Professor Patricia Owens joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Professor Owens grew up in London, with Irish parents who'd emigrated from Ireland during the Troubles, and the conflict in Northern Ireland provided a background to her life and especially growing up....
In the spirit of holiday cheer and Paul Musgrave's great Foreign Policy piece "The True Meaning of Christmas Movies Is a Cozy American Worldview" as well as our common poli sci curse of "being...
Klimentyev, RIA Novosti. Sing it with me: It’s the most Putinist time of the year! For the 16th time the Dear Leader addressed the nation and the world from through their TV screens during a...
Voices calling for restraint in US foreign policy are getting louder. A bipartisan community has grown tired of the tired consensus on America's role in the world and--thanks partly to the excesses...
As has become a tradition, political scientists who are active on twitter are meeting up at the APSA: Thursday, 7pm at Pennsylvania 6, a nearby bar. The idea is to get a chance to chat with people you may "know" online but have not met in person. I hope to see you there.
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The following is a guest post by Dr. Robert G. Blanton, Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. For as long as it has existed, heavy metal music has been associated with controversy – the aggressive nature of the music and lyrics arouses seemingly constant suspicion and often deep dislike, and metal bands have long been the target of controversies and even legal actions (some unfounded, some not). Somewhat ironically, there is an increasing awareness of the beneficial impacts of heavy metal for emotional well-being and possibly governance. Indeed President Obama famously...
There are many things worth dabbling in: Pokeman Go!, the arts, alternative medicine, old films, astrology, gourmet cuisine….the list could go on and on. I really like when people, including graduate students, tell me they are dabbling in these things or other hobbies. It’s probably going to help both their productivity and their overall happiness. As much as I like “dabblers” in those types of things, here’s one that I’m really tired of graduate students saying they’re dabbling in: The Academic Job Market Every year, I get students that contact me saying that they are planning to “dip...
This is a guest post by Christopher Gelpi, Chair of Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution and Professor of Political Science Mershon Center for International Security Studies at Ohio State University The appearances of retired Generals Michael Flynn and John Allen at the Republican and Democratic National Conventions, respectively, have created quite a stir among those concerned with civil-military relations in America. In one sense, the attention paid to these military endorsements is surprising, since the best available evidence suggests that the support of military officers has a...
LTG (retired) Mike Flynn has become a Trump advocate and appeared at the Republican National Convention. General (retired) John Allen surprised many by not just speaking at the Democratic National Convention but giving such enthusiastic support to Clinton. The big question is: is this problematic to have recently retired military officers take such public positions in the middle of a national election? Yes. But what can you do? Let's talk about the yes. The former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, is peeved (so much so that he wrote more here). Peter...
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 teaching. This issue of PS: Political Science and Politics gives us both: an article by Rebecca Susan Evans, taking Daniel Drezner to task for excluding feminist theories of international politics from his 2011 Theory of International Politics and Zombies: [Drezner's] light-hearted use of popular culture appeals to students, who...
Tomorrow, the NATO summit in Warsaw starts. What do we expect, other than jet-lagged Steve being more incoherent than usual? Lots of decisions to be announced, none to be made. These summits are akin to academic conferences--events that force folks to do the work. So, all of the work to come to agreements, make commitments, draft talking points has been done. Now, it is about announcing them. The big decision--a persistent presence. Two years ago, many allies were reluctant to provoke Russia with a long-lasting deployment of troops to the Baltics and Poland. The old agreement was...