by Dan Nexon | 18 May 2012 |
AbstractThough scholars widely claim that they are capable of writing creative titles, there exist some notable skeptics. Resolving this debate requires empirical evidence. However, beyond a few anecdotes, no one has systematically tested trends in the mind-numbing dullness of IR article titles. I correct this lacuna through the use of an original data set containing eight independent measurements of the originality and wittiness of article...
by Brian Rathbun | 18 May 2012 | Featured
This is me with Rick Allen, the drummer for Def Leppard who lost his arm in the 1980s but retooled his drum kit and life to adjust to his injury. He now runs the Raven Drum Foundation, which focuses on helping veterans with PTSD and other mental and physical injuries heal as they return home. Through drumming. Pounding the hell out of something and not someone seems like a brilliant idea. It inspired me to write a post on the virtues of heavy...
by Charli Carpenter | 18 May 2012 | Featured
David Birtley's to-die-for posts chronicling HBO's deviations from the Song of Ice and Fire book series get longer each week over at Wired.Some fans are annoyed at the significant and at times random plot innovations in Game of Thrones (in Season 2 Tywin has come off as a loving grandfather, Arya is killing all the wrong characters, and Dany's dragons have mysteriously vanished!)But I actually think this is nothing short of brilliant precisely...
by Megan MacKenzie | 17 May 2012 | Featured
Now that Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT) has been removed, does this mean that women are next on the equality/integration agenda?The answer to this question seemed to be yes, when this week when the Pentagon announced the removal of restrictions for some 14,000 military jobs that were previously closed to women within the forces due to their proximity to combat. Understandably, there has been a great deal of discussion as to how the removal of DADT...
by Alana Tiemessen | 16 May 2012 |
Photo from Still BurningThe Canadian International Council has rolled out a series of interviews and essays on "Peace v. Justice: The ICC and its Alternatives". Far from flogging a dead theoretical horse, it's a great renewal of a debate on the realities of the seemingly dichotomous choice between peace and justice.Not to mention it's a solid dose of Canadian scholarly insight and we debate very politely.There are interviews with Kathryn...
by PM | 16 May 2012 |
In fairness, fake dissertations areprobably more fun to read thanthe Little Red Book.Minxin Pei surveys the extent to which China's leaders have faked their credentials.Pei suggests that a number of China's leaders, hailed in the West by presumably credulous journalists, have in fact attained their educational credentials at what amount to diploma mills.The more interesting point Pei makes about this is that many indicators of Chinese...
by Charli Carpenter | 15 May 2012 | Featured
Now that this academic year’s loose ends are wrapped up, it is time to refocus attention on the important topic of norm development around autonomous weapons. Fortunately for my case study there is much developing on this front, in addition to developments in adjacent but (I argue) distinct issue areas like drones.Lawfare Blog has been putting forth considerable new materials related to this debate in recent days, notably a working paper...
by Dan Nexon | 14 May 2012 |
Ted Hopf has an extremely cool talk on how practice-turn theory is being assimilated by the liberal-constructivist borg. Give it a listen.Background on liberalism and constructivism at the Duck, International Studies Review, and via Sammy Barkin.
by PM | 14 May 2012 |
Some critics of academic social science, and political science in particular, have recently asserted that it's difficult to see the benefit of what we do. To be fair, our output is less immediately tangible than the Hubble Space Telescope, treatments for HIV/AIDS, or the decoding of the human genome, to take only three visible and valuable recipients of federal funding for science in my lifetime.To date, however, the defenders of political...
by Dan Nexon | 14 May 2012 |
Scott's recent post (at LGM) on college debt, which links to a depressing New York Times story, focuses primarily on politics. The narrative has gotten pretty familiar. State education cutbacks force tuitions up. Students take out greater debt to pay for a post-secondary degree. Republicans plead budgetary pressure, but do so while gleefully reducing the tax burden on wealthy Americans. It is certainly blood-boiling stuff.At the same time,...
by Dan Nexon | 12 May 2012 |
(Click to Enlarge)But, seriously. What kind of self-respecting despot barely customizes the template used by all imperiled leaders who need help moving their funds out of country? He could have at least replaced "my country" with "Syria." But I guess Assad has lots of other things on his mind, so we can forgive him.
by Charli Carpenter | 11 May 2012 | Featured