Spring is around the corner, which means that baseball season is finally getting underway. Amidst the spring training games and the speculations about the upcoming season, one can find the clear signs of the truly obsessed -- the fantasy baseball players -- ramping up their debates about how to select players in their fantasy league drafts, weighing the relative importance of slugging percentage versus base-stealing ability, and generally...
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When promises are credible signals
[Cross-posted at Signal/Noise]While there are all sorts of actions people can take to signal that they are trustworthy, sometimes simply making a promise can get the job done. When two parties will be dealing with each other for an indeterminate amount of time it is advantageous to both if they are viewed as trustworthy. Lying would mean being punished in the future by the other party. In this way, talk isn't simply cheap--it's a credible...
Paintings, Pictures, and Power
At the "Theory Talks" Blog, there is an excellent interview with Michael J. Shapiro on "Pictures, Paintings, Power and the Political Philosophy of International Relations." Shapiro argues for the need to awaken the discipline from its pre-Kantian slumber and to move beyond the "anemic, empiricist philosophy of social science which treats mere appearances" as well as the "security-minded and war strategy focused" versions of international...
Is there a legal obligation to report war casualties?
This year at ISA a theme which seemed to crop up again and again (at least among the laws of war crowd – we’re small but mighty) was the idea that “we” (international society, academia, NGOs, I guess) need more information on civilian casualties, particularly those caused by air strikes in Pakistan and Afghanistan. There was a real sense of frustration that the US was not more forthcoming on casualties, who was being targeted and who...
Got the post-Olympic blues?
Not to worry, the World Cup in South Africa is only 100 days away. It's been six years since FIFA awarded the World Cup to South Africa and there is a lot of excitement about an African nation finally hosting the World Cup and how the event has the potential to be a transcendent event. (I still wonder how things might have been different in the Balkans if the unified Yugoslavia team had defeated Argentina in the 1990 Quarterfinals shoot out and...
Biological Weapons
A few years ago, a mid-career biochemist enrolled in my master's level international relations course because he was burned out of working in academic and commercial settings in his field. He wanted to apply his background in biological sciences to his new interest in security politics. The 2001 anthrax attacks, in particular, had influenced his thinking.Phil McCauley turned out to be a very bright and capable student and we soon figured out a...
More ISA Redux: Diversity Issues in the International Studies Association
A debate about the mission of the ISA Diversity Committee that started Tuesday at the Governing Council weekend and continued throughout the conference has inspired me to think about diversity issues in the International Studies Association and in a number of our other professional environments. While I will inevitably mischaracterize the contours of this debate - I'll try to describe it quickly as a prelude to what I want to say about these...
Peace Talks and Terror Tactics
Video Source: Channel 4 (UK)One day after peace talks between India and Pakistan, there has been an attack targeting Indian nationals on a goodwill mission in Afghanistan. I don't think anyone seriously doubts that these Taliban-led attacks in Afghanistan are being directed from Pakistani soil. (In general, the Afghan and Indian people have quite warm relations and Afghan nationalists have gravitated toward seeking a strategic partnership with...
Explaining, broadly understood
So Charli -- who did, in fact, attend our ISA Battlestar Galactica panel in costume -- has posted elsewhere about the panel. Though she calls it the "best event [she] attended at ISA this year," she does express some disappointment about the content of the panel when compared with the panel's title:Unfortunately the panel turned out to be misnamed however, for none of the papers really spoke to the question of whether BSG has an impact on...
Sudan’s Truce: A turning point or a simple pause?
Last weekend's signing of the truce between Omar al-Bashir's government and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebels in Darfur is a good first step. The government will commute the death sentences of some of the JEM rebels and will release several others. The JEM will hold to a truce and the two sides will resume more comprehensive negotiations in March. However, the problem is, as Laura Heaton from Enough Project notes, this is...
Wilson’s legacy
Duck readers may recall that just over two years ago Charli posted about an interesting and provocative Deborah Boucoyannis article arguing that realist notions of the balance-of-power are actually liberal ideas about checks-and-balances. The post generated a lot of comments (which apparently cannot be linked under the new software), including a fairly long and somewhat critical one from Duck founder Dan Nexon. Despite the flaws he noted, Dan...
More late post-ISA thoughts
I, like Laura, am a bit slow off the take regarding post-ISA blogging. In my defence I have a 6-hour jet-lag that was aggravated by United Airlines being successful in severely messing up every single segment of my flight to New Orleans and back. (The friendly skies? More like the unfriendly kick in the... oh forget it.)Certainly one of the highlights for me was the panel (already discussed here, here , here and here) on international...