It's always exciting to see articles on pop culture gracing the pages of mainstream political science journals. And it's always good to see international relations scholars being encouraged to engage more deeply with questions of gender in the course of their...
That was the apex of Dependency Theory in the US, I am betting. It wasn’t long before it was shelved in the curio cabinet. Dependency Theory had died from neglect, not from critique.
Other entries in the symposium--when available--may be reached via the "EJIR Special Issue Symposium" tag.Terms such as core and periphery (or third world) are largely passé, and may even be...
Syria has raised several questions that pertain to morality, legality, and strategy in international relations. Discussed extensively on the Duck, Opinio Juris, The Monkey Cage, and elsewhere the...
Another year, another faux controversy about the secular humanists, liberal atheists, and assorted no-goodniks stealing Christmas from the righteous and god-faring. Their methods haven't changed much from last year: preventing municipalities from establishing religious icons on public property without equal time for other religious displays and, most shockingly of all, forcing the employess of megacorporations to say "Happy Holidays!" rather than "Merry Christmas!"I'm actually quite sympathetic to the fundamental argument to keep "Christ in Christmas." The holiday is fun - and, as I...
What would happen to Iraq if America withdrew almost immediately?In other words, what would happen if Representative Murtha's proposal was implemented? Gary Boatwright at Seeing the Forest is taking this question seriously -- as is Nir Rosen in The Atlantic Monthly.The conventional wisdom, is that the violence would worsen as Iraq moves toward civil war. The Iraqi government would be unable to govern and Iraq might become a failed state. That's essentially the worst case scenario according to President Bush -- Iraq ends up replacing Afghanistan as the safe haven host state for international...
[updated on 12.4.05]I know I promised to comment on the National Strategy for Victory in Iraq, but to be honest it isn't worth the effort and I don't know if I have the strength. Those who read this blog are intelligent enough to see the Victory Stratey for what it is--a transparent attempt to mollify the administration's critics and reverse the declining trend in public opinion for the war.The 'strategy' is simply a collection of regurgitated, vapid platitudes that offers nothing in the way of original strategy and fails to outline the tactics necessary to achieve each element of the...
President Bush spoke at the US Naval academy today. His theme? Well, Bush wants to close off talk of troop withdrawal from Iraq:These decisions about troop levels will be driven by the conditions on the ground in Iraq and the good judgment of our commanders -- not by artificial timetables set by politicians in Washington. (Applause.)Some are calling for a deadline for withdrawal. Many advocating an artificial timetable for withdrawing our troops are sincere -- but I believe they're sincerely wrong. Pulling our troops out before they've achieved their purpose is not a plan for victory. As...
I don't have time to comment on the document yet since I just got my hands on it, but I will definitely post my thoughts soon. In the meantime, here is a link to the full-text.Filed as: Iraq, Exit Strategy
An excellent piece by Justin Webb at the BBC on the ongoing war on science by evangelical christians in the US and its impact on politics and the Republican party.Patrick has previously blogged about so-called "intelligent design" and I don't think I can improve on his points, suffice it to say that I am fervent supporter of evolution and rational science. Whether or not there is a higher power is a question beyond my faculties--agnostic is the best way to describe my views (nicely summarized by Bertrand Russell). However, I know enough about evolution to know that it does not purport to...
Why, oh why do people continue to assert that the US is required in any way to defend Taiwan in the case of an attack by mainland China? The latest example of this fallacy comes from an AFP report from Monday. The article recounts Chinese President Hu Jintao's restatement of China's position on Taiwanese independence. At the end of the article we come across this statement:Despite switching diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979, the United States remains Taiwan's biggest arms supplier and is bound by US law to help the island defend itself against any attack.This is wrong....
Josh Marshall asks if Abu Musab Zarqawi is really the mastermind behind Mesopotamian jihadism.It it is hard not to see this information in the light of the fairly constant tendency through the War on Terror to build up varous Terrorist Masterminds, who become the focus of most or all news reportage, then trail off into nothing. Not infrequently, they have an uncanny resemblance to characters out of 1984. And with Zarqawi particularly there is a welter of contradictory and often difficult-to-credit information about him that invites further suspicion.This isn't a tinfoil-hat concern, but gets...