Just a few initial observations/questions1. Iraq Body Count is arguing that the documents help provide further information on civilian deaths. No doubt this will add further impetus for the call for militaries to release information on casualties killed in armed conflict. I wonder, however, if IBC has to walk a fine line here – if they say that the information released provides information on hundreds or thousands of previously unknown...
Here are a few quick signaling items for your perusal. I will try to do a similar roundup each Friday if I've stumbled on enough items throughout the week. Enjoy!How to Signal That You Are Marrying for Love? It's tougher than you might think. Some suggest using a pre-nuptial agreement to signal one's love and affection instead of their love of money. If one is truly marrying for love and not money they should have no problem signing a...
In April of this year I noted the death of Professor Fred Halliday – a noted scholar of nationalism, the Middle East and International Relations generally. He was something of a giant in British IR and I know his work was well known throughout the Middle East as well. I was fortunate enough to be in one of his last MSc International Relations courses at the London School of Economics in 2001-2.There are a number of things being done to...
The New York Times is reporting that ISAF troops are making progress in Kandahar. Credit for progress is given equally to the surge in troops and a new mobile rocket which has "pinpoint accuracy -- like a small cruise missile." While military commanders are cautious, Western and Afghan civilians are saying that Taliban losses have "sapped the momentum the insurgency had in the area."As I am skeptical of some of the spin and zombie reporting...
The question of human over-population of our planet seems to resurface every few decades, driven by fears that there are too many people to feed, clothe and shelter, or that the sheer volume of human beings working, travelling and polluting is causing environmental damage. But the persuasiveness of such claims is weakened empirically and normatively. In terms of facts, it does not help the over-population claimants that every time the...
There are many reasons why organizations (government, businesses, etc) grow dysfunctional and stagnant. One major reason lies with the promotion and retention of less capable workers. There have been a number of studies that explored this dynamic (for example, The Peter Principle, which theorizes that people are promoted as long as they are competent, which means at some point they reach a position of incompetence). In general, though, the...
"A unique anniversary is upon us. Seventy-five years ago today -- Oct. 20, 1935 -- the Gallup Poll published its first official release of public opinion data.Here we are three-quarters of a century later, still working to fulfill the mission laid out in that first release: providing scientific, nonpartisan assessment of American public opinion.The subject of that first release? Well, given the fact that 1935 was smack dab in the middle of the...
The London School of Economics runs a blog on British politics to which I contribute occasionally; this week I’ve posted on the British Government’s defence review, and I thought I’d share this with the Duck readership. A little bit of context: the new British government is simultaneously engaging in developing a National Security Strategy, while conducting a Comprehensive Spending Review and a Defence Review. The previous government made a...
Here is a fabulous interview on Canadian TV with Professor James Ron of Carleton University. Ron's key argument is that we are not giving our students a sufficient education if they leave our classes fluent in human rights discourse but not in the nuts and bolts of the world's leading religions. A real "aha" moment for me as a teacher - sure, I've always tried to make sure they know the difference between Sunni and Shi'a or the difference...
The debate that my original post has sparked has been really interesting. Charli Carpenter has written a thoughtful and excellent response to my first post, and even Discourse on Explosive Weapons (DEW) - part of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) has been paying attention. Happily, they seem to welcome this debate and it is in this spirit that I shall continue to engage on the issue.I would like to stress that by...
James Traub reminds the Atlantic Community not to freak out over Turkey's "Neo-Ottoman foreign policy."It's a caricature to say that Turkey has chosen the Middle East, or Islam, over the West. Turkey's aspiration for full membership in the club of the West, including the European Union, is still a driving force. But Turkey aspires to many things, and some may contradict each other. The country wants to be a regional power in a region deeply...
A fascinating, if somewhat depressing, article in the Chronicle of Higher Education (via Andrew Gellman) discusses recent accusations of plagiarism against Rutgers-Newark political scientist Frank Fischer by (1) an angry graduate student from the University of Zagreb and (2) Alan Sokal of science-wars fame.The account begins with a political-science graduate student at the University of Zagreb, in Croatia, named Kresimir Petkovic. Last year Mr....