We’re baaack!In the inaugural episode of the second season of Whiskey and International Relations…
Episode 1: Gates of the West
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Recent Posts
Is Peer Review Broken? Should Reviewers Be Paid?
My New Year's resolution for 2026 is to somehow make peace with reviewing for journals. Something is amiss, at least for me, but perhaps it reveals a larger problem related to journal and book...
Do you want a religious war? Because this is how you get a religious war
And in despair I bowed my head; "There is no peace on earth," I said;"For hate is strong, And mocks the song Of peace on earth, good-will to men! Thanks for reading The Duck of Minerva! Subscribe...
Remembering Our Lost Colleagues
I started this post sort of confessionally. It's been a while since I wrote on the blog. I had started one earlier this year on the destruction of USAID and PEPFAR but redirected my energy into...
More Recent Posts
Half-Baked Thoughts on ChatGPT and the College Essay
I replicated the go-to method for using ChatGPT to “cheat” on college essays. Here are my takeaways.
All hail International Relations’ lack of discipline!
UPDATE: As a commenter helpfully pointed out, the person whose tweet I'm responding to was a political science Professor, not a historian. This kind of messes with the framing of this post but rather than stealth re-write it I'll leave it as is and let you interpret my Freudian slip as you like...
Episode 30: A Long, Strange Trek
It’s our first “actual” installment of Whiskey & IR Theory in Space! We discuss Star Trek: Th…
Bridging the Gap to Nowhere?
Maybe the problem isn’t that scholars don’t know how to speak to U.S. foreign-policy makers, but rather that U.S foreign-policy makers don’t know how to engage with scholarship?
Pope Francis’ peacebuilding on Ukraine may work…that’s not a good thing
As a Turkey follower (I studied the country in grad school and wrote on it for my dissertation and first book) I've got thoughts on Turkey's elections. But as someone not interested in hot takes, I'm going to wait until the election is over to provide some analysis. Instead, I want to talk about...
How to Disrupt Feedback Loops of War in Beijing and Washington
The professional bureaucracies of both the US and Chinese national security states encourage mistrust, jingoistic attitudes, pessimistic assumptions, and hawkish policies. This is a growing source of war risk, and the only near-term fix is a security dilemma sensibility. Let me explain. The...
LIVE recording of Whiskey & IR Theory at BISA 2023
Don't miss the live recording of episodes 32 and 33 of Whiskey & IR Theory on June 21, 2023, starting at 3pm. We'll be taping at the BISA annual conference. Rumors suggest that there may be whisky for tasting and schwagg for... something. Episode 32 will be in "classic format." We'll discuss...
Rita Abrahamsen
Professor Rita Abrahamsen joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Rita grew up on a small island off the coast of Southern Norway. She was a good student, very interested in the world with parents who had been the Merchant Marines, and a father who had served during World War II. She talks about the...
Oye Como Va: Feminist Foreign Policy in Latin America
Feminist foreign policies (FFP) are considered the latest contribution of feminism to global governance. Eleven countries around the world have embraced FFP, aiming to “systematically integrate a gender perspective throughout” foreign policy agendas. In recent years, FFP has spread to Latin...
Episode 29: Introducing: Whiskey & IR Theory… in Space!
Patrick and Dan talk about the newest feature of the podcast: a series in which they combine thei…
Brent J Steele
After months, and perhaps years, of cajoling and haranguing the Hayseed Scholar, friend of the pod (episode14) Matt McDonald finally convinced Brent to turn the tables and become a guest on the podcast. Matt interviewed Brent at the end of the International Studies Association conference in...
Deterrence can never fail, it can only be failed
The government of a country makes explicit or implicit threats to another: "if you cross this line, we will inflict harm upon you." The threat fails; the government crosses the designated line. Has deterrence failed? Well, yes. Of course. By definition. It is, for example, unequivocally true that...