by Robert Kelly | 25 Apr 2012 | Featured
NOTE: The following was actually written before Dan Nexon posted a good piece on exactly the same essay. I’m not sure if that coincidence means anything, but here’s my take: ----------------------------------------- So I just read Orfeo Fioretos’ “Historical Institutionalism in International Relations” (IO 65/2, 2011). It’s very good - erudite and sophisticated, the kind of dense, abstract writing that makes me wonder if I can keep up in our...
by Alana Tiemessen | 25 Apr 2012 |
CBC - CP file photoThe Canadian International Council recently organized an interesting public event with Louise Arbour on her role in speaking "truth to power." The talk is available on line at Open Canada.org. (starts around 22min mark, after the introductions) and is constructed as a dialogue with Stephen Toope, President of the University of British Columbia and notable international law scholar.Madam Arbour is known for being outspoken on...
by Steve Saideman | 25 Apr 2012 |
I have never really paid attention to shoes, my own or those of the opposite sex. But the past year has taught me that one form of footwear seems to be most important: boots. Boots on the ground vs no boots on the ground. Politicians making promises about no boots on the ground were all the rage last year at this time--that the US, Canada, and the rest of NATO would meet the language of non-occupation in the UN resolution governing the...
by Dan Nexon | 24 Apr 2012 |
Ron Hassner has long discussed forming an ISA section on Religion and IR. After attending the last ISA, talking to more people with work that touches on the subject, and seeing the continuing increase in papers that address religion and world politics, Ron is moving forward. If (and only if) you are an ISA member, please take a moment to sign the petition. We need a hundred qualified signatures.
by Charli Carpenter | 24 Apr 2012 |
Democratic peace theory is featured prominently in the latest issues of two different major IR journals. First, in International Studies Perspectives, Jameson Lee Ungerer tells us that the democratic peace exemplifies in three respects the Lakatosian ideal of a progressive research program, and provides an overview of the research agenda from 1970s to the present. He describes many (though not all) of the key causal arguments claiming to...
by Jon Western | 24 Apr 2012 | Featured
I'm sure there will be plenty of skeptics, but President Obama's speech this morning at the U.S. Holocaust Museum (see Charli's post below) and today's first meeting of the atrocity prevention board at the White House is a positive development. For the past twenty years -- since the beginning of the Bosnian War -- the U.S. has gradually increased the resources and institutional capacities for collecting and analyzing intelligence, preventing,...
by Rodger Payne | 24 Apr 2012 |
This past weekend, an entertaining video clip was making the rounds on twitter and in the blogosphere. It is from a British daytime television show called "Golden Balls" and the academic discussion about it has been framed around 2 by 2 game theory:At the end of the show the contestants have to make one last decision over the final jackpot. They are each presented with two golden balls. One has “split” printed inside it and the other has...
by Charli Carpenter | 23 Apr 2012 |
JOIN THE LIVE CHATVISIT WHITEHOUSE.GOV
by Robert Kelly | 22 Apr 2012 | Featured
I have been asked to revise and resubmit an article submitted for an IR journal. But it’s a big r&r; the editor even said it would be “a great deal of work” (groan). While I must make the changes to the ms, I must also submit a letter to the editors and reviewers to explain my changes. That’s normal of course, but I wonder how the community would appraise the proper length of a letter to the editor for a major r&r? In my last r&r,...
by Charli Carpenter | 20 Apr 2012 |
Given that George R. R. Martin has clearly thought enough about religion in his series to both deal explicitly with these themes in the books and to create an extra feature about it for the TV show, I am supremely puzzled as to why some of the most interesting religious aspects of the book series are being left out on screen. Consider the "baptism" scene in last week's episode, in which the Priest of the Drowned God splashes seawater over a man...
by Jon Western | 20 Apr 2012 |
In an essay in this month's Scientific American, Alice Gast, president of Lehigh University, makes a case for the benefits of international collaboration in the sciences:It has become cliche that great discoveries come from interdisciplinary thinking... [F]ew realize how much science is energized when team members have different cultural approaches to problem solving. International diversity is just as important as diversity of discipline. She...
by Charli Carpenter | 18 Apr 2012 |
I have an essay online this morning at Opinio Juris as part of a symposium they are running this week on social media and international law:One of the most curious aspects of the Kony2012 campaign is its backing by an important and powerful public servant, Luis Moreno-Ocampo. In publicly endorsing the campaign, Moreno-Ocampo, the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, has espoused a powerful causal hypothesis: that social media...