Robert Kelly used to blog here before he made the big-time on the BBC, so here's a salute via Friday nerd-blogging. BEAUTIFUL pic.twitter.com/EQo7JJJ8gW — Lindsey B (@lindseybieda) March 17, 2017
by Steve Saideman | 17 Mar 2017 | Academia, Featured, Nerdblogging
Robert Kelly used to blog here before he made the big-time on the BBC, so here's a salute via Friday nerd-blogging. BEAUTIFUL pic.twitter.com/EQo7JJJ8gW — Lindsey B (@lindseybieda) March 17, 2017
by Josh Busby | 16 Mar 2017 | Environment & Energy
This is a guest post from Matthew Hoffmann, a Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto The environmental policy pronouncements and orders emanating from the Trump administration are tracking the worst fears and expectations of those concerned by the scorched earth, anti-environmental rhetoric of the Trump campaign. The list of egregious (e.g. defunding Great Lakes restoration), just plain weird (e.g. rolling back the ban on...
by Jeremy Youde | 16 Mar 2017 | Global Health
I’m not going to lie. When I heard that the Trump Administration was going to release its budget blueprint, I didn’t have high hopes for global health. The new administration’s commitment to global health has been ambiguous at best, and early word was that medical and scientific research was in for some massive cuts. So what does the budget blueprint tell us about the future the US’ commitment to global health? It’s not all bad. In fact, for a...
by Josh Busby | 14 Mar 2017 | US Foreign Policy
Following his prescient piece from last year, Tom Wright has a provocative new essay on Donald Trump's foreign policy in Politico. He suggests that Trump foreign policy has Jeckyll and Hyde qualities. While Trump (and Bannon) are committed to a radical vision to upend establishment foreign policy, they hold a minority view in the government. To staff his administration, Trump has largely turned to establishments folks like Mattis, Kelly,...
by Josh Busby | 8 Mar 2017 | Academia
This is a guest post from Ariya Hagh, Andrew Szarejko, and Laila Wahedi. All three authors are doctoral students in Georgetown University’s Department of Government. Author order is alphabetical by last name. In a December 2016 post here at the Duck of Minerva, we considered how a Trump presidency might affect doctoral students within our discipline. We necessarily relied upon statements that Donald Trump and his advisors made before the...
by Alexis Henshaw | 8 Mar 2017 | Academia, Gender
In my previous post, I started a discussion about full-time contingent faculty in the profession. Given that contingent faculty work is very much gendered, I wanted to continue that discussion today with a focus on how the discipline at large can better serve the growing ranks of faculty working off the tenure track. Most of the data I presented in my last post came from the American Political Science Association (APSA) and examined the...
by Lisa Gaufman | 8 Mar 2017 | Academia, Featured, Gender
Women in academia do not enjoy an easy ride. Even though “manel” count at this year’s ISA was much lower, there is still work to be done. Not to mention the recent scandal about the epidemic levels of sexual harassment at the UK universities. But let's rejoice at the thought that a mere hundred years ago things were much worse. My university campus in Bremen has a Lise-Meitner-Strasse and the International Women's Day is a good opportunity to...
by W. Kindred Winecoff | 6 Mar 2017 | States & Regions, US Foreign Policy
This World Politics in a Time of Populist Nationalism (WPTPN) guest post is written by Simon Frankel Pratt, a doctoral candidate at the University of Toronto. His research is on institutional politics, international norms, and the US's security apparatus. For further information, see his website or find him on Twitter (@simon_the_pratt) Unlike other contributions to this essay series, mine will be somewhat more informal in tone. I am going to...
by Jeremy Youde | 4 Mar 2017 | Global Health
There’s a lot of turmoil in global health governance these days, and it looks like it’s only getting more chaotic. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria is hitting the reset button in its quest to identify a new leader “due to issues in the recruitment process”—precisely at a moment when there are real fears about the future of funding for global health initiatives. What’s happening within the Global Fund may at first glance...
by Patrick Thaddeus Jackson | 3 Mar 2017 | Various and Sundry
The Trump Administration's proclamation of "alternative facts" to suit the arguments they wish to make, and the branding of journalistic outlets that demonstrate the inaccuracy of the President's statements as "FAKE NEWS!!!" have prompted me to do something I am not normally inclined to do: to actively campaign for the value and integrity of a broadly scientific approach as an important input to public deliberation. It's not at all that I...
by Heather Roff | 2 Mar 2017 | Academia, Gender, Human Rights, Security, US Foreign Policy
Every day it seems we hear more about the advancements of artificial intelligence (AI), the amazing progress in robotics, and the need for greater technological improvements in defense to “offset” potential adversaries. When all three of these arguments get put together, there appears to be some sort of magic alchemy that results in widely fallacious, and I would say pernicious, claims about the future of war. Much of this has to do,...
by Josh Busby | 2 Mar 2017 | Academia
This is the final post in my series on bridging the policy-academic divide.In my first post, I laid out some principles for academic-policy engagement. In the second, I talked about short-form writing, and in the third, Iong-form writing. In the fourth, I discussed policy-relevant courses and speakers' series. In my fifth, I wrote about grants and consulting. A final step that may be attractive is actual policy service, if only for a short...