Scholars of international relations don’t agree on much, but they at least agree that anarchy (th…
Episode 25: The New Hierarchy Studies
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Recent Posts
What Is . . . and Isn’t . . . a Norm?
The Norm Concept This post, part of the Bridging the Gap channel at the Duck, comes from Michelle Jurkovich, an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts Boston....
Episode 3 – Cian O’Driscoll (part 2)
ian O'Driscoll is a Professor of International Relations, pursuing topics related to Just War, ethics, and international security. In this second part of Brent's interview with...
If you mention the evangelical delegation to Saudi Arabia, I’d have to ask which one
The other day, Emily McFarlan Miller--a journalist with Religion News Service--noted a sense of deja vu. The AP had an article on a delegation of US evangelicals who travelled to Saudi Arabia to...
More Recent Posts
Weekend Omnibus
Slow weekend at the Duck, eh? Some of our bloggers are snowed in. Not sure how to explain the rest of us. I've been playing lots of FTL and working on a manuscript review. And the kid's been sick. So here's some stuff resembling content: More trade networks from Thomas Oatley. Did Steve Walt...
Friday Morning Linkage
Winter Storm Nemo is bearing down on us and everything is shut down up here in the Northeast. No classes and no office hours! Here's the quick snow edition: Why are we now naming winter storms? Canadians dissing on Toronto. Moscow has received its heaviest snow in a century. With pictures. I used...
The New Structuralism in International Relations and its Discontents: Prefatory Remarks
Some years back I participated in a series of workshops that culminated in a book on New Systems Theories of World Politics (value priced at $115). PM and I have been working, somewhat haphazardly, on a review essay dealing with contemporary imperial formations that deals with what I've called the...
How Reality-Based Is the Community?
John Quiggin at Crooked Timber
Thursday linkage
Here are some recent interesting posts and articles focused on 52% of the population: Want a fun and informative procrastination tool? Check out the NYT interactive tool exploring the gender gap in science across the globe. Sarah Rainey of the National Times in Australia wrote an impassioned and...
Apples & Oranges & Women in the Infantry
As the military grapples with how to implement the reversal of the decades old ban on women in “combat” specialties, one of the data points that many people are using (especially in and around the Marine Corps) is the performance of the only two female Lieutenants to have attempted to complete the...
A Duck at Arms: Introducing Our First Military Correspondent
Most of you have probably noticed I've been on something like an indefinite hiatus for the past few months. This is not permanent, but it will likely continue for at least large parts of this semester as I help my daughter through some health issues. In the meantime, it is customary when a...
A Brief Note on the Latest Jared Diamond Controversy
Jordan Ellenberg finds Razib Khan's rant against Jared Diamond's detractors off target. Look, I don't for a minute think that a good deal of the objection to Diamond is anything other than political, but some of it is clearly a controversy of facts and of scientific interpretation. And these both...
Wednesday Morning Omnibus Post
Good morning to the western hemisphere. Today brings with it a whole slew of stuff from the Duck of Minerva. First, I've made some progress in updating the academia page -- our one-stop shop for our ever-popular posts on the academic life. Second, I have a general query about awards. As you may...
The Tragedy of Fragmented Rebellion
Guest Post by Lindsay Heger and Wendy Wong. In a recent and rare speech, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad dug in his heels. While nobody could have realistically expected him to simply walk away from his post or even give much ground to the opposition, negotiations seemed possible. After all, the...
More on Job Talks
My "Death to Job Talks!" provocation has produced some longer-form responses at other Political Science blogs. Jeremy Wallace defends the institution. Tom Pepinsky goes further and argues that "there is no alternative to the academic job talk." Nate Jensen gets to the heat of the matter...
Tuesday Morning Linkage Club
I guess Chuck Hagel's going to be confirmed, so we can return to an all-international edition of linkage. And mostly Asia. Papua New Guinea could finally give us a test of the institutions strain of the resource-curse hypothesis; unlike rich and democratic oil titan Norway, Papua New Guinea is...