by Peter | 11 May 2008 |
With the unfolding of the humanitarian tragedy in Burma following the cyclone, people are once again (re)learning how awful that regime is (by one popular account, the 3rd worst dictatorship in the world—don’t laugh, even Drezner loves the list).Back in The Day, when the Axis of Evil (you remember that—Iran, Iraq, North Korea) came out, I used to go through a little exercise with my students called what makes a country Evil? In particular, I...
by Peter | 9 May 2008 |
An interesting thing happened late Tuesday night and into early Wednesday morning. The narrative that had driven the Democratic Presidential primary contest unraveled before our eyes and a new narrative was cast.Going into the Tuesday primaries in IN and NC, the story was Obama has the lead, Hillary is making a move, and they will probably split the two states with the contest continuing on through June 3. And, the predicted outcome did in fact...
by Charli Carpenter | 9 May 2008 |
At the urging of a friend, I have recently finished consuming the complete box-set of Joss Wheddon's now-defunct Firefly TV series plus the feature film Serenity. (Totally missed this show in 2002 while writing my dissertation.)Though my partner can't quite see what I like about Firefly/Serenity(and didn't accept my claim that I was viewing it as a mere artifact of popular culture - really), truth is it's a damn cool series that should have...
by Rodger Payne | 6 May 2008 |
Political Scientists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt received a lot of heat for their recent work about the power of the Israeli lobby inside the United States.Mearsheimer and Walt raised issues that are rarely discussed in the United States. Indeed. some describe this topic as "the third rail" of US foreign policy debate.Now that the power of "the Lobby" has been made part of the US public debate, Israel's nuclear weapons program should also...
by Patrick Thaddeus Jackson | 6 May 2008 | Featured
Never knew the word "bleg" before today, when Dan asked me to put up the following request from Russell B:"How can I send a bleg to the readers of the Duck? Being the Ultimate Part-timer, I've finally secured myself some rather stable work but have to concoct a course on Globalization and Security (like a globalization version of a traditional Security Studies course). So I'm looking for input, as I have no priors."Any thoughts?
by Charli Carpenter | 6 May 2008 |
While I was in Japan last week interviewing government officials about their "human security" foreign policy agenda, I visited the Yasukuni shrine. Readers may be aware that this memorial to modern-era Japanese war dead has been controversial in the region: victims of Japan's imperial wars see it as a salute to war criminals, and the opposition in Japan considers any national monument to militarism a violation of the post-war constitution. A...
by Peter | 5 May 2008 |
Obama's losing streak is over, he won the Guam caucuses this weekend.Guam only has 9 delegates (8 half-votes plus 5 super delegates). Obama won the caucuses by 7 votes, Hillary and Obama split the 4 delegates, but it looks like Obama will come out 1 up with the super delegates.Now, no one is really talking about Guam. You could write it off as another small-state/territory caucus win for Obama, and its not even a state, really just a huge...
by Peter | 3 May 2008 |
How would this column read if David Brooks had actually read Rosenau?A skills revolution that drives elements of globalization-- it would be a fantastic new discovery if it wasn't an idea that could be old enough to vote.
by Rodger Payne | 2 May 2008 | Featured
I've been following the steroids controversy in baseball for some time. In 2005, major league baseball implemented a restrictive policy that was meant to be taken seriously. Since then, Congress has held hearings, many players have been outed as users, and even more draconian policies have now been adopted.Has the policy been working? Yesterday, a (relatively obscure) major league player was suspended for 50 days. That's interesting, but not...
by Dan Nexon | 1 May 2008 |
Some of our readers may have been wondering about the small flurry of Chuck Tilly posts in the last few weeks. Not long before then, many of his friends, colleagues, and former advisees learned for the first time that he was, once again, facing severe medical problems related to his lymphoma. Chuck subsequently moved to a hospice so as to maximize his comfort. He died yesterday morning.A few academic bloggers have begun to write memorial posts....
by Peter | 27 Apr 2008 |
Today's Washington Post has an excellent story that I strongly recommend on recent rise in food prices worldwide and resulting international upheaval.Its the exact story I would assign to my World Politics class-- an example of how this thing we call Globalization brings international trade, poverty, financial speculation, climate change, domestic farm subsidies, energy prices, and environmentalism together for a perfect storm of rising food...
by Peter | 27 Apr 2008 |
Yet another page in the continuing saga of the Secret Raid on they Syrian Reactor that maybe never was....As many loyal Duck readers know, I've been following this story with fascination since it broke. To recap: Israel bombs a "site" in Syria, Syria says nothing, 3rd hand reports indicate a North Korean nuclear reactor was the target, nobody talks.This week yet another bit of key information leaked out. Turns out, they had a video! The Video...