Though unlikely to happen any time soon, recent calls for the US to pay reparations to the Afghan people provide an opportunity to reflect on the complexities of reparations and global justice.
Any woman would tell you that. What matters is what you do with it and whether you know how to use it. Whatever Brobdingnagian thing you’ve got going on there, it’s way more important to have a game...
2017 was not a great year for international politics. The sentence I heard the most during conferences and other academic gatherings was that “the global order is in crisis.” Granted. It all started...
If anybody is planning to collude with some Russians for New Year's (but not in order to swing an election), I compiled a brief checklist. Originally, I wanted to take apart an article from a...
Let's face it, most commencement speakers aren't really all that inspiring. Every spring, tens of thousands of graduating seniors, proud parents, faculty, and others sit through seemingly endless speeches filled with those insipid "inspiring life lessons," those essential "kernels of wisdom that will guide graduates through life's challenges," and the hopeful "ten ways this year's class of graduating seniors will change the world." Humor sometimes -- but only sometimes -- helps. And, then occasionally the stars align and we get that memorable commencement -- with a speaker whose presence and...
Brian Cranston and Godzilla apparently did not get along that well: Check out the story here.
This is the first of two posts about Boko Haram & possible US involvement in Nigerian counterterrorism operations. For the second, see "What is to be done in Nigeria?". Note: two sentences added shortly after publication to clarify that my concerns encompass the full range of foreign intervention, from direct intervention to operational support to limited strikes to an expanded role in shaping Nigerian policy. Yesterday, American drones began flights over northern Nigeria in hopes of locating the 276 girls abducted a month ago from a school in Borno State. American and British...
This will be nothing like a comprehensive overview on the topic (for one thing I have been in and out of plenary, for another I am filtering this event through the lens of my specific research agenda on framing and norm development). That said, here are a few notes and observations about the nature of the debate and the process here since I arrived yesterday - angles I am not likely to blog about in depth but which are worth noting in passing. Hope others will take them up and link to whatever others are writing - I am mostly following events here rather than online, with the exception of...
Dear Kansas Board of Regents, Greetings. I don’t know if you received my first open-letter to you in December. My parents have pretty slow Internet in central Kansas so maybe the page is still loading. Hopefully, you’ll read the letter once you get it. In December, I wrote about your proposed social media policy and how it really would scare me if I was still faculty at Kansas State University or any of your other Kansas institutions. Of course, I know not to post things that would go against existing federal laws (FERPA) and know not to incite violence in my social media posts. ...
Cyber security has been on the general security agenda for some time now, but it is only recently that Political Scientists have really engaged the topic in a serious manner befitting of the theoretical and empirical advances in the field. In general, we have ceded this ground to those who either have a vested interest in the question (the cyber security industry) or to those who seek to inflate the threat based on imagined fears. This blog will review some recent work in the field and evaluate the state of knowledge plus future directions. Many pundits comment and pontificate on cyber...
The following is a guest-post by my good friend Dave Kang of USC. Below he complements his recent TNI essay with the full flow of charts and graphics they screened out. This post is an important rejoinder to the constant assertion (think Robert Kaplan) that East Asia is on the brink of war and that everyone is freaked out by China. The thing is, East Asian military spending doesn’t actually suggest that at all… “In a recent National Interest essay I argued that military expenditures in East Asia do not appear to be excessively high. In this post I’d like to post the figures that informed the...
I'm so glad the semester is over so I can leave Friday to head to Brazil for a three week short course with my colleague Eugene Gholz. The topic is the World Cup "Rising Powers and Global Governance." We have reprised our 2010 edition of our South Africa short course (notice the pattern). I'm hopeful I'll be able to provide some flavor from our trip as we have an exciting series of meetings with government officials, scientists, academics, practitioners, diplomats, activists, and members of the business community. We're focused on three main themes, the environment, public health, and the...