Foreign Affairs ran a poll on the question. A few of us expressed skepticism about the debate itself.
Was NATO expansion a mistake?
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Recent Posts
Blogger’s Block: The History of the End?
I have had trouble blogging this past year. It's a challenge to think about academically informed observations on contemporary global politics when the world is in some places literally on fire and...
Writing Wednesday: Roadblock
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...
What makes international order, liberal?
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...
More Recent Posts
Romney is Alone in His Fear of Russia
Per Dan's post below, I don't understand why Russia is our number-one enemy, either today or ten years from now. Neither, it seems, do Americans, who have only noticed Russia's phantom menace at one period in the past several years--immediately after the invasion of Georgia in 2008. Below, polling...
Guest Post: Dave Kang – “Confucian North Korea”
I am happy to guest post my friend Dave Kang of the University of Southern California. I think Dave’s work on east Asia and IR theory is excellent; I would start with this or this if you’re interested. REKConfucian North KoreaFigure 1. Korean Worker’s Party symbolIt is easy to caricature North...
Podcast No. 2: Phil Arena on Formal Models, Civil Wars, and the Democratic Peace
2012 interview with Phil Arena.
Summer Reading Recommendation, Mithras Edition
The running through of the bullsSomeone asked me the other day whether I had read any books for fun recently. Caught up as I was in compiling the lit review for one project and writing lectures for an introductory class, I couldn't think of anything--the words "fun" and "reading" at the moment...
“Have foresight and it’s real”: Carly Rae Jepsen And The Problem of Asymmetric Information
The logic of inappropriatenessBelow, Scott Weiner argues that Carly Rae Jepsen's song "Call Me Maybe" is an illustration of the dynamics of standard game-theory models, specifically the prisoner's dilemma and stag hunt. Weiner assumes that Jepsen is a rational actor, that both Jepsen and her beau...
Podcasts and Space Hamsters and Shoulder Dragons, oh my!
The very first Duck of Minerva podcast. Featuring PTJ and Dan.
Collective action and the end of the world
Today I gave a lecture on the environment and the dilemmas of collective action in my course on Introduction to International Relations. Despite the best efforts of St. Elinor (the patron saint of political science and my alma mater), I'm still a fairly pessimistic adherent to Mancur Olson's...
Wednesday Afternoon Video
UN as Daddy Day Care
Romney apparently said today "we've been 'turning to the United Nations' to 'raise our kids.'"I don't know if this is true,* but it raises a variety of questions/thoughts:Does the UN have stock in ink? Kids today seem to like tattoos. What is the curriculum include at UN Day Care?Learning How to...
Working Papers
I have bowed to popular demand responded to a small number of requests by creating a page (also accessible via a tab above) to host PDF versions of working papers posted at the Duck of Minerva. The page currently has links to three pieces, including compilations of Stuart J. Kaufman's and Patrick...
Chicago CFR Survey Says….
A majority of Americans support a no-fly zone in Syria. I expect that "no-fly zone" comes across as a relatively anodyne, costless policy to the US public. And, indeed, most of the policies that would be required to make such a zone work poll considerably less well. UPDATE: (via) Daniel Larson...
Scenes from the National Museum of Scotland, Part the First
Photo by AuthorI didn't find it terribly surprising that Scotland's National Museum presents the industrial revolution as an important component of Scottish national identity. After all, what better way to combat the anti-Pict stereotypes peddled in such racially insensitive works as Brave than to...