Initial speculation about Nord Stream reveals both the strengths and limitations of using international-relations models to make sense of unfolding events
Why Would Putin Sabotage Nord Stream?
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Recent Posts
Can researchers be both scholars and activists?
This is a call for a new series that grows out of a panel held at ISA earlier this spring. We have a few posts in process that come from participants on that panel, but we want to open it up to...
The Decision Letter, Part II
The basic principles that should guide letters and their RFDs hold across every kind of decisions. However, we need to recognize important differences between, say, a rejection and an R&R. In...
Changing the discipline through political economy, bodies, and Open Educational Resources
This is a guest post from Matt Evans (mevans8@nwacc.edu), who is Associate Professor of Political Science at Northwest Arkansas Community College. His words represent his own opinions as an...
More Recent Posts
A Quarter-Baked Note on Grand Theory in IR
Political scientists often say that 'no one reads books anymore.' I'd add that 'almost no one reads book reviews.' This is a shame. Although most book reviews are paint-by-numbers affairs, some smuggle in provocative claims or important statements about aspects of the field.* For example, in his...
The Societal Implications of Women in Combat
This is a guest post by Dorit Geva. Geva is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Central European University, and has written a book on conscription politics in France and the United States. Megan H. Mackenzie wrote an earlier post on this topic. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s announcement...
The Minerva Project: Time for a Disciplinary Appraisal?
A little over four years ago the U.S. Department of Defense issued its first Minerva grants. These often substantial awards have produced a significant number of publications by some of the "best and brightest" (including long-term Duck of Minerva guest blogger Josh Busby) in the field and,...
OAIS Awards: Final Countdown for Finalists
Tomorrow is the last day to cast your vote for the finalists in each OAIS Blogging Award category. I am pleasantly surprised by the response rate. Far more people have casts ballots than we anticipated when we rashly decided to start this thing. Please do note that voter registration is closed. We...
Wednesday Morning Linkage
> Anyone have good recommendations for following developments in Iraq? Yeah, remember Iraq? I hear things aren't exactly ice-cream and puppies there. Dan Brumberg and Steve Heydemann have a new Wilson Center report: "Global Authoritarians and the Arab Spring: New Challenges for U.S. Diplomacy."...
Tuesday Afternoon Linkage
Let's get to the news and the comments: Tim Burke talks about the real intersection of science fiction, the great convergence, and international governance [Easily Distracted] Surowiecki talks Boeing and outsourcing [The New Yorker] Have Malian rebels destroyed ancient texts? [The New Yorker]...
Call for papers: European Consortium on Political Research, Sept 4-7
In case folks have missed it, there is an upcoming deadline (FRIDAY!) for the 2013 ECPR General Conference in Bordeaux, September 4-7th. Unlike many other conferences, EPCR paper proposals are submitted to already-organized panels. This often results in more cohesive panels and, one hopes, more...
Perceptions and Opinions of the Cyber Threat
This is a guest post by Brandon Valeriano and Ryan Maness. Cyberwar is a pressing international security problem. The news media breathlessly covers any potential attack before the facts are in. Policy briefs and reports are produced on all levels of government and private industry. It would then...
Obama 2 and Foreign Policy Partisanship: Results of a New Survey of Congressional Staff
Last May, Jon Monten, Will Inboden and I published on Foreignaffairs.com the results of a survey of about 40 U.S. foreign policy professionals, split equally among Republicans and Democrats with nearly all of them having served in some capacity in the Executive Branch. As I discussed here on the...
Do You Need a Pro-Cancer Oncologist? Bias and Human Rights Scholarship
It’s a question faced by scientists daily: if you found that X wasn't associated with Y, would you report it? What if you found that treatment X was harmful to Y, would you report your findings? For example, let’s say you are an oncologist and you just concluded, based on years of research, that...
What Western Analysts Got Wrong About the Israeli Election
This is a guest post by Brent Sasley. Sasley is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Texas at Arlington. He blogs at Mideast Matrix and Open Zion. Follow him on Twitter. The Israeli election results are far messier than anyone had hoped, leading to...
Monday Morning Linkage
North Korea Bruce Cumings' 2005 LRB article "We Look at It and See Ourselves" surely remains one of the best short articles on the Korean peninsula ever written. It is probably worth a revisit as tensions ramp up again. Paul Gottinger provided a good background piece on "South Korea's New Boss"...