A distinctly unoriginal take on the pathologies of overvaluing academic “novelty.”
Get off my lawn! Are journal demands for “novelty” creating a culture of low-level academic dishonesty?
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Recent Posts
Episode 7: A Relational Theory of World Politics, part 1
Yaqing Qin’s book marks, according to Astrid Nordin, a long-awaited “full-length English-language…
Will Covid-19 reshape government-NGO relations? Observations from India
This is a guest post from Suparna Chaudhry, incoming Assistant Professor of International Affairs at Lewis & Clark College. Her research focuses on human rights, international law, and political...
Why are Egypt&Turkey sending medical equipment to the US? International Status and lazy explanations in IR
Like so much else in international relations, the answer to this question seems "obvious." But, like so much else, it gets trickier when we really investigate the situation, and it reveals nuances...
More Recent Posts
Syria: Intervening Not Now But Later
A full-scale US military intervention in Syria is off the table, as is a no-fly zone. The US decision to provide arms to Syrian opposition forces is nonetheless intended to shift the military initiative away from Assad regime. But the opposition is splintered, which has allowed the...
Friday Nerd Blogging: The Chosen One
If there is one bit of recent pop culture that will have enduring value as a common reference in the classroom, it is almost certainly Harry Potter.* Since his fictional 33rd birthday was this week, here's this week's FNB: * Not to mention that our Father Duck co-edited a volume on HP and...
Put Middle East Peace Process to a Vote
Always good to start out blogging with a non-controversial topic, like the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. But just before the Israeli Knesset went into recess, they advanced a bill requiring that any land ceded in a peace process be approved in a national referendum. The bill could become a...
Friday Morning Linkage
Still trying to make sense of Benghazi. Some inside info on the mixed messages coming from Obama's Syrian policy. Meanwhile, Assad opens an Instagram account. More mixed messages from the Obama administration on drones, too. This can't be good. A lot of congressional staffers don't see a link...
Thursday Midmorning Linkage
Here is your Thursday late morning linkage. Let's start with a couple of stories about getting out to the field. Kim Yi Dionne writes about the challenges of taking her toddler to Malawi during field work (on second thought, maybe not!) U.S. diplomats confined to Kabul and can't visit aid projects...
What Should You Read on Cyber Security?
Editor's Note: This is a guest post by Brandon Valeriano of the University of Glasgow and Ryan C. Manes of the University of Chicago, Illinois. Brandon asked if we could run a bibliography on Cyber Security, and we happily agreed. If anyone else is interested in submitting bibliographies to be...
What Caused the Iraq War? David Lake Replies to Debs and Monteiro (Part II)
That one can pose a rational model that predicts preventive war does not make it the right model or necessarily do justice to the facts of the case.
Time to Put “Dying to Win” out to Pasture?
This is a guest post by Peter S. Henne. Peter received his PhD from Georgetown University in May 2013, and was a Fellow at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia during 2012-2013; he is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses...
Déjà Vu in Zimbabwe
Polling stations are opening in Zimbabwe, and, if one's Facebook feed is to be believed, some enthusiastic voters have already spent a few hours queueing (and winter mornings in Zimbabwe are *cold*). Today's elections are notable for a few reasons: they're the first elections since extensive...
Guantanamo in the Rearview Mirror
Here at the Duck and elsewhere, there has been much discussion of the gaps between academia and the policy world. I took part in a program that seeks to bridge that gap--the Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship--which I have mentioned here before. One thing I did not...
What Caused the Iraq War? A Debate (Part I)
Editor's Note: This is a guest post by Alexandre Debs and Nuno P. Monteiro, both of Yale University. In it, they discuss the causes of the Iraq War, a subject of some recent discussion at The Duck of Minerva. This post discusses their forthcoming International...
Tiwesdæg: the Left-hand of Linkage
Discussion has picked up again on Elizabeth Saunders' guest post, "How Would Al Gore Have Fought the Iraq War." I think it worth clarifying that Elizabeth's piece does, as I read it, two things. First, it extends the debate by asking, in essence, "if we believe that parallel-universe President...