The second installment of our live taping at the British International Studies Association annual…
Episode 33: Status? You Just Met Us!
read more
Recent Posts
When 9/11 Got Hip-Hop, It Killed Dissent
I was an enlisted Airman studying Korean at the Defense Language Institute (DLI) in Monterey, California on September 11, 2001. When the first two planes struck, none of us had any idea whether it...
There is No Tariff Strategy for China
The White House is close to announcing "301s" (investigations under Section 301 of U.S. trade law) into Chinese use of industrial subsidies. It matters because 301s are the prelude to tariff...
6+1 Questions about Surviving the war in syria: survival strategies in a time of conflict
Name of the Book Justin Schon. 2020. Surviving the War in Syria: Survival Strategies in a Time of Conflict. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). What’s the Argument? Civilians in conflict zones...
More Recent Posts
NGO Power Shift 2.0
In her seminal 1997 article, Power Shift, Jessica Mathews argued that a power shift was underway in international politics marked by a redistribution of power from states to non-state actors—mostly businesses and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Almost two decades later, NGOs are trying to...
You Never Give Me Your Money/ You Only Give Me Your Funny Paper
I would like to cut through a lot of the rhetoric and discuss where we are with the Greece crisis and where we are likely to be quite soon. I will conclude with some thoughts as to why this has been an enormous failure on the part of Syriza and the intellectual left that has supported it, and it...
Free Data, Get Your Data Here
For the past two years, Jon Monten, Jordan Tama, and I have been working with the survey team at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs (Dina Smeltz and Craig Kafura) to revive the leader surveys that the Council used to run alongside their foreign policy opinion surveys of the American public....
Submit your proposal – ISA-Midwest 2015!
After you have seen the fall foliage at ISS-ISAC, why not see beautiful St. Louis, MO in November? ISA-Midwest - my FAVORITE conference - is November 19th - 22nd. Deadline for submissions is July 1st. This is a great conference for those interested in foreign policy or human rights themes....
Submit your proposals!!! 2015 ISSS-ISAC Conference: Global Trends on War, Conflict and Political Violence
Charli and I, along with a few other colleagues here in the Five Colleges are hosting this year's joint annual conference of the International Security Studies Section and International Security and Arms Control Section of ISA and APSA. The conference will be held Oct. 8 - 10 -- fall break weekend...
Deterrence in Cyberspace and the OPM Hack
I have yet to weigh in on the recent hack on the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Mostly this is due to two reasons. First is the obvious one for an academic: it is summer! But the second, well, that is due to the fact that as most cyber events go, this one continues to unfold. When we...
Fostering partnerships between academics and NGOs
Last week, this duck crossed the pond to attend the British International Studies Association (BISA) NGO Working Group workshop on Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) in Global Governance. The workshop convened scholars of NGOs as well as NGO practitioners to consider the practice and changing...
Why It Matters Whether the Charleston Attack Was Terrorism
As a professor of international relations, I often have to radically adjust my syllabi from semester to semester. International politics changes so frequently that last year's hot button issue is often no longer relevant the next time I teach a class. I offer my course on Terrorism every other...
Much Ado About Nothing (Very Intellectually or Politically Important)?
The following is a guest post by Jeffrey C. Isaac, the James H. Rudy Professor of Political Science at Indiana University, Bloomington. What constitutes important political science research? This question has been much discussed lately in connection with “When Contact Changes Minds: An...
What’s at Stake in TPP?
President Obama's difficulty in convincing Congress to grant him authority to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership without legislative amendment is a serious setback for his foreign policy agenda. Most commentary on the subject has focused on the trade deal's likely economic impact -- which...
The Threat of the BDS Movement
Hello there! I'm very excited to be blogging here at Duck of Minerva for the next several months, and I'd like to thank all the full-time Ducks for the opportunity! For my first post, I thought I'd address something I've been thinking about ever since a student asked about it in my US Foreign...
Surfing the Cesspool: Political Science Rumors and the LaCour Scandal
This is a guest post submitted by Chris Barker, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Southwestern College For the past three weeks, “Political Science Rumors” (PSR) has been on fire over a falsified data scandal involving Michael LaCour’s research showing that the presence of a gay canvasser...