The very first Duck of Minerva podcast. Featuring PTJ and Dan.
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The Chart That Explains Your World
Everyone agrees China is a rising power. Some people think it can rise indefinitely; some people think its rise will decelerate; and some think that its rise is illusory. But it's hard to put even the People's Republic stellar growth rates into perspective without taking a longer view.The chart above shows the ratios of Chinese to other countries' GDP per capita. It's based on painstaking work by Angus Maddison to reconstruct long time series...
Morning Linkage
Conor Friedersdorf argues that R2P is a decision for Congress to make, not the Executive Branch. Laura at 11d has advice from big student loan debtors. Note the part about not getting an MA that serves little professional purpose.Daniel Little has a very nice post on Chuck Tilly's Durable Inequality and the growing income gap in the United States.Sandy Levinson makes an impassioned plea for putting gun control back on the table. A note on...
Saturday Afternoon Video
Morning Linkage
Lots of people are talking (e.g.) about the McKibben climate-change article in Rolling Stone. China Defense Blog points to reports that the PRC will deploy a military garrison in the South China Sea.Kieran Healy compares rates of violence in the United States to those found in the rest of the OECD countries.Jamestown's China Daily Brief carries a report on Uzbekistan, China, and balance-of-power politics in Central Asia. Jason Fritz provides...
Special Extra Retro Friday Nerd Blogging
A friend posted this on FB. Too good not to share for those who remember the least dark Batman fondly:On a day like today, we could use all the comic relief we can get.
Morning Linkage
Jennifer Lind argues that the recent scuttling of a Korean-Japanese security cooperation treaty stemmed from Seoul's misgivings about a US-led balancing alliance aimed at the PRC. Richard Jensen has a powerpoint analysis of wikipedia's War of 1812 entry (via H-Diplo). Jeffrey Lewis ask "do we need ICBMs?"Ken Payne writes a second post on Chimpanzees and strategy (first one here). Bernardo Teles Fazendeiro at e-ir on Uzbekistan's suspension of...
Friday Nerd Blogging, Charli-Less Since 2012
As a change of pace for Friday Nerd Blogging, I thought this nicely combines a kid's imagination with Joss Whedon in entirely unpredictable ways. Oh, and as long as Joss is involved, I think this counts for FNB, right?Yes, we miss Charli.
Collective action and the end of the world
Today I gave a lecture on the environment and the dilemmas of collective action in my course on Introduction to International Relations. Despite the best efforts of St. Elinor (the patron saint of political science and my alma mater), I'm still a fairly pessimistic adherent to Mancur Olson's diagnosis of public-goods provision. Consequently, the environmental lecture ("Saving the Sunlit Earth") is probably my most depressing canned talk. (The...
Morning Linkage
Josh Rovner argues that AirSea Battle is a "myth" that threatens nuclear escalation with China.Henry Farrell writes up a recent piece by Alex Downes and Todd Sechser attacking the notion that democracies issue more credible threats than non-democracies. The comments (excluding mine) are worth reading as well. The Rising Powers Initiative highlights regional commentary on the ASEAN forum debacle. As always, Justin Gengler is worth reading on...
Scenes from the National Museum of Scotland, Part the Second
In my previous post I mentioned the recent broadside against Brave for its anti-Pictish discourse and representations. I'm not being fair, of course, as its author, Melissa McEwan, doesn't use the term "Pict" any time during her essay. Which is interesting, insofar as Brave is saturated with Pictish symbols. As an astute commentator notes:The Scots are represented not as a homogeneous group but as a diverse people, including ethnic differences...