The second installment of our live taping at the British International Studies Association annual…
Episode 33: Status? You Just Met Us!
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Recent Posts
Welcome New Ducks and an Invitation
The Duck has a new look and a new lineup of our core group, what we used to call "permanent contributors." We haven't yet settled on a new term. Blog Jedi Masters came to mind. In this post, I...
6+1 Questions about AMERICAN DOVE
American Dove makes pragmatic case for a dovish foreign policy. The use of force is a terrible foreign-policy instrument: it’s expensive and hardly ever works.
Light Summer Reading
Ah, those days when you did not feel guilty for reading something that does not contain the term “poststructuralism” and/or footnotes. Back in my teenage years, I used to devour all the books I...
More Recent Posts
Confronting the Putin Doctrine in Full Force
Just as the international community appeared at long last to be taking a stronger stand against Russia, President Putin upped the ante. Unlike its annexation of Crimea, Russia is now in open warfare with Ukraine on its eastern border. There is fresh evidence indicating not only that Malaysian...
Anti-Semitism in Germany: A Comment
“Mutti,” aka Angela Merkel, is not amused. Neither is the rest of the German political establishment, the German media, or the vast majority of German people. Three days ago, some of the protesters against the Israeli campaign in Gaza yelled anti-Semitic hate paroles, a man wearing a kippah was...
Thursday Linkage: Gaza, Russia, Rhinos
This past week has been a doozy for awful international news, and I've been thinking about a post on Gaza, another on Russia, possibly a third on immigration, or staying in my lane of expertise by commenting on wildlife conservation, the environment, and public health. Well, Thursday is upon us,...
Why Do Peacebuilding Interventions Often Fail?
Why do international peacebuilding efforts often fail in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, and the Central African Republic? Séverine Autesserre's work in the DRC suggests that a variety of factors explain these disappointments, including peacebuilders' failures to engage in...
The Responsibility to Protect: Israel & Gaza
The London School of Economics Middle Eastern Studies Center recently advertised that it is going to hold a symposium on whether the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) Doctrine applies to the current conflict between Israel and Palestine. In particular, it is gathering a cohort of experts to debate...
What I’ll Be Reading While Off The Grid
As of tomorrow I am turning on my "vacation" auto-responder, ceasing blogging for a bit, and hitting the road for some combined business/leisure. Highlights will include: Some Colorado conference travel to present my research findings to one of the activist communities whose work I profiled in my...
Germany: Beyond Its History, Again
Germany won the World Cup in soccer, demonstrating to all that its team truly is the best in the world. The German players and coaches were dominant, dispatching a succession of opponents with near masterly strategy and skill—including a historic drubbing of the overwhelming local favorite Brazil,...
Generations of Presidential Voting
As we all know, the social sciences are a messy business. People change their minds, don’t always follow law-like rules, and often have the guts to defy our theories by reflecting on their past behavior. For these reasons, it is always nice to see when our work receives support from other...
Israel in Gaza: What’s the Plan?
(Photo by Oliver Weiken—EPA) What's the Israeli plan with all of this? According to the Israeli Defense Forces statement, "The IDF's objective as defined by the Israeli government (in the ground offensive) is to establish a reality in which Israeli residents can live in safety and security without...
Friday Nerd Blogging: Force for Change
A depressing series of news days lately. What can make us feel good? Jon Stewart? Stephen Colbert? Star Wars? How about all three? Yet another reason to regret leaving San Diego--where the Force for Change ends at Comic-Con. May the force ever be in your odds!
Thursday Linkage: Hey! A Non-World Cup/Brazil post
I'm ready to move on from Brazil and football/soccer news. Really I am. Here are some links related to climate change and I've thrown in a link to Will Moore's post about using satellite rain data rather than rain gauge data to track rainfall (the latter may be subject to variation due to...
Meanwhile in Cambodia: The Detention of Mu Sochua
Mu Sochua a leading member of the opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP) was arrested on Tuesday along with five others after a demonstration to gain access to Phnom Penh's Freedom Park turned violent in clashes between police and some of the protesters. Sochua was elected to the...