Dead American soldiers became the objects of highly visible and ongoing contest this week - over the ways and means of grieving America's fallen. In fact, the events discussed in this short post mark only the latest phase and an escalation in tensions between...
This is guest post by Professor T.V. Paul* On March 5, 2014, the Nawaz Sharif government completed nine months in office, despite Pakistan’s continued economic crisis, chronic power shortages, and...
This activity comes after students are to have listened to a lecture (slides) on how international institutions promote cooperation. In that lecture, I presented the epiphenomenal critique, which I...
This morning, I woke up with a very nice notice about the 50th Anniversary Issue of Journal of Peace Research in my inbox. The issue is worth checking out – there’s some good stuff in there. As a...
This is the second 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. After the final post, we will make the entire piece available as a PDF -- consider it our first true "working paper" publication.Since each theory begins with a metatheoretical judgment about human nature, I think the place to start looking for insights is in psychology, which focuses on...
Note: signatures are only valid for those who are members of International Studies Association at the time of review. Please do not sign if you are not, or will not, be an ISA member.Below is a letter requesting support for a new section of the ISA on "Historical International Relations." The section would be cognate to BISA's Historical Sociology working group and APSA's International History and Politics section. The idea came out of discussions among the co-signers of the letter below.Dear Friends and Colleagues,For a few years now, many of you will have heard us mention the need for a...
This is the first 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. After the final post, we will make the entire piece available as a PDF -- consider it our first true "working paper" publication.When scholars hold up physics as a model for how social science should operate, they tend to focus on the neat equations that physics is able to generate to explain physical phenomena. A more...
This is a guest post by Michael C. Horowitz, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania.Who can see the future? For us mere mortals, it’s hard, even for so-called experts. There are so many cognitive biases to take into consideration and even knowing your own weaknesses often does not help. Neither does being smart, apparently. So, what does make for “good judgment” when it comes to forecasting? When, if ever, do experts have advantages in making predictions? And how can we combine expertise and statistical models to produce the best possible predictions?...
My students and I have unlocked the key to writing a blockbuster romantic comedy script. When lecturing on masculinities in my Gender and Human Rights course I gave students the following challenge: think of an stereotypical, ideal-type character that symbolizes one form of hegemonic masculinity. Remembering that hegemonic masculinities are fluid ideal types that vary across history and context, students came up with answers like "the macho rugby player," "the workaholic CEO," "the playboy" and "the quiet, rugged cowboy." After getting them to list the qualities that define these masculine...
[cross-posted at SSSpew]When Political Scientists Do Not Understand Political Science .... they get published in the New York Times.I tried, I really tried, to ignore the screed at the NYT against political science (especially of the quant variety), but Jacqueline Stevens's rant is such a poor effort that I know it will be widely read and influential. Why? Because bad ideas often spread further and faster than good ones (see Clash of Civilizations).There are so many things wrong with this piece that it is hard to know where to start. First, I am , of course, much of what this women hates...
Some time ago Thomas Rid had an amazing post arguing for an open-access revolution in our field. I won't repeat the arguments here; you can read them for yourself. The open-access movement is showing signs of momentum. Indeed, at BISA/ISA in Edinburgh, a number of people agitated for open access for the Review of International Studies (RIS) at its relaunch event.It seems that there are very few significant IR journals in a position to go open access. The obvious candidates would be journals associated with professional associations -- in addition to RIS, that would include the International...
At the BISA/ISA panel on pluralism Jennifer Sterling-Folker stressed that realism is not the "dominant paradigm" of North American international-relations scholarship. Instead, she argued, neoliberal institutionalism rules the roost. How do we know this? Among other reasons, neoliberal institutionalists don't spend a lot of time on 'big theory' -- on thinking about the scientific ontology of world politics. They take their worldview for granted, and seek mainly to elaborate and test middle-range (explanatory) theory. It only looks like realism is dominant because realists control one very...