Good morning to the western hemisphere. Today brings with it a whole slew of stuff from the Duck of Minerva. First, I've made some progress in updating the academia page -- our one-stop shop for our ever-popular posts on the academic life. Second, I have a general query about awards. As you may know, the voters have clicked and we now have finalists for the 2013 OAIS Awards. The winners will be selected via a pool of judges. The internal...
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The Tragedy of Fragmented Rebellion
Guest Post by Lindsay Heger and Wendy Wong. In a recent and rare speech, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad dug in his heels. While nobody could have realistically expected him to simply walk away from his post or even give much ground to the opposition, negotiations seemed possible. After all, the rebels had made several recent and promising military advances. In December the Obama administration acknowledged the rebel movement as representative...
More on Job Talks
My "Death to Job Talks!" provocation has produced some longer-form responses at other Political Science blogs. Jeremy Wallace defends the institution. Tom Pepinsky goes further and argues that "there is no alternative to the academic job talk." Nate Jensen gets to the heat of the matter by asking if the "academic hiring process [is] broken." Jeremy compares the current format of job talks favorably to a major alternative, the...
Tuesday Morning Linkage Club
I guess Chuck Hagel's going to be confirmed, so we can return to an all-international edition of linkage. And mostly Asia. Papua New Guinea could finally give us a test of the institutions strain of the resource-curse hypothesis; unlike rich and democratic oil titan Norway, Papua New Guinea is poor and democratic(ish). The news that it might have natural gas and other deposits sufficient to bring its resource exports in 2030 to three times the...
The 2013 OAIS Blogging Awards Finalists
Thanks to Mike Horowitz's hard work, we now have a list of the finalists in each relevant category of the 2013 Outstanding Achievement in International Studies Weblogging Awards, or what will, despite my best efforts, likely be known as the "Duckies." We employed a simple Borda-count rule where the value of a vote was n-(r-1), in which n is the number of finalists a voter can rank and r is the rank a voter assigned. Hence, in "Best Blog...
Monday Morning Linkage
Photo: Bahraini women chant anti-government slogans during a mourning procession for Qassim Habib, 8, in Manama, Bahrain on Jan. 30, 2013. Clashes erupted after the procession for the boy, who opposition groups say died from respiratory problems triggered by heavy tear gas. [Credit : Hasan Jamali/AP] Good mornin' here's your linkage... West Asia style: Manama: Sheikh Ali Salman, the leader of the Al-Wefaq opposition party, is "hopeful" about...
The Era of Austerity or the Era of Intervention?
A variety of commentators listened to President Obama’s Inauguration speech and, having heard few words devoted to foreign policy, declared that the second term of this Administration will be marked by less activism on the global stage. The draw downs from Iraq and Afghanistan readily reinforce this view, as do a variety of academics peddling recommendations for a new grand strategy of restraint. I am more circumspect, for inauguration...
Saturday Morning Linkage
I am sitting in a David's Bridal while my daughter picks out a flower-girl dress. If I were looking at ESPN.com then the stereotype would be complete. We are anxiously (and by "anxiously," I mean "not very anxiously") awaiting the results of the first-round voting for the OAIS blogging awards. Once our crack guy-with-a-survey-account sends them to me, we will post. No podcast this week. I am working on transcoding all of them to mp3 format and...
Death to Job Talks!
I was part of a short conversation last night about the standard job-search process in political science. For those of you who aren't political scientists, but nonetheless feel compelled to read this, the process for junior candidates looks something like this: Starting in the late summer, political-science departments post position announcements with the American Political Science Association. Most job hunters read those announcements on...
Poll Closing is Imminent
If you've got a ballott -- i.e., an email with a survey link -- and you haven't voted for the OAIS blogging awards, time is running out. Don't let your vote be the difference between elimination and survival for your favorite blog.
Thursday Afternoon Linkage: Zero Dark Thirty Catch up
Given the growing debate surrounding "Zero Dark Thirty", it is now mandatory to have a strong opinion on the movie. In addition to the excellent posts on this blog, including "Zero Dark Thirty" Debate Needs and Interrogation and "Zero Dark Thirty": Touchstone Par Exemplar by Jeffrey Stacey the internet is awash with excellent commentary on the movie. Why does it matter? The vast divide between those who love it and those who hate it tells us...
A Quarter-Baked Note on Grand Theory in IR
Political scientists often say that 'no one reads books anymore.' I'd add that 'almost no one reads book reviews.' This is a shame. Although most book reviews are paint-by-numbers affairs, some smuggle in provocative claims or important statements about aspects of the field.* For example, in his Perspectives on Politics review of Miles Kahler, ed. Networked Politics: Agency, Power, and Governance, Zeev Maoz nails an important problem with one...