So far, 2017 has been a tough year in Israel for its Palestinian citizen minority. From a xenophobic billboard campaign across the country to a village demolition turned violent in the Negev, the past several weeks have highlighted issues around power and inequality in a country whose democratic aspirations are weighed down by its ethno-national identity. As deep power differentials across society have come to the fore, what does the...
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Trump Wants People to “Study the World!” IR Scholars Can Jump All over This.
"Study the world!" brayed Trump on Twitter last week, in defense of his travel ban. Dan Drezner, who studies the world for a living, shot back: "I have studied it, and I can tell you with some certainty that your words and actions have harmed US national security." On Facebook, I've seen friends and colleagues with PhDs in international relations post their own versions of Dan's tweet: Andrew Moravcsik: "I have studied the world, and people who...
Congress is Trying to Remove Bannon from the National Security Council. Here’s Why It Matters.
While national security lawyers argue over whether Steve Bannon's appointment to the National Security Council is legal or not, members of Congress are pushing back to close whatever statutory loophole even might render legal what is clearly a violation of long-standing national security norms. In one of last week's most under-reported stories in the major press, bills were introduced into both the House of Representatives and the US Senate...
What’s worse, looking jealous or crazy?
When President Trump and Press Secretary Spicer started to insist that the protest against Muslim ban [that is not a ban] was paid for, it rang a bell. This kind of rhetoric is a textbook reaction from an autocratic ruler who cannot believe that people would care enough about human rights to go out on the streets on their own. Unfortunately for all the autocrats in the world, people would. The success of the protest is hard to predict,...
Does Bannon’s Appointment to the NSC/PC Require Senate Confirmation? Perhaps A Judge Should Decide.
Retired U.S. Navy Admiral Mike Mullen published an op-ed in today's New York Times calling for the removal of Steve Bannon from the National Security Council Principals Committee, a position he apparently obtained without Trump being fully briefed. According to Mullen: "Having Mr. Bannon as a voting member of the Principals Committee will have a negative influence on what is supposed to be a candid, nonpartisan deliberation. I fear that it will...
Trump and the move away from the sitcom approach to foreign policy
If the United States is Blossom, then Australia is Six. If the United States is Alex P. Keaton, then Australia is Skippy (not this Skippy). These relationships make understanding the recent dust-up between Donald Trump and Australian Prime Minister (no, not president—though republicanism remains a perenially-debated issue) Malcolm Turnbull (no, not Trumble). Last Saturday, Trump and Turnbull had a phone call. In and of itself, this is not...
Travel Ban Lifted in Early Victory for Non-Violent-Resistance to Trump
My colleague Erica Chenoweth has a great article in The Guardian today on the power of non-violent resistance: Many people across the United States are despondent about the new president – and the threat to democracy his rise could represent. But they shouldn’t be. At no time in recorded history have people been more equipped to effectively resist injustice using civil resistance... Historical studies suggest that it takes 3.5% of a population...
Scientists Will March on Washington on April, 22. International Relations Scholars Should Join Them.
As became clear earlier this week in the discussion around how academic associations should respond to Trump's travel ban in organizing their annual meetings, President Trump's policy does not only affect national and religious minorities; it does not only affect scientists from Muslim-majority countries. In the case of the travel ban, it is also an existential attack on scientific inquiry - inhibiting scholarly collaboration and exchange on...
Bannon’s Incoherent Vision of Disruption
In 2013, Bannon is reported to have told Ron Radosh of the Daily Beast that he was a Leninist. He is quoted as saying “Lenin wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.” Yet this is such an odd thing to tell someone, particularly a journalist, when one’s very wealth, political power and caché depend on the very institution that he wants to destroy. ...
Announcement: Online Achievement in International Studies Reception and Winners of the Duckies
On behalf of the Online Media Caucus of ISA, I’m happy to announce the following shortlist (in no particular order) for this year’s Online Achievement in International Studies Awards (The Duckies): Best Blog (Group) in International Studies Progress in Political Economy (PPe) Political Violence at a Glance Best Blog (Individual) in International Studies Peter Trumbore Raul Pacheco-Vega Best Blog Post in International Studies Gareth...
A Drinking Person’s Guide to the Resistance
A guest post by Layna Mosley,* Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (*with contributions from Jeff Colgan, Beth Copelovitch, Mark Copelovitch, Artie G, Anna Grzymala-Busse, Roger Halchin, Andrew Herring , Steph Jeffries, Julia Lynch, Jon Pevehouse, Milada Vachudova, Erik Voeten and Christopher Zorn) President Trump’s proposed economic policies may be bad news for some businesses, like US...
Talk Intel To Me
I remember laughing about an article in The Medium about a TV Sitcom that triggered the downfall of Western Civilization. In case you were wondering, it’s Friends with its “tragic hero” Ross Geller. The author lamented the awful mistreatment of the most cerebral character on the show that signified the harsh embrace of anti-intellectualism in America in the early 2000s. For instance, most of Ross’s academic stories were cut off by his bored...