In July 2025, the UK government designated Palestine Action as a proscribed terrorist under the Terrorism Act 2000, making it a criminal offence to be a member of, or provide support to, the group. The decision followed...
I was born a proud Protestant. A Lutheran in a town still marked by Catholic-Protestant tensions, with Catholic friends who told me I don't worship right, neighbors who claimed Catholics were...
While immigration has not only continued but also increased in recent years, the strict stances of some politicians and policy makers of destination countries, especially European countries, brings...
The ongoing war in Gaza has stretched on for over two months after the horrific October 7 attack by Hamas against Israel, which resulted in Hamas killing over 1000 Israelis and kidnapping over 200....
Forced migration--the movement of people for reasons beyond their control--has become a global crisis. According to both the UNHCR and the Norwegian Refugee Council, over 100 million people were displaced by the end of 2022, a 19 million increase over 2021. There are two sides to this crisis. One is the push factors: the conditions leading individuals to flee. These include conflict, repression, gang violence, climate change, and economic distress. The other is how migrants' hoped-for destinations receive them. More often than not, receiving countries make it difficult for migrants to reach...
On Wednesday, protesters stormed the Swedish embassy in Baghdad, setting part of it on fire. This was in retaliation for the burning of the Quran during protests in Sweden. In response, the UN Human Rights Council called for restrictions on "anti-religious expression." Some may welcome this as a means to limit religious strife and stop Islamophobia, but they should be wary. These calls, in addition to being ineffective, often represent political calculations more than sincere religious concern. Blasphemy and free speech In late June an Iraqi Christian who fled that country staged a protest...
World Refugee Day was last week (June 20). Ideally I would have written this then, but I haven't been as good on real-time commenting since Twitter fell apart. I still found it important to say something here, though. I am not an expert on this issue. I wrote one article on religious repression and forced migration, but my co-author had the subject matter expertise. I've written a few letters in support of asylum seeker resettlement in Vermont, using my understanding of the Middle East and Afghanistan to justify asylum claims. That being said, I'm getting to the point in my career where I...
Adam, Daniela and Jarrod discuss the challenge of thinking about climate justice in the context of IR and existing models of justice and reparations. Does the Holocaust and other human rights cases provide a good or useful template? Can IR approaches even handle climate change? https://duckofminerva.podbean.com/e/climate-justice-and-ir/
What happens when a research subject becomes a research and briefing partner? In 2017, I was contacted by the peacebuilding NGO Peace Direct to contribute to a policy report on community-based atrocities prevention. I invited a local peacebuilder I knew from Colombia to partner with me in the endeavor. We co-facilitated an online forum and drafted a chapter for the report. We then shared our findings – plus her experiences and my research – with NGOs and policymakers in the U.S. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, once I got involved with the Sié...
Since the Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan in August 2021, there have been growing calls by many Afghans, along with the international community, to protect the rights of women and girls. Questions remain about how Afghans want to see women’s rights protected. A notorious Afghan proverb often repeated by the Taliban during their prior period of rule states that that ‘women belong either in the home or in the grave.’ Yet our research shows that this sentiment is not shared by men and women in eastern Afghanistan. Questions remain...
Corruption is an issue largely off the radar screens of many IR scholars. How can they better theorize corruption’s pervasiveness in international politics, while avoiding the biases of past approaches?
At a press conference on Sept. 20, 2011 Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) displayed a postcard. It was signed only “An Army Soldier.” She read the postcard aloud. “I will still be deployed in Afghanistan on 20 Sept. when DADT is finally repealed,” it read. “It will take a huge burden off my shoulders – a combat zone is stressful enough on its own. Thank you for your courage to vote in favor of repeal as a Republican. I will repay your courage with my continued professionalism.”The repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT), the discriminatory policy that prevented lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB)...