A short time from now, at a conference venue far, far away (at least from Amherst, MA...): The papers on this panel examine the relationship between the Star Wars franchise and socio-political dynamics in the area of international security, broadly defined. In other words, this panel focuses specifically on the inter-relationship between pop culture ideas and “real-world” security-seeking processes and practices. The papers span methodological...
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Strategic Surprise? Or The Foreseeable Future
When the Soviets launched Sputnik in 1957, the US was taken off guard. Seriously off guard. While Eisenhower didn't think the pointy satellite was a major strategic threat, the public perception was that it was. The Soviets could launch rockets into space, and if they could do that, they could easily launch nuclear missiles at the US. So, aside from a damaged US ego about losing the “space race,” the strategic landscape shifted quickly and...
The Kurdish Conundrum
Now that Canada has decided to continue to train and support the Kurds in Iraq along with the Iraqi government, the question of the future of the Kurds is being questioned. Indeed, yesterday, I received a phone call from a magazine in Kurdistan asking me about referendums and why some secessionist movements get to become states and others do not. My short answer: "fair ain't got nothing to do with it" which could probably use a bit of...
Why Isn’t There More Public Scrutiny of the U.S. Military?
This is a guest post by Risa Brooks, Associate Professor at Marquette University Americans’ relationship with the military exhibits an odd paradox: the country’s citizens profess to hold deep regard for the military, while in fact knowing little about it and paying minimal attention to its activities at home or abroad. Analysts of U.S. civil-military relations remain seriously concerned about this peculiar mix of societal reverence and...
On The Dynamics of Global Power Politics
This is a guest post by Dan Nexon, Associate Professor in the Department of Government at Georgetown University and Stacie Goddard, Jane Bishop ’51 Associate Professor of Political Science of Wellesley College. In the wake of the Russian Federation’s intervention in Ukraine, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry declared that, “You just don't in the twenty-first century behave in nineteenth-century fashion by invading another country on...
Discussion: Structural Power and the Study of Business
This is a guest post by Randall Germain, Professor of Political Science at Carleton University, as part of the Duck of Minerva’s Symposium on Structural Power and the Study of Business. Links to other posts in the symposium can be found here. A scholar knows he has been around for a while when the problem of structural power re-emerges as a legitimate and worthy subject of research. My graduate education in IR and IPE was pre-occupied with...
PhD-in-Hand? Why?
Inside Higher Ed must be having a slow news week.[1] Today, they are reporting on the APSA 2014-2015 Graduate Placement Survey as if it’s brand new. The report actually came out in early December. Oh, well. When I read the report – and shared it with my grad students –in December, I was struck by something that the Inside Higher Ed editor highlighted today: "More ABDs are starting full job searches, and fewer of those in the expanded pool are...
The Structural Power of Business: Taking Structure, Agency and Ideas Seriously
This is a guest post by David Marsh (Institute of Governance and Policy Analysis, University of Canberra, Australia), Sadiya Akram (Queen Mary College, University of London, UK) and Holly Birkett (Birmingham Business School, UK), as part of the Duck of Minerva’s Symposium on Structural Power and the Study of Business. This post draws on ideas developed at greater length in their article found here. Links to other posts in the symposium can be...
The Multinational Firm and Geopolitics: Europe, Russian Energy, and Power
This is a guest post by Rawi Abdelal, Joseph C. Wilson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, as part of the Duck of Minerva’s Symposium on Structural Power and the Study of Business. This post draws on ideas developed at greater length in Abdelal’s article found here. Links to other posts in the symposium can be found here. Multinational firms produce many of the geopolitical outcomes in which political scientists are...
Why Is the U.S. Still So Important in the Post-Crisis Global Financial System?
This is a post by William Kindred Winecoff, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Indiana University Bloomington, as part of the Duck of Minerva’s Symposium on Structural Power and the Study of Business. This post draws on ideas developed at greater length in Winecoff’s article found here. Links to other posts in the symposium can be found here. A curious thing has happened since the global financial crisis: all of the rising powers that...
Behind Structural Power Lies Structuring Power
This is a guest post by Henry Farrell, Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University, and Abraham Newman, Associate Professor in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and the Government Department at Georgetown University, as part of the Duck of Minerva’s Symposium on Structural Power and the Study of Business. This post draws on ideas developed at greater length in Farrell and...
Structural Power in Latin America
This is a guest post by Tasha Fairfield, Assistant Professor in the Department of International Development at the London School of Economics and Political Science, as part of the Duck of Minerva’s Symposium on Structural Power and the Study of Business. This post draws on ideas developed at greater length in Fairfield’s article found here. Links to other posts in the symposium can be found here. Taxation is a policy area rife with examples...