In this “Whiskey Optional” episode, PTJ facilitates a conversation among four colleagues from dif…
Episode 23: Being Academic and Pandemic Time
read more
Recent Posts
Pressing Politics Panel on the #Metoo Movement
This is a guest post from Sara McLaughlin Mitchell, F. Wendell Miller Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Iowa. This is the second in the series on #metooacademia....
Pressing Politics: The #Metoo movement and the IR Discipline
This is guest post from Nina Hall, an Assistant Professor of International Relations at Johns Hopkins SAIS (tweets @ninawth) and Sarah von Billerbeck is a Lecturer in Politics and International...
Babies R Us
While in the US children are being separated from their parents seeking political asylum and taken to a Walmart prison, some Russian lawmakers are concerned that illegal aliens can enter the country...
More Recent Posts
Jirgamandering
President Hamid Karzai has called another jirga (assembly) to attempt to gain support for the creation of a long-term defensive pact with the United States. The traditional Loya Jirga is a mechanism for legitimizing the creation of a new dynasty or constitutional order in Afghanistan, but it is...
Cringing in Texas
David Bosco has a terrific post (and a promised series) on "Can Conservatives Learn to Love Multilateral Organizations?" (Short answer: no, especially not in an election year). It is a timely entry after the recent Republican debates on US foreign policy, during which the candidates did their very...
Friday Nerd Blogging (Veterans Day Edition)
With approximately 1000 World War II veterans dying every day, and the absolute numbers from more recent wars increasing steadily, it's important to give some thought to what we offer those who have served or are serving... and to what they offer us. On the first score, a new report from Rand...
Tricky Dicks
When I was young (ca. 2001), I was very much in Matt Drudge's target demographic, and for various reasons (I like tabloids, I like celebrity gossip, and I like to keep up with the echo chamber without subscribing to Fox News), I've stayed a loyal Drudge reader for years.Drudge is a window into the...
Being Wrong
Twitter inspired a conversation today with Starbuck about Eliot Cohen, who wrote a very important book on civil-military relation, Supreme Command. It features case studies where civilian leaders over-rode military officers, focusing on Lincoln, Churchill, Clemenceau and Ben-Gurion. Clemenceau...
Productivity Tip of the Day
Over on the other side of the methods divide, Andrew Gelman shares a tip: Caffeine, a lightweight and free app for Macs that keeps them awake even when you haven't clicked on them for a while. But let me double down on Gelman with a tip that, if used improperly, could destroy your computer:...
Hobgoblins of a Little Mind
The US does not negotiate with terrorist groups.*^*This statement does not yet apply to the Haqqani Network in Pakistan; even though its founder and senior leadership have all been individually designated as terrorists. [ Oh, come on Vikash, the US negotiated with "reached out" to that group...
Testing “Go Right” Messaging on Global Warming
On Friday, I gave some remarks in Dallas, Texas to a group of young leaders from different professions as part of the Next Generation Project organized by the Strauss Center for International Security and Law. For this diverse audience, I tested what I described in my last post a "Go Right"...
The Tea Party vs. OWS
The Occupation
Photo: Protester at Zucotti Park, 9/28/11; Credit: David Shankbone/Wikimedia CommonsI support the on-going Occupy Wall Street protests. I do not share the common complaint that the protesters need to formulate a clear list of demands - which is itself a rather odd demand to make of what seems to...
Doom and Gloom 101: Making Weak and Failed States Teachable
Nothing risks inviting cynicism and despair like teaching and learning about failed states. For the second year I'm teaching an upper level International Relations course titled "Weak and Failed States" in the Poli Sci Department at UMass Amherst. Much to the confusion of my students, I introduce...
Feminist Ryan Gosling
And now for something completely different... Feminist Ryan Gosling...