by Adrienne LeBas | 21 Nov 2012 | Featured
First off, this is my first post. Thanks to Dan and the rest of the crowd for inviting me, though I fear they – and Duck readers – may soon tire of hearing about how building effective control over a given territory is just really damn hard. But, then again, why else would one invite an Africanist comparativist to hang out on an IR blog? So Goma fell to rebels yesterday. In the midst of war in Gaza, the loss of the largest city in eastern...
by Dan Nexon | 21 Nov 2012 | Featured
I got back from an extended trip to London last night. To all the people who hosted me for talks, entertained me, and generally made the trip both fun and productive: a big thanks! I also bought some sweet rubber ducks at the British Museum. I'm going to start repeatedly flogging the nomination process and voting registration for the academic international-studies blogging awards. You can reduce the annoyance factor by submitting nominations...
by Amanda Murdie | 20 Nov 2012 | Featured
Good morning! Obama became the first sitting president to visit Myanmar/Burma yesterday. Plus, Amnesty International announced the release of political prisoners in the country yesterday, too. It’s a little rare for the organization to “name and praise” instead of “name and shame” so I wonder about the logic of Amnesty’s press release….hmm…that’s an interesting research question Obama is also working on maritime disputes during his trip. ...
by Charli Carpenter | 19 Nov 2012 | Featured
Today, Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a new report, Losing Humanity: The Case Against Killer Robots, becoming the most influential NGO to date to join an emerging call for a preemptive norm against the deployment of autonomous weapons. The International Committee for Robot Arms Control, an association of scientists and philosophers, proposed such a norm back in 2010 at a meeting in Berlin; the outgoing President of the International...
by Dan Nexon | 19 Nov 2012 | Featured
I'm at the end of a rather long trip to London, which is why I haven't been able to process or upload either Duck of Minerva or NBN podcasts yet. Nevertheless, I've got some good stuff coming on both fronts. So stay tuned. Today's linkage focuses on Gaza. Al-Jazera reports that 92 Palestinians have now been killed by Israeli attacks. The Washington Post leads with essentially the same story. CNN is certainly paying attention to the civilian...
by Brian Rathbun | 17 Nov 2012 | Featured
The Canard “All the Fake News that is Fit to Print” The Duck of Minerva, considered one of the nation’s top international relations blogs, has recently come under attack from Cat Fancy magazine. Aggressively trying to expand their market share and brand, the leading source of information for feline aficionados looking for the latest reviews of mechanical litter boxes is looking to acquire new assets, through hostile takeovers if necessary. Duck...
by Charli Carpenter | 16 Nov 2012 | Featured
by Jon Western | 16 Nov 2012 | Featured
From our infatuation with swing states to the pageantry of the Chinese Communist Catwalk -- great night of TV in China as Xi Jingping steps out first from behind the curtain. I miss the old days when it was a surprise.... This isn't going to end well. This morning's Jerusalem Post editorial: "Operation Pillar of Defense – like Operation Cast Lead – will not change the fundamental dynamics in Gaza." Twitter goes to war. Aren't there Twitter...
by Amanda Murdie | 15 Nov 2012 | Featured
Morning! Check out Reed Wood's post at Political Violence @ a Glance on the lack of improvement in core physical integrity rights over time. It's not just the Political Terror Scale, either - the Physical Integrity Index from Cingranelli and Richards (CIRI) Human Rights Dataset shows the same lack of improvement over time. Update: Check out K. Chad Clay's take on the issue at The Quantitative Peace.
by Charli Carpenter | 14 Nov 2012 | Featured
Below, the latest volley in the blog wars between the Human Security Report Project authors and their critics. _______________________________ Guest Post by Andrew Mack We thank Amelia Hoover Green, Dara Kay Cohen and Elizabeth Jean Wood (henceforth GCW) for their thoughtful critique of the Human Security Report’s analysis of the impact of war on the incidence of sexual violence. As we made clear in the Report, we believe that Dara Cohen’s...
by Amanda Murdie | 13 Nov 2012 | Featured
Welcome, Venezuela and Hugo Chávez, to a seat on the UN Human Rights Council. The US also won a seat. Worth noting, Hugo’s seat wasn’t contested but the seat the US won was contested. Don’t worry, though, Council may just be there for “rhetorical inaction.” Or, maybe it does more than that. And, new members on the Russian domestic human rights council, too. Seems like more of before. In case you are still interested in US election...
by Phil Arena | 12 Nov 2012 | Featured
A strong correlation between cooperation and membership in international institutions is not enough to establish that international institutions cause cooperation. If we're to claim that institutions matter, we need to at least identify mechanisms by which institutions might promote cooperation among actors who would otherwise be disinclined to cooperate with one another. The mere fact that such mechanisms can be articulated does not itself...