What is the topography of international-relations theory in the People’s Republic of China? What …
Episode 24: International Relations in China
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Recent Posts
Syllabus Musing—can we teach foreign policy without paradigms?
As a new postdoc to the Kinder Insitute, I have the good fortune not to be teaching this semester. In addition to working on my book manuscript—more on that later—I have been spending a good deal of...
With Arms Sales, “It’s Not Just the Economy, Stupid”
This post comes from Jennifer Spindel, Assistant Professor in the Department of International and Area Studies at the University of Oklahoma and a 2018 participant in Bridging the Gap's New Era...
This Blog Post is About Conference Program Selection
This is a guest post from Jonathan D. Caverley, Associate Professor at the Naval War College and Research Scientist at MIT, and Monica Duffy Toft, Professor at Tufts University, Fletcher School of...
More Recent Posts
Some IR Thoughts on the GOP Debate Marathon
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The Monopoly
Why should academics and policymakers prioritize a state's acquistion of "... the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory"? Obviously, this monopoly is fundamental to masking the violence of the state in daily domestic affairs, but what about in areas where that...
Some Political Science Thoughts on the GOP Debate Marathon
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Cyber Nerd Blogging: Neuroscience, Conflict and Security
Antoine Bousquet has a fascinating post at Disorder of Things on developments in neuroscience and how they are being used by militaries to 1) enhance their own soldiers and 2) degrade the abilities of their opponents. The post is in response to a report by The Royal Society on Neuroscience,...
In Social Science, You’re always Under-read, so How do you Choose ? (2)
Here is part one, where I noted Walt, the Duck, and Walter Russell Mead as the IR blogs I read almost always despite the avalanche of international affairs blogs now. Here are a few more: Martin Wolf: Here’s a grad school education in IPE, op-ed by op-ed, better day-to-day than either Krugman or...
In Social Science, You’re always Under-read, so How do You Choose ? (1)
If there is one constant to modern social science, it is that you are always under-read. There is always some critical book you missed, some article you never had time for, some classic of which you only read the first and last chapters in grad school. And this is just the modern work immediately...
War Crimes and the Arab Spring. Again.
The direct targeting of actors protected under the laws of war has been one of the most disturbing trends arising out of the Arab Spring. For example, the targeting of medical workers and ambulance drivers was well documented and reported on last year. Additionally, here at the Duck we've been...
Abusers’ Peace?
In reaction to Charli's provocative February 20 post on the constructivist peace, I left a number of questions in comments. Since more people read the blog than read the comments, I thought it was worthwhile to put them on the front page as a separate post. Thus, if you are interested, click...
Vietnam PS Impressions (2): GDR in the Jungle
Here is part one, where I noted how much the communist super-idolization of leaders like Ho and Mao weirds me out. Here are a few more social science impressions from our university trip:4. What is it about communist states and concrete? Ech. It is so ugly and awful-looking. And it looks even...
More on Gotovina
Ante GotovinaLast week I wrote about targeting and mentioned the Gotovina Case. This case has become interesting for those interested in international law and post-conflict justice because of the decision of the court (among other things) effectively states that a 4% error rate in targeting in a...
Tackling the challenges of Big Data
This is what I'm talking about:City University London's Centre for Information Leadership is hosting this free symposium to bring together academics and practitioners from across industry to tackle the challenges posed by "big data" - the growing amount of information that needs to be stored,...
Even Uncle Ho’s Hand-Weights Contributed to the Revolution (1)
Our social science faculty association organized a trip to Vietnam last week. It was pretty fascinating. It was my first trip, and I don’t speak the language, so obviously I am qualified to generalize wildly about it now. As Gabriel Almond once quipped, ‘you should never generalize about a country...