In this installment of “Whiskey Optional,” Stacie Goddard (Wellesley), Evelyn Goh (Australian Nat…
Episode 20: International Order
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Writing Wednesday: a tense dilemma
Yesterday I avoided Twitter almost entirely. I went to bed early last, and am only now looking at the key results in the pre-dawn hours. But since it may have been a late night for most readers of...
Academic Smothering. Part II.
To illustrate this post, I would love to put that cute stock photo of a woman dressed in a taupe formal suit holding an adorable baby in a diaper, but it is just wildly unrealistic. For starters,...
Writing Wednesday: Roadblock
I am at roadbloack in my book proposal. This is normal, insofar as most writing projects will hit roadblocks from time to time. But I wanted to take a quick moment and unpack what it is, and note...
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Friday Nerd Blogging: NATO Week!
I have been lax in my Friday Nerd Blogging duties lately. Partly because I have been so obsessed with NATO and its summit. Now that the communiques are launched, it is time to relax and embrace that fave NATO song:
Human Rights Research and Researchers in IR: Are We REALLY that Odd?
Before APSA last week, I had the privilege of attending a small conference put on the Teaching, Research, and International Policy (TRIP) Project at William and Mary. The conference was a chance for researchers in different research areas to write about the policy-relevance of their issue area and compare research and researchers in their area to the larger IR community. It relates to the discussion going on the last couple of weeks on ISQ's blog. All of the participants had the opportunity to use the TRIP project data on journal articles in top-IR journals and survey data from IR...
Once more unto the (climate) breach
I just happened upon a Foreign Policy piece from May 6 of this year framing climate change as a ‘Clear and Present Danger’. To summarize, the author argues that Obama’s plans to address climate change are a political non-starter in the US: Republicans are generally more opposed to carbon control policy than ever and the public is out to lunch on the subject. The solution, according to the author, is to invoke national security and get the military—a key Republican constituency—talking about how much climate change imperils national security. As a scholar of international security who does...
ISIS and Biological Weapons: Black Flag, But Not the Black Death
This is a guest post by Frank L. Smith III, lecturer at the University of Sydney and author of the new book, American Biodefense: How Dangerous Ideas About Biological Weapons Shape National Security. The 2003 Iraq War aimed to stop rogue states from using weapons of mass destruction or giving these weapons to terrorists. Now we face ISIS, a terrorist organization that also claims to be a state. But what about WMD? Last week, Foreign Policy reported the discovery of an ISIS laptop that contained a jihadi fatwa on how “it is permissible to use weapons of mass destruction,” and, far more...
The Academic Arrogant Self-Important Snooty Quiz
As I was traveling back from APSA on Sunday, I completed all of the journal reviews that I had on my desk, ran some regressions for new projects, and then completed all the revisions my coauthors are requesting from me currently.[1] With the remaining few hours I had on the flight, I noticed a Cosmo magazine[2] in the seat-pocket next to me and quickly went to work finding out what kind of female I am and how much I really know about Beyonce. The quizzes got me thinking: we don’t have a lot of personality quizzes for us as academics but – based on my participant observations at this past...
Doubts on Doubts: Part One
Dear Readers, apologies for the radio silence. The last few months have been eventful. But I am back in the saddle and getting ready for my graduate seminar on the politics of international law. Skepticism about international law is old but it seems to me Syria, Ukraine, Gaza, and other events deepened the cynicism. “International law isn’t even law in the proper sense. It doesn’t really matter.” I heard statements like this from my students already in our first class last week, at APSA, at the airport bar, and on the flight back home. It is encouraging to see people become more interested...
Obama's "Lack" of Strategy Towards ISIS
The last two days have seen a maelstrom of media attention to President Obama’s admission that he currently does not have a strategy for attacking or containing ISIS (The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) in Syria. It is no surprise that those on the right criticized Obama’s candid remarks, and it is equally not surprising that the left is attempting some sort of damage control, noting that perhaps the “no strategy” comment is really Obama holding his cards close to his chest. What seems to be missing from any of the discussion is what exactly he meant by “strategy,” and moreover, the...
APSA Fire Update
Well, the main APSA hotel at the Marriott last night caught fire last night in what might be an act of arson, but we really don't know. For those of us staying at the Marriott, we awoke at 1am to alarms and recorded messages to evacuate the building. We stayed outside until around 4:30 or 5am when we were allowed to go back in to the lobby. Sheets were handed out, and people splayed out as you see in the picture above. Looked like we were going to be able to go back to the rooms at 6am but we weren't able to get back into our rooms until 8am. Panels in the Marriott were originally cancelled...