Climate change will exacerbate many of the political, social, and economic forces that generate conflict and insecurity – with enormous consequences for humanity.
6+1 Questions about States and Nature
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Recent Posts
The slow death of realism in IR
It seems like good times have come around again for realists. After decades in the theoretical and empirical doldrums (getting end of Cold War wrong, opposition to war in Iraq, terrorism and COIN)...
Is religious freedom just for the faithful?
Yesterday, Michelle Kosinki of CNN reported via Twitter that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was holding a special briefing for "faith-based media" only. She later relayed that the State Department...
How Not to Get Cited
by Steve Saideman Put "do not cite, do not circulate" on your paper. I received a paper for the upcoming ISA which had that instruction on it. I yelled at (ok, I mocked) my students last...
More Recent Posts
Guest Post: Dave Kang – “Is America Listening to its East Asian Allies?”
REK: I am pleased to guest-post my friend Dave’s longer, fuller version of a book review he wrote for CSIS. My thanks to CSIS as well. If you aren’t reading Dave yet, I’d recommend it. “Is America listening to its East Asian allies?: Hugh White’s The China Choice” David C. Kang For all the recent...
Announcing the 2013 Blogging Reception and Awards at ISA
The staff of the Duck of Minerva is very pleased to announce: (1) the first-ever blogging reception at the International Studies Association (ISA) annual convention; and (2) the Online Achievement in International Studies (OAIS) Awards. Thanks to the generous support of SAGE and the efforts of...
Three Things I’d Like to Hear During Tonight’s Debate
I'm guessing we'll get more of the standard fare tonight: that the Benghazi attacks were bad; that Iran has to be deterred (will Romney bring Bibi's bomb sketch?), that Syria is tragic, that the Arab Spring is scary, and that China and Russia are both really mean. Afghanistan...
Monday Morning Stuff: Foreign-Policy Debate Edition
Dan Drezner is very unhappy about the outline for tonight's foreign-policy debate. If he's got the list of sections right, I'll be pretty outraged as well. So I guess we'll just talk the drinking game. My suggestions: take a swig of your favorite beverage whenever you hear: "resolve," "apologize,"...
The Difference Parties Don’t Make?
To the best of my knowledge, no prominent peer-reviewed article in political science has reported a difference in the frequency with which the United States enters into conflict under Democratic presidents relative to Republican presidents. That's not because no one has looked for such a...
The Academic Job Market and The Draft
No, not conscription (see what I did there), but sports drafts where teams take turns picking the next generation of superstars/busts. I am inspired to think about this as October is when anxiety of academic job aspirants begins to spiral. The thread du jour is whether the job market is "fair." ...
Afternoon Video
PG-13 lyrics. Via Kieran Healy.
Saturday Morning Stuff
As readers have likely noticed, we're in the process of shifting from our temporary template to what will likely be our permanent one. Laura S. is still working out some of the glitches created by the shift, such as the fact that our sidebar is displaying below the main blog! It will probably be a...
Guest Post: A Rejoinder to Megan MacKenzie
Guest Post by Andrew Mack, Human Security Report Project. We obviously agree with Megan Mackenzie’s affirmation that the mainstream narrative on wartime sexual violence ignores sexual violence against males and domestic sexual violence––even though the latter is far more prevalent than rape by...
Friday Nerd Blogging
My 10-year-old nugget, who by the way is now also a political commentator you can follow on Twitter, was asking about the official trailer for the new Ender's Game movie - partly because he's inspired by the idea of kids using online media to effect political discourse. Unfortunately there is no...
Friday Morning Linkage
My interview with Madeline Ashby about her debut novel, Vn, is now up at New Books in Science Fiction and Fantasy. Argentina, Australia, Luxembourg, Rwanda, and South Korea elected to UN security council. At Democracy Arsenal Bill French has a two-part (1,2) series on US maritime strategy in the...
International Law and Armed Conflict (Syria version)
The International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) recently determined that the situation in the entire country of Syria can be classified as a non-international armed conflict. While this may not have been news to many watching events unfold there, what makes this statement interesting is that...