by Dan Nexon | 23 Oct 2012 | Featured
The final 2012 Presidential debate was a decisive "victory" for President Obama on both style and substance. Romney's tack to the center left him with no other arguments than to invoke the resolve fairy and to call for a large increase in defense spending. The dominant narrative among the pundit class seems to be that Obama won and that Romney did well enough for the debate not to matter. I've decided against making judgments about the...
by Amanda Murdie | 22 Oct 2012 | Featured
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) includes a right that many grad students and professors probably feel is constantly under attack: the right to leisure. It’s there, clearly laid out in Article 24: “Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.” Whenever I introduce the UDHR to a room full of undergrads, I always get some smart aleck in the front row...
by Robert Kelly | 22 Oct 2012 | Featured
REK: I am pleased to guest-post my friend Dave’s longer, fuller version of a book review he wrote for CSIS. My thanks to CSIS as well. If you aren’t reading Dave yet, I’d recommend it. “Is America listening to its East Asian allies?: Hugh White’s The China Choice” David C. Kang For all the recent attention on increasing tensions between the U.S., China, and East Asian countries, regional balance of power dynamics remain muted. The past few...
by Dan Nexon | 22 Oct 2012 | Featured
The staff of the Duck of Minerva is very pleased to announce: (1) the first-ever blogging reception at the International Studies Association (ISA) annual convention; and (2) the Online Achievement in International Studies (OAIS) Awards. Thanks to the generous support of SAGE and the efforts of SAGE editor David Mainwaring, we will be hosting a reception at the 2013 International Studies Association Annual Convention in San Francisco. Details to...
by Jon Western | 22 Oct 2012 | Featured
I'm guessing we'll get more of the standard fare tonight: that the Benghazi attacks were bad; that Iran has to be deterred (will Romney bring Bibi's bomb sketch?), that Syria is tragic, that the Arab Spring is scary, and that China and Russia are both really mean. Afghanistan will get some attention, Iraq almost none. Apparently, Bob Schieffer is not going to address a broader list but if he does, here are three issues I'd...
by Dan Nexon | 22 Oct 2012 | Featured
Dan Drezner is very unhappy about the outline for tonight's foreign-policy debate. If he's got the list of sections right, I'll be pretty outraged as well. So I guess we'll just talk the drinking game. My suggestions: take a swig of your favorite beverage whenever you hear: "resolve," "apologize," "values," "economy." "credibility," "unravelling," "strength," "exceptionalism," "that's just not true," "energy independence,"and "kill." David...
by Phil Arena | 21 Oct 2012 | Featured
To the best of my knowledge, no prominent peer-reviewed article in political science has reported a difference in the frequency with which the United States enters into conflict under Democratic presidents relative to Republican presidents. That's not because no one has looked for such a difference (I know I have). It's because, to date, no one has found one. This is the file drawer problem in action. Now, we want to be careful not to...
by Steve Saideman | 20 Oct 2012 | Featured
No, not conscription (see what I did there), but sports drafts where teams take turns picking the next generation of superstars/busts. I am inspired to think about this as October is when anxiety of academic job aspirants begins to spiral. The thread du jour is whether the job market is "fair." As some get heaps of love and attention, others do not, leading them to ponder their fate. But if we think about the job market as a draft* (despite...
by Dan Nexon | 20 Oct 2012 | Featured
PG-13 lyrics. Via Kieran Healy.
by Dan Nexon | 20 Oct 2012 | Featured
As readers have likely noticed, we're in the process of shifting from our temporary template to what will likely be our permanent one. Laura S. is still working out some of the glitches created by the shift, such as the fact that our sidebar is displaying below the main blog! It will probably be a bit before everything works properly and we've introduced all of the changes associated with the new template. Thanks for your patience. A few links:...
by Charli Carpenter | 19 Oct 2012 | Featured
Guest Post by Andrew Mack, Human Security Report Project. We obviously agree with Megan Mackenzie’s affirmation that the mainstream narrative on wartime sexual violence ignores sexual violence against males and domestic sexual violence––even though the latter is far more prevalent than rape by combatants. With respect to other claims in her review of our just-released Human Security Report we disagree: We did not “revive” the “war is declining”...
by Charli Carpenter | 19 Oct 2012 | Featured
My 10-year-old nugget, who by the way is now also a political commentator you can follow on Twitter, was asking about the official trailer for the new Ender's Game movie - partly because he's inspired by the idea of kids using online media to effect political discourse. Unfortunately there is no trailer since the release date is still a year away. Instead here is (allegedly) Orson Scott Card's favorite of the many, many fan trailers. See how...