This is a guest post by both Nexon and Patrick Thaddeus Jackson. Standard disclaimers apply. Cullen Hendrix's guest post is a must read for anyone interested in citation metrics and international-relations scholarship. Among other things, Hendrix provides critical benchmark data for those interested in assessing performance using Google Scholar. We love the post, but we worry about an issue that it raises. Hendrix opens with a powerful...
Displaying Results for ""
Debating Covert Intervention and the Democratic Peace
One reason that Patrick I stepped down as a permanent contributors to the Duck of Minerva was to develop ISQ Online as a forum for intellectual exchange surrounding International Studies Quarterly pieces. I think readers of the Duck will find the exchanges there interesting, and so I'll be using (abusing?) my 'standing guest' privileges to call attention to them. ISQ recently published—on early view—a piece by Michael Poznansky entitled...
Policymaking Gone Global: Learning to Work with NGOs
Policy schools prepare students to work in the public policy realm, most often training students for positions in government. But policymaking is an increasingly diverse field, policy issues span the globe and multiple--state and non-state--actors take part in decision-making and policy implementation. How should we teach global policy-making in policy schools? In a recent article co-authored with Cristina M. Balboa, Policymaking in the Global...
Foreign Policy and the First GOP Debate
So, with the conclusion of last night's first GOP debate, it's worth a look back at the foreign policy claims made by the candidates for the Republican nomination for president. The focus was, as much of the election race will be, focused on domestic policy, but there's still some stuff worth analyzing. I'll be working off of the debate transcript posted by Time. The first foreign policy question was directed at Senator Rand Paul: BAIER:...
Google Scholar Metrics and Scholarly Productivity in International Relations
The following is a guest post by Cullen Hendrix of the University of Denver. If you’ve read or seen Moneyball, the following anecdote will be familiar to you: Baseball is a complex sport requiring a diverse, often hard-to-quantify[1] skillset. Before the 2000s, baseball talent scouts relied heavily on a variety of heuristics marked by varying degrees of sanity: whether the player had a toned physique, whether the player had an attractive...
Open Foreign Policy Thread Tonight on GOP Debate
I will be live-tweeting the foreign policy dimensions of the GOP debate tonight here. Readers may want to chime in here on this open thread with the pre-, during, and post-debate reactions. It may be the silly season in the GOP primary, but with the Iran deal pending before Congress, these are consequential times. Yesterday, I live tweeted President Obama's address on Iran and will be synthesizing my observations on the deal and the politics...
The Duck-Cat of Minerva
I want readers to know that I would never, ever link to a Buzzfeed video. Unless, of course, the video included footage of Ifrit. He receives about three seconds of fame — starting at about a minute in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP8RbfSgZtw
Gearing Yourself Up For the Academic Job Market: Before You Go on the Market
In our last installment, I indicated that this edition of Gearing Yourself Up would include a discussion of how to put together your job market packet. I think I jumped-the-gun a bit, however. Before putting together your packet, before trying to log on to APSA and navigate eJobs, before telling your family/friends that you are looking for jobs in academia[1], you need to do one crucial thing: You need to have a heart-to-heart with your...
What’s an expert?
Yesterday’s post Confidence and Gender in International Relations got me thinking. The post draws on the excellent survey data from the Teaching, Research, and International Policy (TRIP) project at William and Mary’s Institute for the Theory & Practice of International Relations and notes that in the snap polls conducted by the project over the last year, women international relations scholars choose the response “I don’t know” more often...
Confidence and Gender in International Relations
The following is a guest post by Rachel Merriman-Goldring, Susan Nelson, Hannah S. Petrie at William and Mary's Institute for the Theory & Practice of International Relations. For decades, survey research has suggested that women lack confidence in their answers, responding ‘don’t know’ or ‘maybe’ at significantly higher rates than their male counterparts. Initially, this trend on political surveys was attributed to topic-specific political...
Understanding the Emotional Impacts of Ebola: moving beyond crisis and stats to stories
This is a guest post by Dehunge Shiaka, researcher and gender expert in Freetown Sierra Leone What are the emotional and psycho-social impacts of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa? With much of the media attention on the medical, international, and civil-military response to Ebola, this is a question that has largely been unaddressed. Yet it is inevitable that a virus that ravaged communities, halted economies, and killed thousands in a region...
PETA’s Shock Tactics: Irresponsible Advocacy or Strategy and Positioning?-Part 2
[As two fellow NGO researchers, Wendy and Maryam are going to collaborate on some posts to provide contrasting views on hot-button issues related to NGOs. Think of us as the Siskel and Ebert of NGOs - we definitely agree on certain things, but clearly not on others (and don’t ask who’s who). Our points of view will not always reflect what we personally think of an issue--we need drama and suspense!--but we will always provide food for thought.]...