Under the Paris Agreement, states submit Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) outlining their commitments to reducing emissions. These documents are important window in the international politicization of climate change policy.
I think a lot of people are kidding themselves about what grand strategy is—it’s worldmaking. It’s an attempt to put the power of the state in service of grand political purpose. States big and...
Professor Helen Kinsella joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Professor Kinsella grew up in Ithaca, New York, and she reflects on what that was like, plus a reluctance or indifference to going to...
The University of Chicago’s Paul Poast claims that G. Lowes Dickinson is was the OG “modern” theo…
This is a guest post from Axel Michaelowa from the University of Zurich. He is also the lead author of the chapter on international agreements in the 5th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This is the second in the series from our Bonn panel on leadership in the...
I am just back from the climate negotiations in Bonn where I organized a side event at the German Development Institute (DIE). The event was co-sponsored by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW). These are my opening and closing remarks from the session. In subsequent days, I'll...
This is a guest post from Hannes Peltonen, Senior Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Tampere The State of the Discipline International Politics/Relations (IR) has allegedly failed, a claim publicized periodically. Barry Buzan and Richard Little began this millennium by...
I must confess. I have not been very productive this last month in the Duck of Minerva. I have been thinking about the topic for my next post and postponing it “till tomorrow”. I have been procrastinating. Procrastination comes from the Latin pro, meaning “forward, forth, or in favor of,”...
It is not easy waking up in America these days. Sunday morning I woke up from a lazy weekend morning to see that a shooter had committed mass murder at a church in Sutherland Springs, TX. The shooter killed 26 people, including several children; the youngest victim was just fourteen months old...
This is a guest post from Katy Collin, who is a post-doctoral research fellow at the Brookings Institution and an adjunct instructor at American University's School of International Service. Her research is on the use of referendums in peace processes. In the last few weeks, international borders...
Today's post is from Bridging the Gap Co-Director Jordan Tama, Associate Professor at American University’s School of International Service. He is working on a book tentatively entitled Bipartisanship in a Polarized Age: When Democrats and Republicans Cooperate on U.S. Foreign Policy. Partisan...
When I was 16, I went to Switzerland. It was my first time outside of the US, and I worried about the normal things that a worry-wart teenager might fret about—Where is my passport? (In my handy-dandy passport holder.) Did I remember to get gifts for all of my family members? (Yes, and you’re...
I am just back from the launch of the Texas National Security Review (TNSR), a new partnership with War on the Rocks and underwritten by my home institution. Forgive the quasi-promotional qualities of this post, as I think the new journal raises fundamental questions about the gated publishing...
This is a co-authored post with Carrie Booth Walling, Associate Professor and Chair of Political Science at Albion College. She is the author of All Necessary Measures: the United Nations and Humanitarian Intervention and articles on human rights trials, mass atrocity crimes, and the Security...
Earlier this year, I wrote a piece for Duck regarding “declinist” arguments about liberal world order under Trump. I don’t think these arguments are going away, and in fact—just this week—they are in the news, and on our blog/twitter feeds (including a great piece posted just last week here on...
This is a guest post, written by Margarita Konaev, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Center for Strategic Studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and Kirstin J.H. Brathwaite, Assistant Professor in the James Madison College at Michigan State University. The...