Radovan Karadzic, the leader of wartime Bosnian Serbs, was a no show today at the opening of his trial at the International Criminal Tribunal on Yugoslavia. He's planning to defend himself against eleven counts of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and other atrocities. The reason for...

The Special Rapporteur's report on "Protecting Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms While Countering Terrorism" is making headlines for something other than countering terrorism - for (gasp) what CNSnews.com reporter Adam Brickley calls "a radical definition of gender" which he notes the UN...

My colleague, Mlada Bukovansky, from Smith College who does excellent work on the evolution of norms and the role of institutions raises some interesting points on the question at the IR Blog. She's cites three recent examples on trade and the environment in which the Obama administration's...

In response to my discussion of his post "The Trouble with Dames in World Politics," Dan Drezner (among other things) challenges me to blog more, and to blog more about the issues directly related to Gender and IR - an encouragement so emphatic that it gets both bold and italic emphases.While I...

I am writing to introduce a new guest blogger to the Duck of Minerva. Jon Western is a Five College Associate Professor based at Mt. Holyoke College and has an extensive background in US foreign policy, including stints at the United States Institute of Peace and at the Department of State during...

The Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy, a group of scholars and foreign affairs experts formed -- or at least solidified -- around the time of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, has issued an open letter to President Obama calling for a rethinking of US policy in Afghanistan. Below the fold...

A reporter for OpenDemocracy spent the month of August touring China, looking for signs of democratization. He finds more than he bargained for: Indeed, in interviewing people from various organisations and from very different perspectives, I was struck by a consistent undertone of worry about the...

Recently, I've been reading and mostly enjoying Fareed Zakaria's The Post-American World. It is a remarkable book, offering sweeping analysis of all sorts of global trends. Not just anyone could have tackled this project and it is definitely to Zakaria's credit that he has put together a...

I am overdue on a journal contribution I need to finish today (hopefully, the editors don't read this blog), but couldn't pass this one up ...Referencing an article in The Daily Telegraph called "Men Lose Their Minds When Speaking to Pretty Women," Dan Drezner writes a blog entry on Foreign...

I didn't get my local newspaper in Blacksburg, and usually use national sources (the New York Times and Wall Street Journal online, mostly) to get my news. Its been awhile, actually, since I've gotten a "local" newspaper (actually, I think, since the Pensacola News Journal where I grew up) and...

In a recent report, Garnter proposes that as corporations try to benefit from the growth of social media they will come to rely more and more on employees with formal, advanced training in the social sciences.Gartner Vice President Kathy Harris discusses in some detail four areas of jobs needed in...

OK, I'm officially back from hiatus after a long summer on the road plus the requisite settling-in period. Getting off the grid for a month and grounding one's experience in the practical aspects of life in a clunker with two kids gives one some perspective. I spent the summer aloof from some of...