by Patrick Thaddeus Jackson | 9 Sep 2011 |
I am going to try writing down pieces of advice that I give to students all the time, in the hopes that they might be useful for people who can't make it to my office hours."Spelling out your theoretical and methodological assumptions -- the contours of your conceptual equipment, so to speak -- is a vital part of doing good social science, because if I don't know what your assumptions are then I really can't fairly evaluate your results. In...
by Dan Nexon | 9 Sep 2011 |
If you're interested in how the syllabus turned out, you can read it here.I must say that I am very much enjoying teaching the class so far. Thanks to everyone for their comments and suggestions.
by Brian Rathbun | 8 Sep 2011 |
We have gone almost a month without talking about zombies, and you all must be in need of a fix. Instead of thinking how various theories of international relations might expect us to cope with a zombie epidemic, I thought it might be fun to think about how leading public figures – elected officials, pundits, etc. – might respond to a zombie attack. This is in keeping with my general belief that we would see many different responses by...
by Patrick Porter | 7 Sep 2011 | Featured
This post is a little impressionistic and attempts a few trans-Atlantic generalisations, but is probably still worth a punt.If Clausewitz was right that each period holds to its own theory of war, what do we see when we look in the mirror after a decade of the conflict against Islamist terror networks? In the US and UK at least, I'd suggest that the War on Terror was a reflection of the evolving liberal-market state.That is, a state that...
by Rodger Payne | 7 Sep 2011 |
Dick Cheney's memoir apparently verifies an interesting political point from George W. Bush's memoir. Last November, I noted that the former President claimed that Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) had approached him in 2006 prior to the congressional elections in order to urge withdrawal of some US troops from Iraq. This might save the Republican majority, argued the Majority Leader, even though McConnell was publicly taking the position that the...
by Megan MacKenzie | 5 Sep 2011 |
In my post last week I talked about the three main arguments against removing the combat exclusion for women: the physical standards argument, the moral argument, and the cohesion hypothesis. My main point was that with increased research on physical standards, the intangibility of the moral argument, and increased evidence that women already are in combat, the cohesion hypothesis remains as the most significant set of arguments against GI...
by Jon Western | 2 Sep 2011 |
Frank Gaffney is calling for a new HUAAC -- actually slightly renamed to House Anti-American Activities Committee...because apparently "un-American" is not tough enough: Earlier this week, he wrote: Absent a fundamental course correction, America will go the way of Europe and others before it, succumbing to an insidious totalitarian doctrine known as Shariah whose purpose, in the words of its prime practitioners — the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) —...
by Charli Carpenter | 2 Sep 2011 | Featured
H/T PhDComics. Hey, there are all kinds of nerds.
by Kate Weaver | 1 Sep 2011 | Featured
Is the IMF growing a pair....? This past week, the Fund's new Managing Director, Christine Lagarde, delivered a rabble-rousing speech in Jackonson Hole, Wyoming in which she called for a mandatory capital increase for European banks, using public funds if needed. I'm not convinced that's going to fly, but I have to say that I admire Lagarde's moxy. Today, Kenneth Rogoff, the Fund's former Chief Economist, published an op-ed in which he...
by Jon Western | 1 Sep 2011 |
OK, OK, OK, I know life is short and some of us need to get a life (I'm not in Seattle by the way), but this is a really cool app from Uppsala: From the iTunes description: "Data on 300 armed conflicts, more than 200 summaries of peace agreements, data on casualties etc, without having access to the Internet." I actually do think this is really cool and I can see real benefits to having this type of data at one's fingertips, but I do wonder how...
by Kate Weaver | 1 Sep 2011 | Featured
In an article last week in the Financial Times on "Sex, Lies, and the Pitfalls of Overblown Statistics," John Kay bluntly wrote: "Always ask yourself the question: where does the data come from?" It's a good question, and one I frequently ask myself when I read yet another story about the hottest craze in the international development aid business today: the Open Data Initiative of the World Bank. Don't get me wrong. I think the World Bank's...
by Jon Western | 31 Aug 2011 |
I have good friends a few miles north of here in Vermont who will be reeling from Hurricane Irene for months. One of my favorite places, Wilmington -- just south of Mount Snow ski resort -- was completely flooded and Route 9, the major road to the town (and all East-West travel in southern Vermont) will be out for weeks. It's going to be a long haul getting back. Despite the devastation, we now hear that House Republicans are holding FEMA...