The blogosphere peaked somewhere in the mid-2000s, so why would anyone start blogging in 2023?
Why Blog Now? An Introduction
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Recent Posts
Episode 12 – Priya Dixit
Professor Priya Dixit talks about being born in Thailand, growing up in Nepal, college and her master’s in Australia, working for the United Nations, and life as an academic.
Hagia Sophia and the Multi-Level Politics of Heritage
This is a guest post from Elif Kalaycioglu, who is an assistant professor at the University of Alabama. Her research is on international relations, world order and global governance with a focus on...
Forced Marriage: Three Facts to Help Explain This Global Conflict Dynamic
This is a guest post from Phoebe Donnelly (@PhoebsG86), a Visiting Fellow at the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University and a Women and Public Policy Research Fellow at Harvard Kennedy...
More Recent Posts
Cameron’s Respect for the House of Commons’ No Vote on Syria was a Good Day for Democracy
Jump to 1:13: It’s the best question asked during the GOP debates last year Were any other Americans rather awestruck when David Cameron announced himself bound by the the House of Commons’ vote against attacking Syria last month? Wow. I found that so impressive – a due process binding executive...
Friday Nerd Blogging: Something From the New TV Season
Yep, it is that time of year as each network rolls out its new programs with the first cancellations already being announced. This year, there is one that is under the radar--a sitcom based on Aliens. Check it out: Ok. Just a youtube bit of genius. Enjoy your weekend....
Friday Morning Linkage
Human Rights Watch has a new report on the killing of 190 civilians in early August by members of five Islamist rebel groups: Ahrar al-Sham, Islamic State of Iraq and Sham, Jabhat al-Nusra, Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar, Suquor al-Izz Congratulations to Organization for the Prohibition of...
Why Didn’t the US “Re-interpret” the UN Charter on Syria?
[Note: This is a guest post by Ardeshir Pezeshk, PhD candidate at University of Massachusetts-Amherst, in collaboration with Charli Carpenter.] For a brief moment a few weeks back, law and policy elites in the US gave serious consideration to whether there was a legal basis for a military strike...
Is Capture and Kill Bad Guys Good Counter-Terrorism?
The U.S. had two dramatic efforts to capture high priority terrorist targets, one in Libya and another in Somalia. The snatch and grab operation in Libya was a seeming success (though I'm wondering if last night's kidnapping of the Libyan Prime Minister was retaliation). The Somalia mission,...
International Institutions Mobilize Opponents Too
Members of international institutions typically honor their commitments. But that does not, by itself, tell us much. States are unlikely to join institutions that require them to do things they have no intention of doing. Indeed, some argue that institutions merely act to screen out those least...
Citation Counts are Like Democracy
There is much gnashing about citations of late. This tweet inspired the ensuing spew below: Formula predicts research papers' future citations https://t.co/4Hy8j3Glqj. I am afraid the citation game is getting out of hand. — John Panaretos (@J_Panaretos) October 5, 2013 But also this series of...
Taboo or Not Taboo?
[Note: This is a guest post by Richard Price, Professor of Political Science at University of British Columbia and author of The Chemical Weapons Taboo.] Counter-intuitively, the first large-scale attack of chemical weapons (CW) in twenty five years is having the effect of actually reinforcing the...
Friday Nerd Blogging: Mashing The Best
Some spoilers below re Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad, but good fun for a Friday chock full of deadlines Still just as much death, perhaps even more....
Chinese Hegemony in Asia is Unlikely, so AirSea Battle Unnecessarily Provokes the Security Dilemma
The following is a re-up of a piece I wrote for the Diplomat last month as part of an informal back-and-forth series with the National Interest this summer on the US pivot to Asia and AirSea Battle. (Here and here are some of the other entries.) That pic, which has got to be the grossest river in...
A Tale of Two Poverties: Sachs versus the world
Interpreting evidence related to poverty and development is never straightforward. Neo-liberal supporters of free market economics tend to point to economic growth as evidence that global inequality is stabilising, while those "closer to the ground" often point out the limitations of economic...
The American Civil War as an Illustration of War to Forestall Adverse Shifts in Power
A prominent "rationalist" explanation for war concerns commitment problems created by the anticipation of rapid shifts in power (see also here and here). When a state expects that the mere passage of time will lead it to fare worse in a potential future war against its rival, the rival's inability...