Simon Pratt is a Lecturer in Political Science at the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne. Prior to this he was a Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Studies, in the School of Sociology, Politics, and International Studies, University of Bristol, and a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the Mortara Center for International Studies, Georgetown University. He holds a PhD from the University of Toronto, where he...
As long as international organizations have existed their relationships with their member states have been conflict-ridden. States use numerous methods to influence international organizations according to their interests or to contest the authority and policies of international organizations, including by reducing financial contribution, threatening withdrawal, and by actually exiting. Between 2014 and 2020, the United States cut its...
Gisela Hirschmann is Assistant Professor of International Relations at Leiden University, The Netherlands. She holds a Ph.D. from Free University Berlin, Germany. Prior to her appointment at Leiden, she was Assistant Professor (Junior Professor) for Global Governance and Humanitarian Action at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany. She held a Max Weber postdoctoral fellowship at the European University Institute (EUI) between 2015 and 2017, and a...
Peter Cutler is living the quiet life of a Princeton professor when the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate asks him to become his foreign policy adviser. Cutler takes the job and his gambit pays off: the presidential candidate wins and Cutler is appointed to be Under Secretary of State in the new administration. As he becomes more and more absorbed in the new environment, he is shocked to learn how ruthless political life in Washington...
Zoltán Fehér is a diplomat-scholar. He is currently an America in the World Consortium Predoctoral Fellow at the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas at Austin and a PhD Candidate at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He is also a Hans J. Morgenthau Fellow at the Notre Dame International Security Center at the University of Notre Dame and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Institute for American...
Back in the Duck of Minerva's heyday, Jon Western was one of its anchors. Indeed, it wasn't that long ago that we were talking about his returning. Jon said that he'd gained important perspective on the state of higher education from his time as dean of faculty and vice president for academic affairs at Mount Holyoke. He wanted to share that with a broader audience. That won't happen. Jon died on Saturday. I don't have the details. Just a...
How do colleges and universities go about hiring tenure-line (or the equivalent) faculty in politics and international relations? Back in 2013, I provided a short overview of the typical U.S. process: Starting in the late summer, political-science departments post position announcements with the American Political Science Association. Most job hunters read those announcements on e-jobs and decide whether or not to apply.Prospective hires send...
This piece is the first of a three-part series grappling with the role of political economy in making a just, sustainable international order. hat’s America’s story for how economic policy relates to international security? I think for a long time the story was some version of the “big, dumb, beautiful dream of McDonald’s peace theory.” These days, I don’t think there is one. And while that’s not President Biden’s...
Is Constructivism best understood as a scholarly disposition, a body of theory, or an intellectua…
This is the third and final part of a three part interview between Adam B. Lerner (ABL) and Patrick Thaddeus Jackson (PTJ). It is the first instalment of a new series of interviews on Duck of Minerva entitled Quack-and-Forths.
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) originated in provincial-level efforts that sought to simultaneously integrate interior and frontier provinces to the rest of China as well as neighboring countries during the 1990s.
I am an Associate Professor of Security Studies in the Department of National Security and Strategy at the U.S. Army War College. Through a joint degree program, I earned an M.A. in Asian Studies in 2014 and a Ph.D. in International Relations in 2018 at Florida International University. My research focuses on the intersection of international relations theory, security, and geopolitics. Specifically, how interpretations of security and the...