Like millions of other people around the world, I have spent much of the past few weeks playing The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (TotK), the nineteenth installment in Nintendo’s widely acclaimed series.
As someone who works on religion and politics, I encounter the term "soft power" a lot. Most of the time it's in a good way; soft power is a means to advocate for policies that draw on our values...
If border closures are stopgaps that are costly and potentially illegal, then countries must explore additional options for dealing with infectious diseases.
Hilary Matfess is a PhD candidate at Yale University, an incoming professor at the University of Denver’s Korbel School, and a 2020-2021 United States Institute for Peace (USIP) Peace...
Graduate students interested in interpretive methods may wish to sign up for this workshop at ISA-Northeast in November. Complete details are below the fold. “Interpretive and Relational Research Methodologies” A One-Day Graduate Student Workshop Sponsored by the International Studies...
I'm sure most of you have seen this nice Change.Org petition concerning the dates of the annual APSA meeting. I really like all the reasons given for changing the date of the meeting and am glad we are having this discussion. Any thoughts, Duck readers? Is it worth changing the dates of the...
Two weeks ago as part of our class, we visited Brasilia's landfill site, known as Lixão, which again underscored some of the incredible contradictions in the country. It is a vast site, with six open dumping sites, this is one of the largest landfills in all of Latin America. Controversy...
**This is a guest post by Dr. Christopher Neff, Lecturer in Public Policy at University of Sydney.** This past week President Obama marked one year since legislative efforts at gun control failed in the Congress. He lamented at the normalization of school shootings in the United...
For a perspective on how global civil society might better mobilized for armed violence reduction read this new report, by a Brazilian humanitarian disarmament NGO, Instituto SoudaPaz. "What's Next?" is both an up-to-date manifesto on the importance and political tactics by which small arms...
So, at this point, I've been all over Brazil, though that's like saying I've toured the United States in five weeks. That said, I've been in five or six cities all over the country (I'll load a better map soon), and the internet speed has invariably been crap, even in pretty expensive hotels. I'm...
Too good and with the finale coming up, we need to double dip:
Sorry, faithful Duck readers, for the radio silence – I’ve been traveling for much of the last month and then – ugh – just started teaching a daily undergrad class. I promise – real blog posts are coming! In the meantime, I wanted to fill you in on some information I’ve been digesting in the...
With the finale of this season of Game of Thrones upon us, I thought this take on the theme might be a suitable Friday Nerd entry.
With the fall of Mosul to the jihadists of Syria and Iraq, there is much blame-casting to be had. Some are blaming Obama for not keeping a residual force in Iraq although it is not clear that a small US force would have kept the Iraqi military from breaking. This always, always frustrates me...
This is a guest post by Heather Roff-Perkins, Visiting Associate Professor at the Josef Korbel School, University of Denver. On June 12, Christof Heyns, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, will brief the United Nations Human Rights Council on the human...
Laura Sjoberg recently wrote a post listing "The Unwritten Rules of IR." While it is an interesting review of some of the power relations, maneuvering, and indeed game-playing that goes on in the field, it also captured a particular American (maybe even just a personal) experience of being an IR...