A great many bloggers and policy wonks, motivated by the upcoming Lisbon Summit, are weighing in on NATO's future. NATO faces a number of challenges and difficult issues, including:The inconclusive war in Afghanistan that has led member after member to reduce (or eliminate) its commitment to ISAF;Whether to take on a missile defense as part of a broader "territorial defense" mandate;The future of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe;Continuing...
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Pork Barrel Nation: From Prisons to Pentagon
Here is a fascinating story detailing how a network of legislators and corporations works together on bills such as Arizona’s recent and controversial immigration bill. The two-part report shows corporations and trade groups writing laws, encouraging “lawmakers” to promote and pass them, then using the legislation to expand their businesses. In this case, prison companies--one of the few bright spots in our woeful economy--were involved in...
The Strategic Impact of Wikileaks
Rob Farley opines at World Press Review on the political/strategic implications of War Diarii:Perversely, efforts to increase government transparency often have negative effect on actual secrecy policy. For example, the ability of individuals to uncover written notes from government meetings through FOIA requests or through lawsuit discovery has led to the practice of shredding notes following most meetings. Data that does not exist cannot be...
The decline of American math and sciences?
I attended a forum on the math and science curriculum last night at my kids' school and we had an interesting presentation and discussion on the general state of math and science education in the United States. Several of the parents present at the forum were math and science faculty members from Smith College and from UMass. One prominent theme was the lament that the US was falling behind China and India in the math and sciences.One of the...
UPDATED: So you want to get a PhD in the humanities/political science
Makes you laugh, but also cry a little bit inside...Update: and for those polisci folks out there
Social Science: Apparently Too ‘Sciencey’ for the Iranian Government…
...so says a senior Education Ministry official:"Expansion of 12 disciplines in the social sciences like law, women's studies, human rights, management, sociology, philosophy....psychology and political sciences will be reviewed," Abolfazl Hassani was quoted as saying in the Arman newspaper."These sciences' contents are based on Western culture. The review will be the intention of making them compatible with Islamic teachings."The Ayatollah...
Three Cheers for Wikileaks
The last few days have seen a fury of debate about Wikileaks’ latest disclosures. To my mind, Wikileaks’ release of the Iraq and earlier Afghanistan documents is a public service—throwing critical light on the way in which America has pursued its wars at ground level. Some have dismissed the documents as nothing “new.” Of course, it is true that we have had information about the wars, human rights violations, and civilian casualties in...
IR makes it to TED
Joseph Nye gives a TED talk:To my knowledge, this is only the third political scientist and IR specialist to give a TED talk (Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Samantha Power being the other two). Hopefully we'll see more as I think the TED series is a great way for polisci and IR scholars to make their knowledge relevant and understandable outside of the discipline.
In Praise of Falsification
For those that have not read it yet, The Atlantic recently featured an article profiling Dr. John Ioannidis who has made a career out of falsifying many of the findings of medical research that guides clinical practice. Ioannidis' research should cause us all to appreciate the various bias we may bring to our own work:[C]an any medical-research studies be trusted?That question has been central to Ioannidis’s career. He’s what’s known as a...
What you should know about ‘Right to Know’
While WikiLinks is dumping information from the US military all over the internets, the South African government is taking some rather disturbing steps to ensure that citizens, citizens and pretty much everyone in between will not have the right to access any information deemed a threat to "national security". What kind of information threatens national security? Well, according to the “Protection of Information Bill”, pretty much whatever...
Is Academic Jargon Elitist?
Shortest Drezner: The specialization of knowledge leads actors to reduce the transacton costs of communication with each other. Naturally, this phenomenon creates a barrier to entry for outside consumers, while instilling a common identity among specialists.This is his short and concise but jargony argument in favor of the value of academic jargon. For the long-winded explanation in language non-academic can understand, see here.
“War Diaries 2.0”: Is Wikileaks Moving Down the Learning Curve?
In a number of respects the Iraq War Diaries constitute a repeat of the Afghan War Diaries – a massive data dump bringing to light few unknowns but admittedly casting those knowns in much sharper relief, an act for which Julian Assange is being hailed or harangued by those of different persuasions, for different reasons. At Lawyers, Guns and Money, I've pointed out a couple of things that are different this time ‘round: Assange was previously...