by Dan Nexon | 25 Mar 2008 |
Peter Howard emails me a link to the latest coverage of the threat from Svalbard.I didn't have a chance to watch the report, but I assume it comprises another whitewash of the critical danger posed to humanity by the creation of this "Doomsday Vault" in the highly militarized territory of Svalbard. Svalbard, as readers of the Duck are already aware, is also home to many Polar Bears literally drowning in their existential hate for western,...
by Dan Nexon | 25 Mar 2008 |
With all of the important developments in world politics in need ripe for thoughtful self-important analysis at the Duck, why am I posting another review of Harry Potter and International Relations? Because I can.Frank A. Stengel in Internationale Politik und Gesellschaft: The study of popular culture is slowly gaining ground within the discipline of International Relations. Not only are more and more teachers discovering movies, music, and so...
by Charli Carpenter | 19 Mar 2008 |
I quite liked an article I read in International Studies Review a couple of years back, a conversation between Ersel Aydinli and James Rosenau, published under the heading "Courage vs. Caution: A Dialogue on Entering and Prospering in IR." One of the most thoughtful exchanges in the "Dialogue" has to do with academic norms regarding full disclosure of our identities as scholars / persons. Rosenau argues, defending a "commitment to explicitness"...
by Patrick Thaddeus Jackson | 16 Mar 2008 |
The confluence this week of the Eliot Spitzer resignation and yet another round of discussions about the Barack Obama-Tony Rezko connection led me -- like, I'm sure, many of you -- to wonder a bit about the political consequences of the fact that "personal integrity" seems to have become the most important commodity that a whole slew of U.S. pundits and even large swaths of the U.S. electorate looks for in a candidate for public office. Besides...
by Charli Carpenter | 14 Mar 2008 |
A DC-based NGO is promulgating a novel idea: that states should compensate civilians that they legally harm during combat operations. The Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict(CIVIC) has launched a "You Harm You Help" campaign. Having succeeded in convincing the US Government to create a trust fund for victims of collateral damage in Afghanistan and Iraq, the organization is now trying to figure out how to turn this practice into a global...
by Dan Nexon | 10 Mar 2008 |
For those of you who may have found my discussion of the argument befuddling, I give you a less technical version below the fold.My argument begins with the most banal of claims: we cannot understand the political impact of the Protestant Reformations without reference to the institutional structures and dynamics of early modern European states. How, my readers might ask, could it be otherwise? Some of the most influential...
by Dan Nexon | 10 Mar 2008 |
Brad reads my announcement of manuscript delivery, and raises a few important questions:1. Do you really want to write "Franche-Compté" rather than "Franche-Comté"?2. Do you really want to leave blurb-readers (and us!) hanging as to what your theory of state formation and the Wars of the Reformation actually is?3. Jan de Vries and I, after class last Wednesday, were discussing why it was that transoceanic trade seems to have done something to...
by Dan Nexon | 10 Mar 2008 |
Ellie Tzortzi of Reuters:The coalition government of Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica was formally dissolved on Monday, opening the way for an early parliamentary election.The decision was taken at a brief cabinet session following Kostunica's announcement on Saturday that the government could not continue in office owing to deep disunity over defending Kosovo versus pursuing a place in the European Union."The government did not have a...
by Dan Nexon | 9 Mar 2008 |
I didn't think it was possible, but if the Washington Post's summary of Douglas Feith's manuscript is accurate, Feith's attempt to rehabilitate his image is only likely to make him look worse.The idea to which Feith appears most attached, and to which he repeatedly returns in the book, is the formation of an Iraqi Interim Authority. Feith's office drew up a plan for the body -- to be made up of U.S.-appointed Iraqis who would share some...
by Charli Carpenter | 5 Mar 2008 |
The Pentagon's "less-than-lethal" weaponry is finally going mainstream. Though the Active Denial System (ADS) has been under development for years, 60 Minutes has finally reported on it as if it's the newest thing around. (Click here to see the 10-minute segment from Sunday's show.)Not exactly a hand-held phaser, and it doesn't painlessly knock you out. Instead it sends a wave of directed energy at a person or a crowd that vibrates the water...
by Peter | 3 Mar 2008 |
A focus on foreign policy has returned to the campaign, and the Washington Post had an telling series of articles yesterday and today on what the next President might do in the Foreign Policy arena. A column in Sunday’s Outlook section speculated on what lies ahead:The next president will inherit a turbulent, intractable world that sharply constrains the room for creative new U.S. initiatives, according to many foreign policy experts of varying...
by Rodger Payne | 1 Mar 2008 |
Some of the remaining presidential candidates are this week debating the role of al Qaeda in Iraq. Senator John McCain points to AQI to justify his pro-war position, Senator Barack Obama points out that al Qaeda would not be in Iraq if the US hadn't invaded. It was not in Iraq before the US invaded.If the US abandoned Iraq, McCain says, then AQI would not just be "establishing a base." No, he says, "they'd be taking a country." President Bush...