According to conventional wisdom, Disney’s Andor is the best Star Wars narrative in years. Political scientists seem to agree. Dan Drezner speaks for many when he writes that the show's "writing is stellar," its "locations...
The COVID-19 pandemic makes it clear – our students need a blend of science and policy literacy. Transnational challenges with technical dimensions are increasingly common. Pandemic disease, climate...
Recently, David Edelstein and Jim Goldgeier circulated an open letter for signature to address bullying in the profession. The open letter can be found here. So far, there are nearly 100...
I've started practicing mindfulness, partly to deal with the stress of being a Professor and parent of small kids in a pandemic, and partly to reduce the number of times I become unreasonably angry...
By and large, world leaders have gone from being taken aback about Donald Trump’s unexpected victory to being outright alarmed. Exceptions to this rule are Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad, both of whom expect Trump to be far better to deal with than Secretary Clinton. Yet, while it still is not remotely clear what a Trump Doctrine will strategically comprise, his coming moves in Syria do not bode well. Russia and the Syrian regime look to be the chief beneficiaries of the coming shifts in U.S. policy toward the 5-year old conflict that has weaponized half the country as refugees, killed...
This is a guest post by Eric Grynaviski, an Associate Professor of Political Science at International Affairs at George Washington University. He is the author of Constructive Illusions (Cornell, 2014) .He studies sociological approaches to cooperation and conflict, and international ethics. Over the last few days, protestors have taken to the streets to combat what they believe is an evil power that will soon occupy the White House. The problem of evil has featured in rhetoric about this election, in fact, for months, as featured in the Washington Post commentary on the election. The tropes...
There is a lot to think about in the aftermath of Trump's win. Lots of early hot talks will be wrong. One of the first reactions has been to wonder about the value of political science (which is not the most important thing to think about but we have plenty of time and bandwidth to cover this and everything else): "Should we just bury political science as a discipline?" Some of this week's best reactions to Trump's win: https://t.co/OD707adPkR — OpenCanada (@OpenCanada) November 11, 2016 To be clear, folks in the discipline will be thinking about this election for some time to come, trying...
In the wake of the shocking US election results, what sometimes seems like an agreed-upon virtue has become controversial: the demand for empathy. Writing in the New York Times, longtime Democrat Rabbi Michael Lerner has put out a call for empathy towards the many voters who supported Trump. As Lerner sees it, there are deep class fissures in America coupled with a spiritual crisis that requires redress. “We need to reach out to Trump voters,” Lerner writes, “in a spirit of empathy and contrition. Only then can we help working people understand that they do not live in a meritocracy, that...
An American first lady is about to make history. No, not that one. Nicaragua’s November 6 election has drawn few headlines internationally, but this week the New York Times ran a profile on Rosario Murillo, the first lady who appears on this year’s ballot alongside her husband Daniel Ortega. With the outcome relatively certain, this will be Ortega’s third consecutive term in power, and his fifth time overall leading the country. Constitutional changes passed by his party, the FSLN, have solidified his position in power, and positioning his wife as vice president is a move widely seen as an...
I'm on blogging lockdown to GOTV. Back soon.
Mass media in the US often portray Donald Trump as an American version of Putin, if not his puppet. But it makes sense to take a closer look at the essence of Trump’s and Putin’s appeal to their respective populations. Let’s recap three broad topics: foreign policy, domestic policy, and the economy. Both Putin and Trump focus on ‘foreign policy populism’ trying to sell the idea of great power resurgence. Showing the West “Kuzma’s Mother” has been Russia’s operative battle cry since Khrushchev didn't slam his shoe at the UN General Assembly in 1960. Russia’s current leadership is carefully...
We Americans try to resolve the civil wars of other countries--sometimes heroically and successfully, sometimes clumsily, sometimes tragically worsening the violence. But these days, peace needs to start at home. We are in a civil war of words in our country. And not just words. The toxic violence in our political discourse comes amidst actual violence against many. Our presidential campaign has encouraged greater violence rather than diminished it. Violence against women has been celebrated by a candidate who has been accused of it. The lethal tension between black American citizens and...