Good mornin' Duck-o-nauts! Let's start the week in ... Space (i.e. Asia's Playground)... India is goin' to (orbit) Mars with a launch set for November 2013, only a few years after India landed an unmanned probe on the moon and detected water on the lunar surface. (The US is also sending an atmospheric orbiter to Mars this year.) India is not exactly new to space; it has had 101 successful space missions but mainly with satellites. The...
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Is the Weakness of the Liberal Order Overblown?
Last week, Naazneen Barma, Ely Ratner, and Steven Weber offered "The Mythical Liberal Order," a provocative update to their earlier article on the world without the West. They sought to puncture certain mythologies about the strength of the liberal order, that it never was a strong as defenders thought: its decline is much exaggerated since there was not much to begin with. Moreover, they seek to offer more convincing and significant evidence...
Friday Nerd Blogging: International Woman’s Day Edition
Who is the most admired woman in the nerd universe? Hmmm. Could it be: If loving Princess Leia is wrong, I don't want to be right. I also don't want to be her brother.
Friday Afternoon Linkage
. Happy International Women's Day. Remembering events in Bosnia twenty years ago and how the world was changed. The Guardian's profile of a few voices from around the world. Urvashi Sahni and Xanthe Ackerman offer strategies for action. In my weekend reading, I'll be trying to make sense of some of this week's bizarre events. North Korea ends peace pact and ratchets up the threat. Jeffrey Lewis worries about the next moves Senator Robert...
Thursday Morning Linkage
Here is some Thursday morning linkage action: In time for the CITES meeting on the trade in endangered species, scientists released a study that showed a 60% decline in the small forest elephant species in Africa in the last TEN years Meanwhile, news accounts reported on the shadowy networks of criminals involved in the trade of endangered species (see here as well) Scientists reported that they were able to cure a little girl infected with...
Counter-What?
This article discusses the importance of doing counter-intuitive work in the social sciences: We love our counterintuitive findings. And for fields such as psychology, they’re almost a necessity.If new conclusions already gel with our beliefs, goes the common refrain, why was precious taxpayer money ever wasted on the study in the first place? (I find the prospect of a society populated by commenters on most social science articles chilling.)...
Snowquestratian Linkage
Yesterday I decided to create an account at thegradcafe.com. In doing so, I joined a handful of political scientists who post there in an effort to increase transparency. Of course, I'm now being flooded with questions about improving applications and the like. Which I don't really mind. But I am surprised at (1) how many people want to get a PhD in political science and (2) how many of them think that there's some kind of "secret sauce" to...
The Robama Doctrine
Mitt Romney is back in the news with more than a little schadenfreude, talking about how he would be better not only to deal with sequestration but also with Iran. Or so he claims. But had he become president, it would have been interesting to see the Romney Doctrine in action—a foreign policy lodestar distinctly different from the Obama Doctrine. Normally foreign policy experts talk in terms of grand strategies—sets of guiding principles for...
Just When You Thought the Interwebs Were Safe
Someone comes along with a "Call Me Maybe" joke. A mashup of Nine Inch Nails' "Head Like a Hole" and the insidious zombie-song of last summer. The worst part? It works.
Kenya: Can Technology Safeguard Elections?
Polls in Kenya closed 16 hours ago, but votes continue to be counted. Those familiar with Kenya and with the electoral crisis of 2007-2008 will know to distrust provisional results. In December 2007, challenger Raila Odinga seemed substantially ahead during much of the early voting, only to see that lead evaporate as returns came in from more remote districts. Despite this qualification, it does look increasingly likely that Uhuru Kenyatta...
Rodrik’s Paradox is No Paradox
Last month, Dani Rodrik wrote a piece for Project Syndicate that went all kinds of viral. In it, he explains why he no longer views himself as a political economist. The upshot: because if he believed the stuff he used to believe, he'd have to accept that there's not much room for improving the world through op-eds, and that's not something he's prepared to accept. Consider this passage: But there was a deep paradox in all of this. The more...
‘Rodman-gate’: Can ‘Useful Idiots’ please Stop Shilling for North Korea?
Studying North Korea inevitably means people ask me pretty outlandish stuff. People have asked, if the North really believes long hair is bad for socialism, if that goiter on Kim Il Sung’s neck made him crazy, if Kim Jong Il’s platform shoes meant that he liked disco, and if North Korean women are good looking because a food shortage would mean everyone is slim. (I presume that last one is a reaction to the obesity epidemic in the US.) So I...