Some political-science lab leaks are more difficult to control than others.
How Can We Vaccinate Against Viral Political Science?
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Mugabe: The Musical!
Picture the scene: throngs of people gathering as the night descends. They are looking up at the building across the way—patiently, expectantly. There is a low-hum of voices. Gradually, the voices...
The Politics of Research on Trauma – A Gendered Perspective
The following is a guest post by Ayelet Harel-Shalev and Shir Daphna-Tekoah. Ayelet Harel-Shalev is a Senior Lecturer at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Her academic interests include Feminist...
Charli’s Village: A Call to Arms
This is a tough post to write. In October, Charli was hospitalized for severe abdominal pain. Surgery revealed a large mass, and Charli was diagnosed with Burkitt’s Lymphoma—a systemic cancer of the...
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Killer Robot Linkage
I am in Geneva this week to participate in the Convention on Conventional Weapons' Experts' Meeting on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems. There, I'll present survey data I collected on US public sentiment around autonomous weapons, joining global civil society in reminding world governments of the Marten's Clause in the preamble to the Hague Convention. This clause, originally inserted to protect irregular non-combatants in guerilla wars, enjoins states to consider the "dictates of the public conscience" in determining the lawfulness of means and methods of war not openly prohibited by...
I’d like some lemonade with my advice, please
As a junior faculty member, I am not in a position to turn down advice. Fortunately, I receive good advice from mentors, colleagues, and friends. I am very thankful. Lately, I have also been getting advice from a few organizations for faculty development. They provide free tips on writing and productivity, navigating the job market, and balancing responsibilities as well as seek to debunk some of the myths about success in the academia. On average, their advice has been fairly useful (I have not signed up for paid services, and I certainly do not have a representative sample here). But...
Friday Nerd Blogging: Call for ISA Paper Proposals on “Game of Thrones”
CALL FOR PROPOSALS: "Game of Thrones and International Relations: Empirical Investigations" Deadline: May 26, 2014 Dan Drezner and I seek paper abstracts for an International Studies Association 2015 Conference panel proposal examining the relationship between the A Song of Ice and Fire book series and/or HBO hit series Game of Thrones and global political phenomena (or "first-order" representations of those phenomena). In other words, this panel focuses specifically on empirical investigations of the circulation of pop culture ideas in "real-world" foreign policy / global processes.* As...
Pitching Your Article?
Dan Nexon has instituted a new Ask the Editors feature on his editor's blog on the newly revamped ISQ website. If you haven't seen it yet, PTJ has done a great job developing the site and Dan hasn't missed a step in the transition from his great blogging here at Duck to his new role at ISQ. In the first installment of Ask the Editors Dan responds to a reader's question on what information should be conveyed in the dreaded cover letter included with an article submission. The reader referred to the cover letter as that "mystical piece of the peer review process." Dan's response is insightful...
Thursday Linkage
Editor's note: this post first appeared on my personal blog. 1. Tensions in the South China Sea are rising. Exhibit A (h/t Sean B. Rogers), exhibit B (h/t Jay Ulfelder). Right now, all eyes are on Ukraine. And rightfully so. But this is one to watch too. 2. Speaking of Ukraine, the National Interest wonders if that crisis could spark a world war (h/t Charli Carpenter). The article is a bit sensationalistic, and I doubt anyone would have written it if all this had happened in 2013 ("99 years ago" just doesn't have the same ring to it), but there are some good points here. I wouldn't put the...
The War against Neologisms: Calling Out “New” Types of War
It seems that every pundit, scholar, and borderline academic publishing online has developed a new term to describe the state of war in the system. I can’t browse the pages of Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, or even the New York Times without someone making up a new term to articulate basic and common features of modern warfare. When I was younger (a wee political science bairn in Scottish), I thought all political scientists ever did was make up terms. A disproportionate number of the scholars we learn about in undergraduate classes include people who coined terms. No matter if these...
Thursday Heading into Summer Linkage – Climate Change Edition
Apologies for the missing linkage from last week. I took a team of students to DC to present to policymakers the key findings from my year-long course on climate change and the major economies (see the embedded video at the bottom). The timing was opportune because this was a big week for climate policy. Thousands of world leaders gathered in Abu Dhabi to prepare for the UN Secretary General's fall meeting on the topic. China appears poised to crack down on polluters. Though air pollution is the primary target, there may be potential co-benefits for the climate. Here at home, the U.S....
An Academic Woman’s Rant of the Week: Personal Information and Office Hours
It’s that time of year again: the magical time when my 10 page undergraduate research proposal deadline is enough to cause a health scare among the geriatric population of mid-Missouri. As the semester comes to a close, my office is typically filled with both undergrads and grads coming to tell me a plethora of problems and stories. Many times, these problems preface a request for an extension of some sort. Can I please have an extra week? An extra day? An extra 20 minutes? Some of the problems that appear at my office door are to be expected: a replication file can’t be found, an...