Is Constructivism best understood as a scholarly disposition, a body of theory, or an intellectua…
Episode 21: Constructivists All the Way Down
read more
Featured
Resistance in an Age of Concentration Camps
Erica Chenoweth et al had a great article in the Monkey Cage yesterday about the Lights For Liberty protests. On June 12, Americans turned out in nearly 700 cities to protest the complex of...
Embargo My Eggo!
Today, I learned that I am out of touch. Ok, that is old news. I got into a twitter conversation about embargoed dissertations. A friend was trying to access and then cite a dissertation that has...
A War On … Something?
This is a guest post by Linda Monsees who works as a Post-Doctoral Researcher at Goethe University Frankfurt and is the author of Crypto-Politics. After wars on drugs, Christmas and everything in...
More Featured Posts
Torture as War Victory: 'Zero Dark Thirty' and the torture reports
This post is the first of our 'Throwback Thursday" series, where we re-publish an earlier post on a topic that is currently in the news, or is receiving renewed attention or debate. This original post was published February 23rd 2013 (right before the Oscars) but the main arguments about the utility and rational behind torture expressed in the movie may be worth revisiting given the recent release of the CIA's 'torture report.' "This is what winning looks like" I have to confess, I was late to watch "Zero Dark Thirty" (ODT). I read a handful of reviews and blogs about the movie, had...
The Danger In "Leading From the Front"
The conventional wisdom about the gradual U.S. ramp up for the military campaign against ISIS is just that, all too conventional. Blistering criticisms from the Right—that the ramp up was too slow and that the President is to blame for leaving Iraq too soon—have both proved hollow. They have been fading as the U.S. and its allies have been successfully degrading ISIS. During the last two months of their successful election campaign, Congressional candidates essentially dropped this criticism from their attack ads and stump speeches. But the notion that the U.S. displayed weakness in the...
Theory as thought
Recently a friend and colleague wrote me to say: “The SS piece is actually really useful to me as a model for dealing with Political Science post paradigm wars.” Which prompts me (as if academics ever need such a prompt) to revisit an issue I raised almost a year ago: the role of theory in policymaking. In that long ago post, I mentioned that Patrick James and I had an article under review that addressed the relationship between theory and policy from a fairly novel perspective, and I am happy to say that article—entitled “Theory as Thought: Britain and German Unification”—came...
Friday Nerd Blogging: Star Wes Awakens
The folks here are big, big fans of Star Wars, so we were most happy this week with the new teaser. Many parodies have/will ensue. Here is the Wes Anderson take:
Clans
Rutgers University law professor (and blogger) Mark S. Weiner has been awarded the 2015 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order for ideas set forth in his 2013 book, The Rule of the Clan: What an Ancient Form of Social Organization Reveals About the Future of Individual Freedom. The award includes a $100,000 cash prize and is administered by the University of Louisville. The book makes a fairly complicated argument about clans, identity groups, liberal democracy, states, and national security. The press release ostensibly explains the highly readable book's main argument: Clans,...
The Perils of a M/W/F Class
Greetings, fellow Duck readers. I realize I've been MIA this semester - DGS duties and ISA-Midwest stuff took too much of my non-research time. Another factor in my absence, however: a Monday Wednesday Friday schedule. And, it sucked.[1] Like large-tornado-near-my-hometown sucked. Today marks the last Friday class of the semester – thank god.[2] Even though I should be getting back to research this morning, I wanted to write a little bit about why I think 50 minute/3 day a week classes should be banned in our discipline. Let’s take a lesson from the educators: longer class periods that...
Not Surprised is Not Good Enough: what soldier atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan can teach us about Ferguson
By some strange twist of fate I happened to watch the Kill Team, a documentary about the infamous US platoon that intentionally murdered innocent Afghan men while on tour. When, in 2010 the military charged five members of the platoon, the case drew international attention due to the graphic nature of the killings, evidence that the men mutilated the bodies and kept parts as trophies, and indications that the killings were part of a wider trend of 'faking' combat situations in order for soldiers to 'get a kill.' While the premeditated killing of Afghan...
2015 OAIS Blogging Awards: Call for Nominations!
It's that time of year folks. We are now receiving nominations for the third annual Online Achievement in International Studies (OAIS) Blogging Awards -- aka the Duckie Awards. We are asking Duck readers to reflect back over the past year to consider the best blogging contributions to the field of International Studies and to submit nominations for the awards. Post your nominations in the comments thread or drop us a note at duckofminerva2015 @ gmail.com. We will later ask readers to vote for the three finalists in each category. Last year's winners have generously agreed to judge the...