The Convention Concerning the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage (“The World Heritage Convention”) entered into force in 1975. The world heritage regime, in effect, produces the shared heritage of humanity. States use their right,...
We need researchers with varying life experiences, and we need you because you are who you are.
Grad students who weren’t schooled at elite universities face real challenges in a squeezed academic job market. But many talented grad students do reach tenure when they receive the same support and guidance offered in elite universities.
Mostly, I muddled through grad school, but with the support of my cohort and guidance from a few choice people, I was able to navigate my way through the uncertainty of graduate school.
Dear My Not-So-Fictional Family Members of Facebook, Greetings. We really haven’t hung out since that family reunion in 1996 but it’s been great to reconnect on Facebook. I love the pictures of your dog and it’s cool to see how much you now look like our grandfather. We have different political beliefs; I think we both know that now. I’ve turned into one of those Birkenstock-wearing liberals who likes science and “wastes my time” marching for rights that you think women already have. Your political beliefs are the polar opposite of that and today you’ve expressed how happy you are that...
Over the weekend, the Trump Administration had some interesting discussions with and about the press. First, talking at CIA headquarters on Saturday, President Trump remarked that he is in a “war” with reporters, who are the “most dishonest human beings on Earth.” Later that same day, his Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, accused the media of “shameful and wrong” reporting on the unbigly audience sizes at the inauguration. And, in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Trump Senior Advisor Kellyanne Conway not only spoke of “alternative facts” about the inauguration’s audience size...
Trump is not a wolf in sheep’s clothing, or even a wolf in wolf’s clothing. Trump is a wolf in no clothing. His campaign, transition, and inaugural weekend lay naked the two driving forces of his presidency. The first is an authoritarian disregard for the truth—what we used to call “lying” in the good old days when facts were facts. And though bold-faced lying makes for hilarious Saturday Night Live skits (which these days write themselves), it’s dangerous when it comes with attacks on the press and political opponents. What the Trump administration is doing is the first step towards...
The following is a guest post by Sidra Hamidi, a PhD Candidate in Political Science at Northwestern University, specializing in global nuclear politics and state identity. She has published previously in the Washington Post and E-International Relations. In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s election to the highest office in the United States, many observers have heralded the beginning of an era of “post-truth” in which “facts” are under attack from “opinions” at best and “lies” at worst. Oxford Dictionary named “post-truth” its word of the year, and Ruth Marcus even referred to “post-truth”...
One of the most poignant moments of Barack Obama’s presidency was his eulogy for those murdered in the massacre at Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. In the pulpit of that historic black church that served as a civil rights era sanctuary, and where a white racist extremist murdered nine African American parishioners who had just welcomed him, President Obama, America’s first black president, began to slowly sing Amazing Grace--a song often sung as an anthem of spiritual perseverance in the black church. A church filled with mostly black mourners followed. No one else...
Larry Summers, I’m going to have to disagree with you. It may seem a bit of a mismatch. Summers is a provocative and influential guy: Chief Economist at the World Bank, Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton, Director of the National Economic Council under Obama, former president of Harvard University. He helped craft US policy in response to the Global Financial Crisis and international responses to financial problems in Mexico, Asia, and Russia in the 1990s. I, on the other hand, am a random academic whose best-selling book has finally cracked the top 500,000 on Amazon and whose office is...
The following is a guest post by Jahara W. Matisek. Jahara “FRANKY” Matisek is a Major in the U.S. Air Force, with plenty of combat experience flying the C-17 and an instructor pilot tour in the T-6. He is an AFIT Ph.D. Student in Political Science at Northwestern University, a recent Summer Seminar participant in the Clements Center for National Security, and Coordinator for the War & Society Working Group at the Buffett Institute. Upon completion of his doctoral studies, Major Matisek will be Assistant Professor in the Military & Strategic Studies department at the U.S. Air Force...
It won't be too long before we start to get a better understanding of what foreign policy in a Trump Administration will actually look like. It's useful to keep in mind that current rhetoric is no guarantee of future grand strategy. Remember when we all worried that the Bush Administration was going to be too isolationist? Good times. But let's assume, for a moment, that the past is prologue. Or the prologue is the main part of the book. Or whatever. This raises an interesting puzzle: what the $@!#* • #!*$$%*(!! is he doing? Seriously. What the !#(&--^&!# stupid #$#(*$!! is going on?...