If you’ve spent any amount of time in Washington, there’s a good chance you’ve internalized a rosier narrative of the Cold War than the actual history warrants (I certainly had). To correct that, I have an essay out in Foreign Affairs with Michael Brenes, arguing that the bipartisan cheerleading for great-power rivalry today is based on a jaundiced reading of Cold War history. The popular image of the Cold War—as...
It turns out that it’s hard to write a roundup of happenings at the Duck of Minerva when there aren’t many to speak of. Much of that’s on me. What’s my excuse? Well, the kid finally contracted COVID. The rest of my family succumbed in short order. So that was fun. On the upside, none of us get seriously ill. On the downside, we got to experience post-COVID fatigue, with a helping of mental fog on the side. We recovered just in time to take our...
Like a lot of academics, I love Google n-grams, but not as much as the digitized archive Google uses to produce it. It’s a great warren of rabbit holes – even better than wikipedia – and I often wind up following one somewhere or other. My latest journey begins with realism. Steven Walt’s recent Foreign Policy entry (“Why Do People Hate Realism So Much?”) touched off a round of online debate, including entries by Seva Gunitsky, Paul...
What are the answers?
Our next Bridging the Gap Book Nook features Emmanuel Balogun, an assistant professor of political science at Skidmore College and Bridging the Gap's inaugural Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Fellow. He discusses his new book Region-Building in West Africa: Convergence and Agency in ECOWAS. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLVZp56pL4Q
Emmanuel Balogun, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Skidmore College. He is a scholar-practitioner who researches multilateralism in Africa. His new book, Region-Building in West Africa: Convergence and Agency in ECOWAS, shows how bureaucrats in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) responds to security, health, and financial crises. Emmanuel is a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow and...
Climate change will exacerbate many of the political, social, and economic forces that generate conflict and insecurity – with enormous consequences for humanity.
What is the topography of international-relations theory in the People’s Republic of China? What …
Fabiana Sofia Perera is an Assistant Professor at the William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies. Prior to joining the Perry Center, Fabiana was a Rosenthal Fellow at the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Under Secretary for Policy, Western Hemisphere Affairs. Fabiana has experience working in the public and private sectors. She worked as a research associate at Mitsubishi International Corporation focusing on Latin America and...
There’s a battle going down inside the Republican party for what conservative foreign policy ought to be. The problem is that stakeholders in the debate are misrepresenting its terms, and journalistic onlookers are misapprehending what’s really going on. A senior fellow at American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the neoconservative think tank, officially put it on wax that, yes, there’s a debate over conservative foreign policy,...
Professor Carla Martinez Machain joins the Hayseed Scholar Podcast. Professor Machain talks about growing up in Mexico, specifically outside of and then also in Mexico City, the schools she went to, her interests, doing Model UN and visiting The Hague during an overseas trip when Milosevic was on trial, and then deciding to go to Rice University in Houston for undergrad. She talks about that transition, the decision to go to grad school at Rice...
What's been quacking at the blog? The Duck of Minerva opened for business in 2005, so it’s had a lot of time to accumulate duck-puns and stupid duck references. Over the years, contributors embraced the Duckness of the Duck to different degrees. I can’t say for sure, but my impression is that Steve Saideman was one of the worst (or best, I suppose) offenders. For my part, I’ve always been ambivalent about the matter. So I spent...