In this “Whiskey Optional” episode, PTJ facilitates a conversation among four colleagues from dif…
Episode 23: Being Academic and Pandemic Time
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Recent Posts
Fear-Mongering about U.S. Power
This is a guest post from Clifford Bob, Professor and Chair of Political Science at Duquesne University. A free press is a major check on shoddy government policies and bad ideas, but if...
The State of the Field in Climate and Security
After nearly fifteen years of study, what do we know about the relationship between climate change and security? I recently attended a Woodrow Wilson Center event organized by the Peace Research...
BPM (Beats Per Minute), AIDS Politics in France, and the Lessons for Resistance Today
This is a guest post by Michael Bosia, Associate Professor of Political Science at St. Michael's College in Colchester, Vermont. You can find him on Twitter at @VTPoliticsProf. In December 2001 –...
More Recent Posts
India’s soft power is unclear
India has soft power to the extent that its values, its way of managing its affairs and its vision for the international system are so attractive to other nations that the latter start doing what India wants without India having to use the sticks and carrots of traditional international relations....
Apocalyptic Thinking in IR
I do not see the discussions about zombies as a type of new or out-of-the-box thinking. If anything, the discussions of zombies that I have noted so far are completely "in-the-box" thinking, except with a touch of geeky humor, parody, and wit that is usually lacking in the discipline. In fact, the...
Human Rights: The Last Utopia?
I’ve just finished reading Samuel Moyn’s The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History and would highly recommend it to those interested in rights and norms. I have written a review of it that will eventually appear in the American Historical Review. Meanwhile, for those who just can't wait, my main...
Science Fiction and International Orders – Live Blog [UPDATED]
[podcasts of ProfPTJ and DHN's contributions to the afternoon sessions are now up:PTJ: https://kittenboo.com/blog/2011/02/21/science-fiction-and-international-orders-ptj/DHN: https://kittenboo.com/blog/2011/02/21/science-fiction-and-international-orders-dhn/Also: the sci-fi author part of the...
Science Fiction and International Orders
Today at the LSE there are two fabulous (read: fabulously nerdy) events on Science Fiction and IR. Even better, it's full of ducks! The event was organized by Chris Brown and features Dan Nexon and Prof PTJ. The first event, chaired by Chris Brown, features three prominent Science Fiction authors:...
Getting Slizzerd with the Red Cross: Disasters and/in Social Networking
This is not my usual forte – Charli is much better on NGOs, networks and social things. (I just like tweeting.) However, last night when I checked my twitter, a fairly odd message came up from the American Red Cross:Slightly different from their usual “please donate blood” or “how are you...
Obama and Egypt: The Power of Inception?
On 4 June 2009 US President Obama went to Cairo to make a speech to the Muslim world, where, among other things, he addressed the question of political reform and democracy in the Middle East. In February 2011 one Al-Jazeera columnist has associated the tumultuous changes in Egypt and Tunisia to...
We are all Khaled Said, We are all Mohammed Bouazizi
Apparently separate and relatively peaceful revolutions have now toppled dictatorial regimes in two North African states. What provoked these events? While there are a wide range of political and economic factors as well as organizations that had been building for years, the proximate causes that...
Wikileaks, the Daily Telegraph and the ‘Special Relationship’
In his Introduction to the recent New York Times collection of materials on Wikileaks, Open Secrets Bill Keller comments on the way in which the newspapers involved shaped the leaks in accordance with their own agendas. Thus, the Guardian gave extensive coverage to leaked US army accounts of...
New book – Radicalisation and Media – out now
Routledge has published Radicalisation and Media: Connectivity and Terrorism in the New Media Ecology, co-authored by Akil Awan, Andrew Hoskins and Ben O’Loughlin. The book presents results from our two-year ESRC-funded project on Radicalisation & Violence, which was awarded the maximum...
“State” Multiculturalism
This is England?I woke up this morning to discover that apparently “state multiculturalism” has failed. According to Prime Minister David Cameron:...when a white person holds objectionable views, racist views for instance, we rightly condemn them. But when equally unacceptable views or practices...
Organizing the Revolution
When I taught for three years at the American University in Cairo, my partner, who was conducting her doctoral dissertation research on Islamist political parties, would often get text messages from the Muslim Brotherhood informing us of interesting programs we might want to watch on satellite...