Great powers find themselves compelled to support regimes they consider problematic, unpleasant, or even odious. The United States is no exception. Many of its friends and allies have far greater democratic deficits than Egypt, although few receive more combined U.S. aid than Cairo does. Sometimes those allies will have revolutionary moments -- points at which the forces for regime change are strong enough that no one can be sure whether the...
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Egypt Rises Up
Do we?Tomorrow is slated to be a showdown between the US backed Mubarak regime and masses of Egyptian protesters. It is a critical moment for Egypt, and also for the Arab nation. What strikes me about these events, is the general way in which the discourse of "reform" continues to be the official American mantra (at least where there is not out right denial of the authoritarian nature of the regime in Egypt). After decades of supporting a...
Tunisia… Egypt… Yemen…
We haven't had much to say about these topics at the Duck. Which is fine, as there are much better academic bloggers to go to for informed commentary (e.g. Marc Lynch, Juan Cole, etc.). But I am struck by this AP story, which suggests Egypt is taking additional efforts to shut down internet communications (more here and here [note: holy &*!!, the whole country appears to be cut off]) as it ramps up its crackdown.On a more abstract plane, Josh...
Lost in the Clouds
Drew Conway discusses the evils of word clouds. He doesn't go far enough: the meaning of speeches and texts depends on the order and proximity of words, not the frequency of their appearance. Consider the two wordles below of famous addresses. They're both meaningless hash. They tell us virtually nothing of any importance about the two speeches.
Light Reading in Genocide Studies
If you're looking for something to read for International Holocaust Remembrance Day, let me humbly suggest Adam Jones' volume Evoking Genocide, which has won a 2010 Outstanding Academic Title Award by the American Library Association's Choice Magazine. Here's their review:This compilation has a simple yet fascinating premise: ask leading human rights scholars and activists to reflect on the art and literature that most influenced them. The...
How Political Negotiations can be Un-Mediated but Mediatized
When delicate political negotiations are needed, perhaps journalists need to get out of the way. Gadi Wolfsfeld’s studies of peace processes have shown how journalistic discretion in Northern Ireland created space for political leaders to make individual compromises. Such compromises would probably each have been unacceptable to their constituencies if lit up by a media spotlight, but only became public once the full package of a peace treaty...
The Promise and Perils of Book TitlesBecause I’m Way Too Busy With the Start of the Term to Blog About Anything Useful.
Thanks to Erik Voeten, I have just discovered a fabulous blog, Better Book Titles:This blog is for people who do not have thousands of hours to read book reviews or blurbs or first sentences. I will cut through all the cryptic crap, and give you the meat of the story in one condensed image. Now you can read the greatest literary works of all time in mere seconds!Some of my other favorites from the site:blinkthe curious incident of the dog in...
Feminist IR 101, Post #5 War and Security (in Theory)
There's been a small break (understatement) in my posting as I dealt with some pressing stuff personally and professionally, and to post about some time-sensitive stuff (like Don't Ask, Don't Tell, which I couldn't resist, though I did resist talking about Wikileaks). I will now return to "Feminist IR 101," a series of posts designed to provide audiences that had (intentionally or not) an understanding of feminist approaches to IR that caused...
The “drug war” is over?
Over the years, the so-called global "war on terror" (or "war on terrorism") has had its ups and downs as a foreign policy framing device. The George W. Bush administration, of course, relied upon the frame to sell virtually all its major foreign policies over a period of many years -- even though the Pentagon at one point preferred "struggle against violent extremists." Britain stopped using the phrase some years ago (at least in the Labor...
International Relations Reading Group
I run a small international-relations reading group at Georgetown University, and thought some of our readers might be interested in the list of books we're tackling this semester.Michael Horowitz, The Diffusion of Military Power: Causes and Consequences for International Politics (Princeton, 2010); 26 January.Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations: Philosophy of Science and Its Implications for the Study of...
Memories of willow witching
So, this is it -- Tunisia is vindication of the Iraq War. Here's Jennifer Rubin's great insight: Recall when President George W. Bush talked about democracy taking hold in Iraq and then the region? Now Bush's vision seems very prescient....One question that deserves further consideration: How much did the emergence of a democratic Iraq have to do with this popular revolt in Tunisia? This is similar to a point Max Boot made recently at Amherst...
Interstellar Relations: notes for Watchmen (book) and Akira (film)
Of possible interest to some Duck readers, I reproduce notes that I posted on my class blog in preparation for our next section. Comments and suggestions welcome.The narrative of Watchmen enjoys, at best, a quasi-linear relationship to time. Events in the past and present intermingle. At the same time, Moore gives significant space to Dr. Manhattan’s relationship to space-time. It might be interesting, in this context, to skim the Internet...