As has been widely reported in the Western media, on Friday, China’s state media finally officially announced two changes in human rights policies: (a) an end of the “Laojiao” policy of “re-education through labor” and (b) a change in the one-child policy in China, allowing two children per family if at least one of the parents was a single child (before both parents had to be only children). Other, somewhat underreported, changes coming from...
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Announcing the 2014 Blogging Awards and Reception at ISA
Duck of Minerva is pleased to announce the second annual Online Achievement in International Studies (OAIS) Blogging Awards -- better known as the Duckie Awards -- and the second annual International Studies Blogging Reception at ISA in Toronto. We are asking Duck readers to submit nominations for the awards and later to vote for the three finalists in each category. Last year's winners have generously agreed to judge the finalists and select...
Hard to Say I’m Sorry
The reports about the bilateral agreement between the US and Afghanistan that would allow American troops (and other western countries essentially) have suggested that President Hamid Karzai would support the agreement if President Obama apologized or admitted mistakes in the conduct of the war. This, of course, has produced a reaction or two, given that President Karzai might have a lot of gall to be asking of this given that more than three...
Tuesday Evening Linkage: Shorter and Later Than Ever!
My new job as semi-weekly Tuesday linker is off to an uneven start. I am behind on link collection as I was roaming this past weekend in the cell phone sense--in the US where my cell phone is super-expensive and wifi was not so available. Anyhow, here are some links that may be of interest to the Duck community (or not). IR/Conflict Stuff Christian Davenport has been blogging various tales from his fieldwork in Rwanda. Just some amazing tales...
Campaigners Set International Agenda on Autonomous Weapons
The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots secured an important victory last week when delegates of States Parties to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) voted unanimously to take up the issue as part of their work to oversee the implementation and further development of the 1980 treaty, which regulates weapons causing inhuman injuries to combatants or civilians. The CCW process, which includes yearly meetings of state parties as well...
Mixing Scholarly with Blogging Identities
[Note: This is a guest post from Mira Sucharov and Brent E. Sasley. Mira Sucharov is Associate Professor of Political Science at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. She blogs at Haaretz.com and at Open Zion. Follow her on Twitter. Brent Sasley is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Texas at Arlington. He blogs at Mideast Matrix. Follow him on Twitter.] Changes to our technology and to our...
My Japanese Hate-Mail Tells I am a ‘S— Kimchi Propagandist’ (Hah!) …Where’s Thunderdome When You Need it?
Hollywood’s solution to intractable interstate conflicts This is what happens when you write in the area of Japanese-Korean relations. Pretty much everybody hates you, because you don’t tell them what they want to hear, and then maximalists come out of the woodwork to, as Robert Farley aptly put it, “explore Japanese-Korean animosity one angry e-mail at a time.” As I’ve argued before, there’s little domestic cost to the either party for the...
Why Write About Gender if You are Going to Get Blasted for it: diplomacy lessons from Miss Universe?
This week Dan Drezner hosted a guest post on the politics of Miss Universe and I responded by pointing out the lack of/and the need for a gender analysis in his post. In his response, Drezner asks an important question: "Why on God's green earth would I want to venture out from my professional comfort zone of American foreign policy and global political economy to blog about the politics of gender -- just so I can be told by experts on gender...
Avoiding the Joint Security Trap (and Countering Conventional Wisdom)
The diplomatic dustup over Syria brought Russia in from the cold but simultaneously froze any notion that western allies were getting their strategic act together. Nonetheless, although the mistakes in the U.S. and UK’s approach to building support at home and abroad for an intervention in Syria confused leaders and citizens alike, these mistakes should not be interpreted as an abrupt turn-around in their and their allies' strategic thinking....
Miss Universe is Like Other International Organizations…except the members are half naked
Last week Dan Drezner asked What Does Miss Universe Tell us About World Politics in 2013? The post starts off on a positive note- that one can find politics anywhere- before it descends into one of the most classic examples of gender-avoidance/oblivion I've read in ages. Drezner swiftly calls on "the most qualified person on earth" to outsource engaging on a lady topic write the remaining post. I felt like I was back at uni and my male...
Friday Nerd Blogging: Lost in Furniture
Given the low salaries many of us start out at, we probably overly identify with the crisis contained within this trailer (no significant spoilers):
Thursday Morning Linkage – Special Typhoon Haiyan Edition
This week, more news from the relief effort and typhoon Haiyan and how the events in the Philippines threaten to overshadow the on-going climate negotiations in Warsaw. The Security and Relief Situation on the Ground U.S. military ramps up aid to Philippines with up to 1,000 soldiers likely on the ground from Okinawa in short order, ferrying Filipino troops and aid supplies Plenty of gasoline but gas stations won't open for fear of looting;...