The following is a guest post by Margaret Peters, who teaches political economy and migration at Yale University. She is currently finishing her book project When Business Abandoned Immigration: Firms and the Remaking of Globalization." Recent pictures of Syrian refugee crisis from 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi lying dead on a beach in Turkey to migrants sitting in camps in Hungary have increased the calls for the West to “do something.” Instead of...
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Against Policy Relevance: A Polemic
Over on my Facebook feed, there's a good discussion going on about Adam Elkus' "The Problem of Bridging the Gap." Elkus' post amounts to, quite deliberately, a medium-length polemic against "policy relevance." That is, he aims to provoke. For example, Elkus argues that: It judges the value of academic inquiry from the perspective of whether or not it concords with the values, aims, preferences, and policy concerns and goals of a few powerful...
Some Thoughts on the Great APSA Baby Ban of 2015
I don't attend the American Political Science Conference these days (I explained why in this post last year). But many of my colleagues do, so every year at this time I participate vicariously by watching what is going on in my Facebook feed. Yesterday, I was surprised by Page Fortna's status update which read as follows: A new mom attending APSA was denied entry to the book room today because she had her 9 week old with her. They claimed...
Image Voyeurism, Trauma Porn, and ‘Doing Something’…for Yourself
* Please note: I absolutely oppose publishing the image of Aylan Kardi on this website* Since my name is mentioned- and our short twitter exchange highlighted in Annick's previous post as potentially the inspiration point for her piece- I feel I need say something. First, I'll acknowledge that the image we are debating hit me somewhere deep because the boy is the same size and age as my son. Those points of connection made me look at the image...
On doing ‘something’ … as academics
Yesterday the picture of little Alan (previously identified as Aylan), lying dead in the sand on the shores of the Mediterranean, circled the world. It provoked strong reactions from those who 'witnessed' his death in this manner and, not unlike the debates following some of the images shared after 9/11 (I wrote about that then), people questioned the ethics of sharing the images particularly without warning (see replies by some who shared...
The Politics of Resettlement: Migrants vs. Refugees
We are witnessing the horror of war. We see it every day, with fresh pictures of refugees risking their lives on the sea, rather than risking death by shrapnel, bombs, assassination or enslavement. For the past four years, over 11 million Syrians have left their homes; 4 million of them have left Syria altogether. Each day thousands attempt to get to a safer place, a better life for themselves and their children. Each day, the politics of...
Getting Your APSA Preconference On: The Politics of Markets
I just got out of a half-day APSA pre-conference short course on the politics of markets, firms, and interest groups organized by the sociologist Edward Walker and political scientist Patty Strach. Having attended Thad Dunning's short course on natural experiments in the past, I think there is a lot to be said for alternative formats to the traditional panel of papers and discussants. This morning, 9 panelists each reflected on a common set of...
Gearing Up for the Academic Job Market: Getting Your Packet Together
It’s the last weekend in August, which means at least 1 of 2 things are happening: APSA drinking ABDs hurriedly working on their job market materials. Since (a) is still a week away, I thought I’d take a second to offer some unsolicited advice on (b): job market materials. By job market materials, I’m referring to the CV, cover letter, writing sample, teaching portfolio, research statement, transcripts, and letters of recommendation that will...
Friday Nerd Blogging: The End of Summer Movie Season
As the summer movie season ends, it makes sense to bring back Friday Nerd Blogging after spending most Fridays at the theatre. This week's invokes all kinds of IR, including resource conflicts, gender dynamics, and Tom Hardy:
New Evidence on Gender Bias in IR Syllabi
The following is a guest post by Jeff Colgan, Richard Holbrooke Assistant Professor at Brown University, and is @JeffDColgan on Twitter. It’s that time of year again, when professors are designing syllabi as fast as they can with deliberation and care. Recently I analyzed IR syllabi for PhD students. The data suggest a gender bias that instructors could easily correct. The case that gender diversity is good for IR and political science has been...
APSA Tweet Up: Ducks Like Beer
Once again, those poli sci types on twitter (Marc Lynch, Dan Drezner, me, and the other usual suspects) will be meeting up at the APSA on Friday, August 4th from 5:30-7pm at the Parc 55 hotel bar (which I believe is on the second floor) which is across the street from the Hilton. Note that the regular Hilton is undergoing renovation so the usual bar/lobby meeting arrangements will not work this time around.
#BringBackOurGirls, Feminist Solidarity & Intervention – Part Two
My first post on the Duck focused on the emergence of the #BringBackOurGirls hashtag and campaign, pointing also to the ease with which hashtags can get appropriated and campaigns derailed. Yesterday, #BringBackOurGirls Nigeria (@BBOG_Nigeria on twitter) started a one week campaign to mark 500 days since the abduction. Given the continuation of the campaign, in today's post I want to dig a bit deeper in examining the urge to do "something": Why...