The security dilemma plays a central role in Walt and Mearsheimer’s reading of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But what if they get the security dilemma wrong?
What Walt and Mearsheimer Get Wrong About the Security Dilemma
read more
Recent Posts
Under Pressure
Somewhat cranky and slightly under the weather Putin graced the foreign journalists with his presence for almost 4 hours. Starting right off the bat with some optimistic economic indicators (that he...
Dear Political Science, it is time for a SELF-REFLEXIVE turn!
This is a guest post by Lahoma Thomas, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto. This piece on reflexivity and positionality emerged from a panel she...
So, it’s all just too late, right? Studying climate politics in a time of despair
This is a guest post from Kate Neville, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and School of the Environment at the University of Toronto, and Matthew Hoffmann, a Professor in...
More Recent Posts
Kahl et al. on Iran and US Options
Colin Kahl sent me a list of recent work he's done on the US-Iran standoff. The first is a CNAS report, Risk and Rivalry: Iran, Israel, and the Bomb (PDF). The abstract:As Iran's nuclear progress continues and negotiations fail to reach a breakthrough, the threat of an Israeli preventive strike on...
Head of State
As if controversies over graphic sex, gratuitous nudity and rat torture weren't enough, now this. Yep, that's George W. Bush's head on a spike, in the Game of Thrones Season 1 scene where Joffrey torments his fiance Sansa by forcing her to view various decapitated heads.Fans didn't actually catch...
Bombs into Knives
I've been meaning to write substantive posts about my recent trip to Taiwan, but between the time change, conference prep, and getting sick, I haven't had the time. In the interim, I found a video of the knife-making process at Maester Wu knives on Kinmen. Kinmen (aka Jinmen aka Quemoy) was...
The Fallacy of Own-Termism
A standard critical argument in my field looks something like this:1. Phenomenon X involves A assumptions about the world;2. Approach Y contains assumptions inconsistent with A; therefore3. Y cannot be used to understand X.In some instances, and given some specific conditions, this can be a...
Elinor Ostrom
For the small percentage of our readership that doesn't overlap with that of the Monkey Cage, see its roundup on her passing and a guest post there by Rick Wilson.
More on US Allies (2): A Response to My Critics
I found the above image here. A hat-tip goes to Andrew Sullivan for referencing this debate yet a second time.Here is part one of my response to two recent, heavily-trafficked posts (one, two) on hypothetical retrenchment under Ron Paul. (So yes, that makes 4 total posts, including this one.) I...
The State of the Art in the Social Science of Pop Culture
Slate posted a piece on the academic study of pop culture. It found that academics studied Buffy the Vampire Slayer most. Well, actually, no, it found that more folks studied the Buffy than the Matrix, the Simpsons, Aliens or The Wire.This led to a Facebook discussion of selection bias. We can...
The Trouble with Combining, or Why I’m Not Touting the Global Peace Index
The Institute for Economics and Peace is making a big splash today with the release of the 2012 edition of its annual Global Peace Index (GPI)---"the world's leading measure of global peacefulness," according to its web site. The launch event for the 2012 edition included several people whose...
Five Lessons from “The Hunger Games”
So I recently read Suzanne Collins’ “The Hunger Games” series after being pleasantly surprised by the movie. I easily breezed through all three books on plane rides, on which I prefer reading fiction (yes, even teen fiction) rather than my typical literary fare.Collins is no Steinbeck.Nonetheless,...
Sino-Russian Tensions and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
Alex Cooley -- whose book on power-political competition in Central Asia is due out soon -- had an interesting op-ed in Friday's New York Times. He argues that the apparent success of the 12th Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit masks ongoing Sino-Russian tensions in the region:Since...
A program here, a program there, pretty soon you’re talking a whole government
My GOP gone by, I miss it so.Conservatives are fond of the saying widely, but probably falsely, attributed to Everett Dirksen: "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money." Of course, the saying hasn't kept up to date with inflation or with the growing size of the...
New Political Violence Blog Launched
Barbara Walter and I have started a new blog called Political Violence @ a Glance. Check out the About page to see, well, what we’re about. We have a great group of contributors lined up (including Duck's own contributor Steve Saideman), a handful of posts already published, and plenty more on the...