Back in 2019, Uri Friedman wrote that we “find ourselves—as you will have heard in the corridors …
Episode 31: Great Balls of Power
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Recent Posts
We want you to write for us!
This post from our partners at Bridging the Gap is written by BTG Fellows Danielle Gilbert and Erik Lin-Greenberg, who are now the new editors of the BTG Duck channel, coordinating contributions...
Confronting Biases in Policy-Engaged Research: The Case of NATO and Russia
Academic debates about NATO-Russian relations are deeply entangled with policy preferences.
Is “Camp Qual” really our best option?
This is a guest response to Simon Frankel Pratt's musing on methods. Lucas Dolan is a PhD Candidate at American University's School of International Service. In a recent contribution, Simon Frankel...
More Recent Posts
Report: US Drone Casualty Estimates Are Likely Too Low
Defense analyst Lawrence Lewis has authored an unclassified report critically analyzing the metrics used to estimate civilian casualties from drone strikes.* Lewis is an analyst and field representative for the Center for Naval Analysis, which published the report today. He has led numerous...
Why I Participate At Political Science Rumors
The first rule of the internet is not to read the comments for any op-ed one posts. Why? Because the cover of anonymity allows people to say awful stuff. Of course, Twitter amply demonstrates that people will say awful things on the internet even when one can be clearly identified. Anyhow,...
Thursday Linkage
As we hurtle to the end of the semester, here are some stories for the week that caught my eye: Felix Salmon on why wonk bloggery is the future of journalism From Kyle Dropp and co-authors, Americans who can't find Ukraine on the map are more likely to support intervention there. What does this...
Number Crunching the ISA Twittersphere
Felix Haas has written a monster blog post over at Bretterblog with interesting descriptive statistics from the #ISA2014 hashtag. Among other fascinating points: 11% of IR scholars at the conference tweet, compared to only 2% of the global population The most popular tweet of the conference...
An Academic Woman’s Rant of the Week: Professor vs. Teacher and Dr. vs. Mrs.
Like any good protestant preacher, I’ve decided to start a multi-week series where we can examine a topic in depth from multiple angles.[1] My chosen topic: women in academia. This is a topic that has been written on extensively in peer-reviewed articles and on the blogosphere (see The Monkey...
You Make My Work (Im)Possible: Reflections on Professional Conduct in the Discipline of International Relations
This is a guest post by Professor Cynthia Weber, Department of International Relations at the University of Sussex Five months ago, ‘Michaela’ posted this query on the website Political Science Rumors in a thread called ‘a good place to study queer IR?’ am currently a MA student looking to move...
Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement: Some Analytical Questions*
(This is a solicited guest post by University of Chicago's Eric Hundman, who is currently conducting fieldwork in Taiwan. Also follow him on Twitter.) At around 7:30pm on Tuesday, March 18, around 300 protesters scaled the fence around Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan (Taiwan’s equivalent of a...
Political Science without a Net
Marc Maron, on his popular WTF Podcast, made an offhand remark that he does not prepare for his comedy performances. He feels that preparing is for cowards, that you need to be ready and willing to fail in your work since there is a fine line between a unique achievement and total failure....
Sunday Linkage: Rwanda at 20 Years
Today, April 6, 2014, marks twenty years since the day someone shot down a plane on approach to the Kigali, Rwanda airport, killing everyone on board. That plane was carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi, who had just returned from Arusha, Tanzania-based negotiations over a power-sharing...
Accountability in Public Service Provision: Lessons from a Film Festival
This Saturday's highlight was the screening of the film Powerless at the Environmental Film Festival at Yale, where I was honored with the opportunity to participate in a panel on the film. Begin with the trailer, and then go see the entire film. It's excellent. The film depicts the desperate...
Post-ISA Blogging: Does “Star Wars” Count as Science Fiction?
Many Ducks are posting about their highlights from #ISA2014. Mine - aside from the Bloggers' Reception and the many smart junior scholars I met in the lobby - was a meta-theoretical twitter conversation with former Duck Patrick Thaddeus Jackson occurring as I was headed to the airport. First the...
Friday Nerd Blogging
Game of Thrones Season 4 premieres this Sunday. For your viewing parties, check out this website for Westeros-inspired fare. For those of you not yet familiar with the show, and therefore ill-advised to read Season 4 commentaries, here's a helpful series trailer to whet your appetite. (She said...