I think one of the most interesting findings in all of international relations scholarship is that the disproportionate share of conflict in the international system is comprised of a few dyads fighting over and over, what are known as “enduring rivalries.” These are highly emotional conflicts in which countries are found to fight because they have fought before, not because of the presence of some tangible and intractable conflict of interest....
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An Open Letter to Someone Contemplating a PhD and Parenting
Dear PhD Prospective (with kids or thinking about kids), Thanks for contacting me. It sounds like you missed Steve Saideman’s sage advice and are actually going to be trying to get a PhD in political science. Many top people in the discipline will keep working to discourage you from attending – with your best interest at heart – but it sounds like you aren’t going to take their advice to avoid a PhD altogether.[1] So, welcome aboard! It’s...
Theory Section Redux
I want to remind interested parties that we've posted a call for suggestions for (1) the ISA Theory Section's "Distinguished Scholar" of 2014 and (2) the wording of the book prize. Vocal parties at the 2013 business meeting called for democratizing the process via this kind of mechanism; it would be a shame if Schmitt trumped Habermas when it came to these issues. Also of note.... Check out Discourses on the Otter, which deserves some kind of...
Tracking and Political-Science Journal Accountability
(click on the image to enlarge) I'm usually cautious about linking to anything in the PSJR/PSR family of sites, but this strikes me as pretty interesting: a wiki devoted to tracking political-science journals. Contributors note the journal, the turnaround time, and information about what happened to the article. Despite the promulgation of end-of-year journal reports, the submission-to-review-to-outcome process remains a mystery to many. In...
Monday Morning Linkage
Good morning ducks! Here are your links... Even more well off people will be able to exempt themselves from TSA's airport security theater thanks to Visa credit cards. Well, it's not like potential hijackers could afford the annual fee or first-class tickets anyway. Oh wait... Do you enjoy being frisked, finger printed, and rapiscanned at airports? Then you'll be delighted to know that Homeland Security will be expanding its use of...
What will the North Korean Military do if Japan Shoots Down the Missile Launch?
A few days ago, I predicted there would be no war, probably because I’m lazy and predicting the future will be the same as the present is an easy way to protect my credibility. But I got some criticism that I was a dippy academic who doesn’t see how dangerous the situation really is. And if I am wrong, I won’t be around to see it anyway; I’ll be swimming for Japan. So here is the most likely escalation pathway I can see, despite my firm...
Saturday Morning Linkage
The above video includes Sean Kay speaking about US-European relations and international security. Kelsey Davenport: "How to Read the North Korean Nuclear Missile Threat." Scott Harold and Lowell Schwartz: "A Russia-China Alliance Brewing?" More Sino-Russian cooperation on alcohol production would be awesome! The National Security Archive has a nice roundup of their materials concerning discussions between Thatcher and Gorbachev. Spoiler: the...
The Awful State of US Punditry on the North Korea Crisis: Bill Richardson called Kim Il Sung ‘Kim Yun Sum,’ or something like that, on CNN Yesterday
I know what you’re thinking, I’m being a show-off area specialist, Asian language names can be hard for anglophones (and vice versa), and who cares about KIS anyway, because this crisis is about Kim Jong Un? All of that is true of course, especially the first one, but come on… Richardson isn’t just any old hack like me on North Korea. (Here’s my take on the crisis.) He has been a regular point man for the US on NK for more than a decade and...
The First Casualty of the National Science Foundation Funding Cut for Political Science
If you belong to APSA, you probably got the email announcing the last-minute closure of the Ralph Bunche Summer Institute because of the Coburn (left) amendment. Undergraduate programming like this is obviously pretty vulnerable. It doesn’t have the cachet of high-profile, ‘big think’ research. But it does obviously endanger the discipline in the long-term by cutting into our future replacements (almost certainly one purpose of the amendment)....
How To Interact With Your Instructor: A Guide for Undergrads
I'm passing along some ideas from Brian Matzke, a Ph.D. student in the Department of English at the University of Michigan. Making social rules and expectations explicit is a big part of contemporary classroom management, and this document is a good starting point for other instructors developing their own syllabi or cataloguing their own expectations. This version has been very lightly edited; you can see the original (with comic strip!) here....
Renaming the Arab Spring
I've learned to limit consumption of Tom Friedman, except when he talks about the Middle East...yesterday his column suggested that the Arab Spring should be renamed in light of recent events...I think he is on to something, but I doubt his suggestion of "The Arab Quarter Century" will fly...my suggestion is the "The Arab Turn", which connotes both the significance of current events in the region and recognition of some kind of new era in the...
Thursday Morning Linkage
Here is your Thursday Morning Linkage! Algal bloom kills 240 of Florida's 5000 manatees (cause of death: natural toxin) Madonna smacked down by Malawi government after her recent visit Shale gas and methane leaks, greener than coal but by how much? Obama tells donors that the politics of the environment are hard, hints at what he might do on Keystone XL pipeline BP is beyond "Beyond Petroleum," sells wind power interests Nicholas Lemann...