While the lead up to tenure is often terrifyingly stressful, even attaining that goal is a bit daunting as it raises the question, "Now what?" I suppose on some level one can then set one's sights on the next thing, Full Professor, but that obviously doesn't have the same significance in terms of career and life trajectory that tenure does. Getting tenure raises all sorts of questions about what you want to be when you grow up, if a life in the...
I had no idea what to expect when I became a parent (who does?), but I was somehow even more baffled by the balancing act/sh@t show involved in transitioning back to work after parental leave. I'm sure my experience isn't unique, and I don't think I was any worse off than other parents or carers, but I was not prepared. Looking back, I realize there are a few key olympic-worthy skills I needed- and attained to make this transition possible. In...
Political science exploded in the news as a grad student and senior prof wrote a piece that made big news and then was revealed (allegedly, apparently, insert legal modifier here) to be fradulent.* * Indeed, I need to insert a caveat here--I have read the retraction letter and related materials but not the original article nor is this in my area of expertise. I am just discussing what it means for other folks in this business. The student may...
Here is a project worthy of interest by those Duck readers who are simultaneously politics and science fiction nerds: a non-profit effort to build a Museum of Science Fiction in Washington, DC. The mission of the Museum of Science Fiction is to create a center of gravity where art and science are powered by imagination. Science fiction is the story of humanity: who we were, who we are, and who we dream to be. The Museum will present this story...
Our new caucus seeks to promote the use of online media in our teaching, research, policy engagement and service. We have a broad imagination both about what we mean by online media and what kinds of papers/panels would be of interest. Online media include social media such as twitter, blogging, facebook, tumblr, and the like, but also the use of the internet for surveys, simulations, data repositories, virtual meetings, and more. We are in...
Last Monday, on May the 4th, citizens around the globe celebrated International Star Wars Day. In honor of this important event, Patrick Thaddeus Jackson and I are pleased to announce an International Studies Association 2016 Conference panel on Star Wars for next year's meeting. We seek paper abstracts examining the relationship between the Star Wars franchise and socio-political dynamics in the area of international security, broadly defined....
I've been MIA of late on the blog, mostly a function of end-of-term obligations. I've led a year-long graduate course on global wildlife conservation (course blog here). If you haven't followed the news of late, iconic wildlife species like rhinos and elephants are threatened with extinction, mostly because rising incomes in China and Vietnam in particular are allowing more people to satisfy their desires for wildlife products. Since the late...
Last Friday, I had the great pleasure to attend a workshop on "The Future of Global Security Studies" at University of Denver's Sie Center for International Security and Diplomacy. The event brought together authors for the inaugral special issue of ISA's new journal, the Journal of Global Security Studies, which promises to showcase new research and new thinking in security studies, but also to bring diverse perspectives into dialogue. As...
For a range of reasons, I have been thinking lately about the relationship between development and security. At one level, the relationship is obvious, if somewhat banal: resources allocated for security (e.g. guns) cannot be used for development purposes (butter). I suspect that for many American IR scholars, and certainly most Americans in security studies, that is the limit of their thinking on the relationship. If we think about security in...
The Department of Defense’s (DoD) new Cyber Strategy is a refinement of past attempts at codifying and understanding the “new terrain” of cybersecurity threats to the United States. While I actually applaud many of the acknowledgements in the new Strategy, I am still highly skeptical of the DoD’s ability to translate words to deeds. In particular, I am so because the entire Strategy is premised on the fact that the “DoD cannot defend every...
This piece raises the question I have been asking for the past week in Brussels: can we credibly commit to the defense of the Baltics? Without a permanent NATO (or at least American) presence, is our Article V commitment (an attack upon one is an attack upon all) believable? There are two ways to look at it. First, to be clear, any nuclear threat is incredible. That is--not to be believed. At any single point, it really is not that...
This past week I was invited to speak as an expert at the United Nations Informal Meeting of Experts under the auspices of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW). The CCW’s purpose is to limit or prohibit certain conventional weapons that are excessively injurious or have indiscriminate effects. The Convention has five additional protocols banning particular weapons, such as blinding lasers and cluster bombs. Last week’s meetings...