Last week 60 Minutes ran a feature called Women in Combat: Cracking the Last All-Male Bastion of the US Military. The segment, led by David Martin, focused on Marine Infantry Officer training. He finds that, although the Marines are required to integrate women as a result of the removal of the combat exclusion, no women have made it through the rigorous physical training requirements. This re-raises key questions around women in combat: *Do...
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Road to nowhere?
Roads. Who can be against them, right? They allow us to get from A-to-B. And as anyone who has been to a place where there were no roads can attest, their absence is a real impediment to the modern political economy. The construction of roads is thus a central feature of the international development agenda. The World Bank publishes analysis of road investment by developing countries. The World Trade Organization claims ~30% of all overseas...
Belated ISA Recap: Norms in IR, Norm Violations in IR, Pop Culture in IR and Junior Scholar Panels
So I'm a wee bit late to the post-International Studies Association Annual Conference blogging ritual, but better than never right? Let me begin with a first-time experience for me at ISA that I truly enjoyed and highly recommend: participation on a Junior Scholar Symposium Panel. If you've never done this, here's how it works: You read four papers by emerging scholars, but instead of a regular panel format the papers are discussed in combined...
Skype Academic Interviews – What (Not) to Do
Hi all! File this post under "unsolicited advice from a newbie DGS." Here are my tips on how to not crash-and-burn on a Skype interview: Take a professional picture and make sure your Skype handle is professional – this might be the perfect time to set up an alternative, work-related Skype account. DON’T have a mood listed. No one wants to see that you love pirates or pigs or whatever at this stage. Be on early and make sure Skype is set up...
Comments Restored
Loyal, even devout, readers of the Duck may have noted somewhere along the way that comment streams of yore seemingly disappeared. That could be frustrating if you wanted to go back to an exchange you had with Duck contributors and enthusiasts. I'm happy to report that with the help of our web designer support extraordinaire Lori Lacy of mod.girl.designs that our comments history is restored. For example, here is a post that had lost comments...
Reversing the Gun Sights, Revisited
In about a month, High Contracting Parties to the United Nations Convention on Conventional Weapons will again consider the humanitarian and ethical problems posed by fully autonomous lethal weapons. As I've written before, this issue in on the UN agenda due to a savvy and well-organized network of "humanitarian disarmament" NGOs. This coalition is keen to reconstruct governments' interpretation of how to balance military utility with...
A Hip-Hop Artist in Burkina Faso Fights Female Genital Mutilation
Each time her sex is butchered with the pretext of purity...three million of our sisters face this violence each year... In his new song "Tomber la Lame" or "Drop the Blade," Burkina Faso hip-hop artist Smockey has an amazing call to end the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM), a procedure that remains widespread in parts of Africa and the Middle East that removes a piece of a girl's genitals with a knife so that she won't experience...
Friday Nerd Blogging: The Future Will Be 3-D Printed
I have been scoffing at the 3D printing revolution mostly out of ignorance and a concern about what the machines must eat to produce stuff, but no more. Thanks to Iron Man, I am now realizing that the potential of 3D printing is not limited by what goes into the machines (not paper, right?) but by our imaginations:
Online Media Caucus: News and Contact Info
The Online Media Caucus was ratified at the ISA in New Orleans. The question is: now what? First, we now have a variety of online media outlets to publicize: ISA's homepage for us: https://www.isanet.org/ISA/Caucuses/OMC Twitter: https://twitter.com/OnlineMediaISA or @OnlineMediaISA Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ISAOMC Blog to be announced later. Pinterest, Vine, Instragram, and other online media outlets will be developed by volunteers....
How to Work Effectively with a Research Assistant
So you've finally received research funding to hire a research assistant....now what? Attaining resources to get research support is a wonderful thing, but figuring out who to hire and how to work with them can be a challenge. While I have been very fortunate to work with some excellent research assistants, I've also experienced difficult situations where I've hired someone with the wrong skill set, or clearly not mentored or managed the...
Call For Applications: Guest Ducks
As part of the new Duck, we have revamped our guest blogging policy. The old policy, dating from way back when Dan and Patrick were slowly expanding the blog: The procedure for bringing on guest bloggers is one of those “salami factory” things… and strangers just aren’t very likely to make it through the process. In other words, guest blogging happened by invitation only. At first it happened sort of ad hoc and accidentally. We would scout new...
What Would Nature Say About Ecological Warfare?
I thought of this incredible eco-ad campaign, NatureisSpeaking.org, when I read Bronwyn Leebaw's fascinating article "Scorched Earth: Environmental War Crimes and International Justice" in Perspectives on Politics. This is a much-overdue analysis of the place of the earth and environmental damage in the laws of armed conflict - two issues areas rarely studied by political scientists. Leebaw examines representations of the natural environment...