What is the topography of international-relations theory in the People’s Republic of China? What …
Episode 24: International Relations in China
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Why are Egypt&Turkey sending medical equipment to the US? International Status and lazy explanations in IR
Like so much else in international relations, the answer to this question seems "obvious." But, like so much else, it gets trickier when we really investigate the situation, and it reveals nuances...
Catherine Sanger – Teaching Online in the Time of COVID 19 (with Luke Perez)
Practicing Academic Kindness in the Classroom
This is a guest post by Philipp Schulz, who is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Institute for Intercultural and International Studies (InIIS) at the University of Bremen. Philipp’s research focuses...
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Thoughts on DA-RT
For background on DA-RT, see Jarod Hayes' post at the Duck of Minerva, as well as John Patty's response to the petition to delay implementation (as well as its related website) and Jeffrey Isaac's response to Patty and Isaac's latest post. Roundups and responses abound. I drafted a longer piece on DA-RT, but now realize that I will probably never finish it. So, instead, some brief comments: I have neither signed the DA-RT Journal Editors' Statement (JETS), nor the acronym-challenged petition to delay it's implementation. My basic reasons are straightforward. The journal that I...
Beyond “Rejection”
The following is a guest post by Jeffrey C. Isaac, who is James H. Rudy Professor of Political Science at Indiana University and editor in chief of Perspectives on Politics: A Political Science Public Sphere. “I reject this paper.” “I recommend that this paper be rejected.” “I am sorry to inform you that your paper has been rejected for publication.” Social practices are constituted in large part by the words we regularly use and the meanings these words typically convey. Political science is a social practice. And variations of the sentences above are commonly employed by political...
Duckies Keep Quacking But In A Different Nest: Nominate
The new ISA caucus, the Online Media Caucus, has taken over the Duckies, and it is now nomination season (much safer than Duck Season). So, head over to the new OMC blog and nominate your favorite blogs, posts, tweets, and other online media for the next round of the Duckies, to be awarded in Atlanta in March at the next ISA meeting. As always, the Duckies will be sponsored by SAGE. The big difference for Duck of Minerva fans is that now that the DoM is not running it, it will now be eligible for the competition (officers of the OMC are not eligible).
Rejection Is The Name of the Game
Much discussion lately about how much rejection is in this academic game. I had a conversation yesterday with a pal who was finding it much harder, it seemed, to get work published after tenure than before. "I thought I knew how to do this." Folks have been calling for the true CVs of people--where rejections would be listed. Not sure that is going to happen. However, in this week where I received news of receiving a fellowship to supplement my sabbatical, I thought I would list many of the rejections of my work along the way (my spreadsheet for tracking my work is pretty good but...
What Happened at Subi Reef?
Following on my last point which tried to understand the logic of ISIS's role (if indeed it is responsible) in the bombing of a Russian charter plane int he Sinai, let's turn our attention to the confusion surrounding the recent activity in the South China Sea. In an (alleged...more on this later) effort to counter China's claims of expanded territorial waters and recent island building in the South China Sea, the US Navy sent the destroyer USS Lassen within 12 miles of Subi Reef, a part of the Spratley archipelgo claimed by several regional actors. China responded by asserting its...
The problem of authority
Josh’s excellent tripartite (1, 2, 3) discussion of the Obama Administration’s foreign policy record in conjunction with with the narratives of Putin’s strategic leadership accompanying Russian military involvement in Syria have me thinking about the concept of authority. Specifically, I do not think we as academics (and as a result, policymakers) have a very good set of tools for thinking about leadership and authority in the international system. In large part I suspect the materialist foundations of much of IR theory are central to this gap, and indeed are reflected in the narratives...
The Destruction of Alderaan Was Not Justified
This is a guest post by Luke M. Perez, a doctoral student at the University of Texas at Austin where he studies religion, ethics, and foreign policy. Luke is also a graduate fellow at the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas. He can be reached at lukemperez@gmail.com. __________________ The Empire apologists are making their case, and it is convincing. Perhaps we were wrong all along to support the Rebellion. But that doesn’t mean we should let the Empire off the hook entirely. This week for example, Sonny Bunch argues in the Washington Post that the destruction...
Killing the Occupation Analogy
I have spent much time here at the Spew discussing various analogies and kinds of analogies, including how IR can be like tacos and how to make a good IR pop culture analogy. I love using analogies, and have often used them in my teaching, even as I know that they have their limits (thanks, Robert Jervis). But if I had to nominate one analogy to kill, to kill with fire, to destroy utterly, it would be the use of the occupations of Germany and Japan to discuss 21st century state-building/nation-building/post-war reconstruction. I was inspired/depressed by this chain of tweets: Entirely...