Dov Levin answers 6 (+1) questions about 2020 book on foreign electoral interference. When do great powers back a specific party or candidate in another country? Can they change the electoral outcome? Find out.
I apologize for inflicting this on you all, but I've found that blogging helps me think through ideas and questions—especially given the Duck's readership. So, without further introduction, here are...
The following is a guest post by Dani Nedal, PhD Candidate at Georgetown University and Predoctoral Fellow at Yale University. The surprising political ascent of Donald Trump has prompted two...
Dear My Not-So-Fictional Family Members of Facebook, Greetings. We really haven’t hung out since that family reunion in 1996 but it’s been great to reconnect on Facebook. I love the pictures of...
This activity comes after students are to have listened to a lecture (slides) on how international institutions promote cooperation. In that lecture, I presented the epiphenomenal critique, which I think establishes an important baseline, then went on to discuss specific mechanisms by which institutions might solve coordination problems, collaboration problems, and problems of trust/fear of exploitation (the three primary explanations I offered for why states sometimes leave money lying on the ground). The first half of the activity sought to illustrate the epiphenomenal critique more...
This morning, I woke up with a very nice notice about the 50th Anniversary Issue of Journal of Peace Research in my inbox. The issue is worth checking out – there’s some good stuff in there. As a human rights scholar, I was really interested in the “A Social Science of Human Rights” piece by Emilie Hafner-Burton. While I'm happy to see human rights get a mention in this important issue, I think there is some significant literature that has been missed by Hafner-Burton's review. I want to bring attention to this not as a “wait, why wasn’t I cited?” but because the piece raises a few...
Everything is awesome! But I do wonder if the song from the Lego movie (see below) is not just a secret appeal to irredentism: "Everything is cool when we are part of a team!" So, everything is better when folks are united, and what is more united than a mother country with its lost territory? "Everything is better when we stick together!" Better when we ethnic kin are unified? "Side by side you and I are gonna win forever!" Seems like an irredentist appeal to me. "We're the same. I'm like you. You're like me" Homogeneity for the win? "Everything is awesome when we are living our...
*I was a bit too quick to post last week and had to add quite a few recent events. Nothing changed my original analysis (BV 3/10/2014) With my most of research right now heavily focused on cyber conflict, it might be useful to review all the news on the cyber situation between Ukraine and Russia. There have been many posts on the Duck and elsewhere (Monkey Cage macro post) covering the conflict (here, here, here, here, here), so I will refrain from summarizing the basics. The cyber situation on the other hand has shown a remarkable amount of restraint, defying conventional wisdom but also...
In the all Ukraine all the time edition of the Duck, here are some essential reads from this week. Will ad more in a bit. Dan Nexon channeling his inner Henry Kissinger on the Monkey Cage Henry Kissinger channeling his inner Henry Kissinger in the WaPo Joshua Rovner on why Russia's intervention in Ukraine is a blunder What will Germany, one of Russia's main trading partners, do? Obama administration issues new sanctions Crimea prepares for a snap referendum in 10 days on secession Bob Gates tells Republican critics of Obama and Ukraine policy to cool it Hillary unhelpfully compares Putin to...
Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine naturally prompted a lot talk about the limits of international law. Eric Posner noted: “ 1. Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine violates international law. 2. No one is going to do anything about it.” Julian Ku argued: “International law can be, and often is, a very important tool for facilitating international and transnational cooperation. But it is not doing much to resolve to Ukraine crisis, and international lawyers need to admit that.” For Ku, the current crisis supports the claims of Rationalist law-skeptics, international law works...
Today, I fly to give a talk at my alma-mater. As my advisor told me, it’s a victory lap. It feels good – 5 years post PhD, great job, excitement about the future, and my family still intact. However, the thought of going back also has me a little anxious: you see, I don’t have good memories about life in grad school. My university was great, my advisors were fantastic, and my colleagues were super smart. However, the whole experience was wrought with periods of anxiety, stress, and depression. In short, my mental health really sucked in grad school. And, for much of my academic...
Keith Darden points out that if Crimea secedes from Ukraine, electoral outcomes in Ukraine would shift with fewer pro-Russia voters in the political system, and that would be bad for Russia. This is not unique to this case. In any successful secession or irredentist effort (the latter refers to annexing a "lost" territory inhabited by ethnic kin), the boundary moves, changing who votes in the rump state (Ukraine in this case) and who votes in the new state (Crimea if independent, Russia if this is irredentist and Crimea gets annexed). In this case, new voters in Russia would be largely...