Scholars of international relations don’t agree on much, but they at least agree that anarchy (th…
Episode 25: The New Hierarchy Studies
read more
Featured
Is there a middle ground in the study of ideas in international relations?
I'm working on a new project about the use of religion in power politics (part of which I'll be presenting "at" APSA this week). I'm finding good evidence, but the framing is tricky. Religion as a...
A Tale of Two Protests
The artist Rufina Bazlova has used traditional embroidery to describe current events in Belarus This past weekend, two European capitals witnessed large-scale protests. Both of them protested...
Do Policy Recommendations = Policy Relevance?
Whether scholars embed policy recommendations in their work is a flawed measure of whether work is policy-relevant. Across a series of articles and book chapters, Michael Desch...
More Featured Posts
A New Plan B for Syria
Syria’s civil-proxy war is on the cusp of turning into an all-out regional war, with negative repercussions for all involved in the conflict. The humanitarian disaster is at its most acute to date, with Russian forces systematically attacking the Syrian opposition and on the verge of a rout of Aleppo—and now Turkish ground forces engaging Kurdish forces across its border. With the U.S.-Russian ceasefire accord appearing unlikely to alter much on the ground, the time has come for the U.S., Europe, and the Saudi-led Gulf countries to make a decisive move to take the initiative back from...
Citation Count Data and Faculty Promotion
The following is a guest post by Dan Reiter, the Samuel Dobbs Candler Professor of Political Science at Emory University. Dr. Cullen Hendrix’s recent Duck of Minerva post on citation counts sparked a vibrant discussion about the value of citation counts as measures of scholarly productivity and reputation. Beyond the question of whether citation count data should be used, we should also ask, how are citation count data being used? We already know that, for better or worse, citation count data are used in many quantitative rankings, such as those produced by Academic Analytics and the...
The ISA Awakens
A short time from now, at a conference venue far, far away (at least from Amherst, MA...): The papers on this panel examine the relationship between the Star Wars franchise and socio-political dynamics in the area of international security, broadly defined. In other words, this panel focuses specifically on the inter-relationship between pop culture ideas and “real-world” security-seeking processes and practices. The papers span methodological approaches, but all reflect on or empirically investigate connections between Star Wars’ fictional memes, concepts or allegories and the real-world...
Strategic Surprise? Or The Foreseeable Future
When the Soviets launched Sputnik in 1957, the US was taken off guard. Seriously off guard. While Eisenhower didn't think the pointy satellite was a major strategic threat, the public perception was that it was. The Soviets could launch rockets into space, and if they could do that, they could easily launch nuclear missiles at the US. So, aside from a damaged US ego about losing the “space race,” the strategic landscape shifted quickly and the “missile gap” fear was born. The US's “strategic surprise” and the subsequent public backlash caused the US to embark on a variety of science and...
The Kurdish Conundrum
Now that Canada has decided to continue to train and support the Kurds in Iraq along with the Iraqi government, the question of the future of the Kurds is being questioned. Indeed, yesterday, I received a phone call from a magazine in Kurdistan asking me about referendums and why some secessionist movements get to become states and others do not. My short answer: "fair ain't got nothing to do with it" which could probably use a bit of nuance. This is not just a Canadian issue but one for all of the countries intervening (or not intervening) in Iraq and Syria. The one thing I do know and...
On The Dynamics of Global Power Politics
This is a guest post by Dan Nexon, Associate Professor in the Department of Government at Georgetown University and Stacie Goddard, Jane Bishop ’51 Associate Professor of Political Science of Wellesley College. In the wake of the Russian Federation’s intervention in Ukraine, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry declared that, “You just don't in the twenty-first century behave in nineteenth-century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pretext.” Indeed, a number of analysts see the return of traditional realpolitik, that “old-fashioned power plays are back in...
PhD-in-Hand? Why?
Inside Higher Ed must be having a slow news week.[1] Today, they are reporting on the APSA 2014-2015 Graduate Placement Survey as if it’s brand new. The report actually came out in early December. Oh, well. When I read the report – and shared it with my grad students –in December, I was struck by something that the Inside Higher Ed editor highlighted today: "More ABDs are starting full job searches, and fewer of those in the expanded pool are landing faculty positions, study finds." That finding is technically true. About 32% of ABDs[2] were “not placed” in any job – tenure-track,...
Interested in critical international politics?
The Gregynog Ideas Lab, a thinking space for scholars interested in studying global politics from a range of critical, postcolonial, feminist, post-structural and psychoanalytic traditions, takes place every summer at Gregynog Hall in mid-Wales (UK). This unusual summer school offers a set of seminars & workshops, an artist-in-residence, methods training and one-on-one consultations to allow graduate students and established scholars to re-examine their own work, participate in ongoing conversations and meet new people who share an interest in critical international politics....