Most versions of the left gain little and sacrifice much in accepting a realist epistemology. Theories of international relations are just tools for making sense of patterns and puzzles in the world; they don’t need groupies.
I am at roadbloack in my book proposal. This is normal, insofar as most writing projects will hit roadblocks from time to time. But I wanted to take a quick moment and unpack what it is, and note...
Over the weekend IR Twitter was abuzz with both the Red Sox winning the world series and a multi-threaded discussion on liberal international order. Regarding the former I have very little to say...
America is reeling from the horrific attack on a synagogue in Pennsylvania, in which an anti-Semitic man killed 11 people. And we were already reeling from a series of attempted mail bomb attacks by...
It's time for the annual Asian multilateral alphabet soup round up... Long story short: APEC's proposed Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP), the US backed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and the Chinese backed Tripartite Agreement all appear to have lost some of their thunder to the...
This is my final post about NK; here is one, two, and three. The post title comes from a remark a local guide made to me, and that is the standard KIS image in the pic.7. The Korean People’s Army is pretty much everywhere.This is easily the most militarized state I’ve ever been in. Soldiers and...
2012 interview with Alexander Cooley, focused on Central Asian politics.
There is KJI in the middle – he was even born in uniform Actually, he was probably born in the USSR during the war. Here are parts one and two of this series. 5. Pyongyang the Potemkin Village? The usual line is that Pyongyang is a potemkin village compared to the rest of the country. I can’t...
I have 50+ similar pictures of me standing with KIS murals, statues, busts...I went to NK this summer. In my first post, I noted how NK should probably be re-named Kim-land. Here are some more impressions:1.a. Kim Jong Un was not so emphasized.In passing, it is worth noting that KJU was not...
My North Korean VisaIn August, I visited North Korea for the first time. It was the most unique travelling experience I’ve ever had. I’d certainly recommend it to political scientists and Asia experts, but it wasn’t anything close to a ‘vacation’ or break or anything like that. (Yes, some of the...
Dear Leader Kim Jong Un addresses the ruling partyI didn't watch the Republican Convention last night, because I'm not getting paid to do so. I understand that conservatives think it was a hit and liberals a travesty, although the Romney-Ryan campaign's invocation of AC/DC to prove their cool guy...
With the loss of the drinking intellectual stimulation that comes from APSA, I'm in need of some inspiration to kick start the semester that begins next week. We all know that academic life is full of adventure, comedy, human drama, and conflict. So, it shouldn't be too difficult to find a decent...
Even the Evil League of Evil has peer review.One of the laziest sneers directed at us social scientists who use math and statistics in our research is that we suffer from "physics envy."Ha! It sounds like penis envy! It's a quip that will slay them dead around the seminar table!Well, I do use math...
PTJ and Dan discuss academic administration and the foreign-policy rhetoric of the 2012 campaign.
Who will win in a world of .... LASER CATS andhegemonic stability theory?In an interesting thought experiment at Foreign Policy, James R. Holmes (an associate professor at the Naval War College) asks whether China could take Japan on the high seas.In July, China's East Sea Fleet conducted an...
The caption for this photo is, no joke, "All the experts posing for a group photo after the event."So, here's all the experts.Conventional wisdom from a foreign-policy expert: It is one of the truisms of our time that because of the sensational development of communications and transportation, the...