in the way of externalities, and amount to a net negative investment only offset by the...
As my post on "open access" demonstrates, I've been thinking a lot about International Relations  journals over the last few months, particularly with respect to digital media. Charli's excellent presentation on the discipline and "web 2.0" fell at an interesting time for me, as I was working on a journal bid. My sense is that academic International Relations journals have a mixed record when it comes to fulfilling their varied functions in the field, and that better internet integration would help matters. This post seeks to make that case -- albeit in a very preliminary way -- but also...
From https://www.zazzle.com/This is the last in a series of guest posts by Stuart J. Kaufman of the University of Delaware. Stuart advances a long-running dispute with PTJ about whether "what goes on inside people's heads" is relevant to social constructionism. PTJ doesn't think so; Stuart disagrees. The first post can be found here, the second here. You may also download a complete PDF.None of this is intended to deny the importance of structural insights offered by constructivist analysis. The argument, rather, is that “psychology provides the microfoundations for the motives behind...
Taipei 101Photo Credit: Dan NexonI spent 2-9 June in Taiwan on a trip sponsored by the government of the Republic of China. Taipei funds these trips, and others like them, as part of an effort to influence academics and opinion-leaders; while the Ministry of Foreign Affairs(MOFA) would certainly be pleased if its outreach resulted in more voices advocating on behalf of ROC interests, it would, I think, be satisfied if we simply paid more attention to Taiwan.As one of the China experts on the trip explained to me, Taipei has seen a significant loss of influence in the United States. Many of...
<img alt="" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('310e98ce-49cb-4b0f-b5c7-8ea02326bd47'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "";" src="https://lh5.ggpht.com/-0FUOBjhtgfg/T9XkvHerJlI/AAAAAAAAANo/b2TAgN7QGjo/video3ce1177ddb82%25255B20%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" />Xenophobia so sloppy and racist, Glenn Beck himself would blush…This recently ran on Korea’s largest broadcaster in primetime news slots until the outburst controversy grew so loud, it got pulled. Don’t miss the guy in the white shirt and tie behind a desk to lend academic...