Twenty year recollections of the 2003 invasion of Iraq are popping up. Some are debating whether there were any positive outcomes from the war, others reflecting on what it meant for those who fought (on the US side) or suffered (on the Iraqi side). The Iraq war has played a big role in my career, but I wanted to talk about what it means for the liberal internationalist orientation to the world. The Iraq War and Me In the first lecture of my...
The Convention Concerning the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage (“The World Heritage Convention”) entered into force in 1975. The world heritage regime, in effect, produces the shared heritage of humanity. States use their right, as set by the Convention, to nominate sites within their borders; the files accompanying the nomination make the case for the site’s “outstanding universal value.” The relevant...
PTJ and Dan discuss Cynthia Weber’s 1994 book, Simulating Sovereignty: Intervention, the State an…
The blogosphere peaked somewhere in the mid-2000s, so why would anyone start blogging in 2023?
Elif Kalaycioglu, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science at The University of Alabama. She conducts research on politics of humanity and global cultural politics, centered on questions of order-making, subjectivity, and recognition and with an empirical focus on UNESCO’s world heritage regime. Her research has appeared in Security Dialogue, International Political Sociology, and the Oxford Encyclopedia of...
The Russian government has developed a symbiotic relationship with the country’s pseudoscientific community.
Dima Kortukov is a post-doctoral scholar at the University of Kentucky. He holds a PhD in political science from Indiana University. His scholarly interests include authoritarian politics, governance, democratization, political economy, conflict, and Russian/post-Communist politics. In his research, he analyzes the foundations of institutional change and explores the determinants of elite political behavior. He has published peer-reviewed...
One year ago, Russia launched an illegal war on Ukraine, committing horrific war crimes against the people of Ukraine. Analyses and memorials abound, and I'm probably not the only person writing about this on the Duck today. I wanted to address a specific aspect of this war, though: why Russia's carefully cultivated ties with far-right forces in Western Europe and the United States failed to undermine Western opposition to the war. Undermining...
Professor Debbie Lisle of Queens University, Belfast, grew up in North Vancouver, in an environment of 'liberal feminism' which gave her a sense of possibility in life, but it was an interesting journey thereafter. Debbie chats with Brent about her decision to go to McGill for college, playing soccer throughout her undergrad and Master's years, and an in-between period of working at a lumber store and then traveling the world...
David Pierson at The New York Times: While many in the world see the Chinese spy balloon as a sign of Beijing’s growing aggressiveness, China has sought to cast the controversy as a symptom of the United States’ irrevocable decline.Why else would a great power be spooked by a flimsy inflatable craft, China has argued, if not for a raft of internal problems like an intensely divided society and intractable partisan strife driving President Biden...
What is the name of the book and what are its coordinates? Michael A. Allen, Michael E. Flynn, Carla Martinez Machain, and Andrew Stravers. 2022. Beyond the Wire: U.S. Military Deployments and Host Country Public Opinion, Oxford University Press. Paperback (use code ASFLYQ6 for 30% off), ebook What’s the argument? U.S. military deployments — particularly the individual troops involved — anchor American influence abroad, and for many foreign...
Carla Martinez Machain is a Professor of Political Science at the University at Buffalo, SUNY. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Rice University in May 2012. Martinez Machain’s research (funded by the Department of Defense’s Minerva Initiative and the Army Research Office, among others) focuses on foreign policy analysis, with a focus on military policy and international conflict. In particular, she has been engaged in work on...