A friend of mine mis-typed Sharknado and found this: And, of course, as someone who co-authored a book on NATO, I could not help but consider the picture and then over-analyze. Specifically, the Dave and Steve book considers, among other things, the caveats or restrictions that countries placed on their contingents in Afghanistan and missions near/over Libya. So, the natural (natural to me, anyway) question to consider are the various...
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Are Germans Against Upholding NATO’s Article V Commitments?
A recent Pew poll says that they are. According to Pew, "at least half of Germans, French and Italians say their country should not use military force to defend a NATO ally if attacked by Russia." Indeed, the news is grim. The public release informs us that, "Americans and Canadians are the only publics where more than half think their country should use military action if Russia attacks a fellow NATO member (56% and 53%, respectively)....
Blogging the Gap
Yesterday, I had the chance to participate in the Bridging the Gap workshop led by Bruce Jentleson. It is an effort every summer to help younger scholars figure out how to engage the policy world in a variety of ways, including figuring out how to write and publish op-eds, how to get into government for short periods of time (like the Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship that changed my career/life), how to engage...
Additional Arguments Against Legalizing the Trade in Rhino Horn Pt. 3
In my last two posts (here, here), I wrote about a recent Foreign Affairs piece that proposed lifting the ban on trading rhino horn and the political and substantive reasons why such an idea is problematic. Are there reasons to think that a one-off sale or even a permanent normalization of the trade might go well? While Save the Rhino is against one-off sales, it is a little more equivocal on a semi-permanent regulation of the trade (though I...
Arguments Against Legalizing the Rhino Horn Trade Pt. 2
In my last post, I reacted to a Foreign Affairs piece that suggested lifting the ban on rhino horn, as South Africa has toyed with in the lead up to the 2016 CITES meeting it will host. Whether or not this would be a one-off sale like the one for ivory in 2008 or more of a permanent lifting of the trade ban is uncertain. A committee in South Africa is currently reviewing evidence and accepting testimony on the topic. Though South Africa is home...
Legalizing the Rhino Horn Trade: A Terrible Idea? Pt. 1
Two weeks ago, I came cross a provocative piece (paywall, free version here) Foreign Affairs published earlier this year by Alexander Kasterine from the UN/WTO International Trade Center on legalizing the trade in wildlife, namely for rhino horn, but conceivably for other species that are currently illegal to trade under the Convention on the International Trades in Endangered Species (CITES). Indeed, South Africa, host to the 2016 CITES...
NSA Reform or Foreign Policy Signaling? Maritime Provisions in Title VIII of the USA Freedom Act
With much attention being given to the passage of the 2015 USA Freedom Act, there is some odd silence about what the bill actually contains. Pundits from every corner identify the demise of section 215 of the Patriot Act (the section that permits the government to acquire and obtain bulk telephony meta data). While the bill does in fact do this, now requiring a “specific selection term” to be utilized instead of bulk general trolling, and it...
How do we know?
In her review of my 2012 IO article on identity and security in democracy, Charli asked a very important question: how do we know other states are democracies? I think this question, writ more broadly, is something IR scholars overlook to a detrimental degree. Perhaps because of the objectivist ontology that underlies much of IR scholarship (and is perhaps an extension of human psychology) I think there is a general reluctance to problematize...
The Latest in the Data Fraud Scandal
This blog mostly focuses on IR, but this story has implications for all doing social science, as the accuser at the center of the conversation asserts quite clearly. So, I am posting the latest and most thorough account of how this played out thus far here. There are many questions to ask, but the one asked directly in the piece is: how does one deal with flawed work? Attacking the quality of research is one thing--that is what lit reviews...
What We Really Need is a Slice of Humble Pie
This is a guest post by former Duck of Minerva blogger Daniel Nexon. The views that he expresses here should not be construed as representing those of the International Studies Association, International Studies Quarterly, or anyone with an ounce of sanity. We now have a lot of different meta-narratives about alleged fraud in "When Contact Changes Minds: An Experiment in the Transmission of Support for Gay Equality." These reflect not only...
Female Service Members Need Easier Access to Abortion, Not a Wider Range of Birth Control
Pregnancy has consistently been treated by the US military as a costly inconvenience, and proof of women's weak, unreliable and unpredictable bodies. In particular, there are concerns about the exceptionally high rates of unplanned pregnancies amongst service members, and the logistics and costs associated with such pregnancies (research indicated service women may be 50% more likely to have an unplanned pregnancy). In an attempt to address...
After Tenure
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...