Jarrod is joined by Daniela Lai and Adam Lerner to talk about the role of big questions in IR scholarship and teaching.
Does IR ask big questions?
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Recent Posts
Pull the Alarm? The Coronavirus as a Global Emergency
In my first post on the coronavirus outbreak, I reviewed the nature of the disease. Here, I want to ask and answer the first of four questions I posed about whether a global public health emergency...
The Coronavirus: Global Health is High Politics
Even if you don't study global health, you've probably been following the coronavirus outbreak in China with a mix of dread and fascination. Li Wenliang, the whistleblower Chinese doctor, who...
Are the liberal internationalists wrong? On “being nice” and US foreign policy
I got an alert from the Foreign Policy app on my phone the other day: Tunisia had fired its UN ambassador after he opposed Trump's Israel-Palestine "peace plan." Tunisian foreign policy doesn't...
More Recent Posts
Nerd-Inflected Wednesday Linkage
The difference between pets in Diablo III and Torchlight II. Blah blah blah Game of Thrones blah blah credible commitments blah blah blah prisoners' dilemma. Taylor Fravel says that China hasn't abandoned no-first use. Pavel Podvig demolishes "SDI ended the Cold War" claptrap. Key graf: "The...
Talking Academic Journals: Collecting Data
Note: this is the first in what I hope will be a series of posts opening up issues relating to journal process for general discussion by the international-studies community. Although many readers already know the relevant information, let me preface this post with some context. I am the incoming...
Monday Morning Linkage
Good morning... These aren't the linkages you're looking for... Owen Jones reviews the hierarchy of death in the wake of the Boston bombing or what Judith Butler, in Frames of War, might call (un)grievable lives. Deepak Sarma at Racialicious writes about "Being Brown After the Boston Bomb Blast."...
Linkage Week in Review
Our readers may have noticed the lack of Saturday linkage. I was at the MD/PA/WV/VA combined state Tumbling and Trampoline state championships, in a facility with Faraday-cage properties. I am pleased to say that my daughter qualified for National Junior Olympics in her two main events --...
An Actual Expert on the Caucasus….
Charles King at The Daily Beast: In other words, the focus now should be on the Tsarnaevs as homegrown terrorists, not on the ethnic or regional origins of their family. Journalists’ initial conversations with family members in Dagestan amplify that point: a sense of shock that two nice boys who...
Brief Notes on 4/15
Boston on lockdown. One suspect dead. One--apparently a CRLS graduate--still at large. The fact is that we still don't have adequate information for much in the way of meaningful speculation. But I do think it useful to call attention to three related issues: One of the major memes developing...
Thursday Morning Linkage
On this awful news week, I'm feeling like some Thursday Morning Linkage needs a little opening joy before launching into the useful reads of the week: Here are some useful Africa-centric readings on this awful, awful news week: Cullen Hendrix examines the links between food price rises, regime...
2013 Yale Ferguson Award: Call for Nominations
The Yale H. Ferguson Book Award The Yale H. Ferguson award, presented by International Studies Association-Northeast, recognizes the book that most advances the vibrancy of international studies as a pluralist discipline. Any book or edited volume published within the field of international...
The Syria Endgame: A Way Forward
With the increased likelihood that Assad will fall, even were he to hang on until a Gaddafi-style bitter end, pressure is mounting on the U.S., Europe, and Turkey inter alia to come up with a game plan for the post-endgame. The good news is progress is rapidly being made: stepped up aid from...
Why I’m not Blogging about 4/15
Because we don't know enough to engage in anything resembling responsible commentary. And those things that we can say something worthwhile about--including comparisons with other terrorist attacks past and present, such as what happened on the same day in Iraq; and the socio-political dynamics of...
Tuesday Morning Linkage Club
Via Marginal Revolution, the always-interesting Xavier Marquez writes about Randall Collins' sociology. [Abandoned Footnotes] Obama staffers find jobs in white-shoe Washington. It turns out that the new boss is much the same as the old boss [The New Republic] Phil Schrodt talks about GDELT: Global...
What if US/Japan Try to Shoot Down a North Korean Missile & They Miss?
If the Japanese miss but take out MTV & Jersey Shore instead, that would still be ok I think my toaster has more computing power than that guidance system… I thought the North Koreans would launch a test missile on the ‘Day of the Sun’ – that would be Kim Il Sung’s birthday for you...