by Charli Carpenter | 31 Mar 2008 |
This is none too pithy, but tonight (this morning?) I’m just going to toss up a whole stream of ideas that have been percolating since the first BioNote discussion and took shape while I was attending the ISA conference in San Francisco. They relate to a very problematic final chapter I’m struggling over now in which I attempt to account for the role I’ve played (by researching a non-barking dog) in inadvertently getting the dog to bark. Many...
by Charli Carpenter | 28 Mar 2008 |
In response to our discussion about how explicitly IR scholars should reveal the personal influences on their work Dan Drezner points out that IR scholars do tend to have (and take) somewhat more leeway in book prefaces than in journal bio-notes, and that's true. Seemingly, the norms are also somewhat relaxed for very senior IR scholars ruminating about the theory/policy divide. See below the fold.Autobiographical Reflections on Bridging the...
by Dan Nexon | 25 Mar 2008 |
As Duncan Black would say, "document the atrocities."My pick o' the conference:Hans J. Morgenthau and the Politics Among Nations – 60 Years Later WA19 Wednesday 8:30 - 10:15 AM Chair(s):Michael CoxLondon School of Economics Roundtable Discussants:Nicolas Guilhot The Social Science Research Council John Mearsheimer University of ChicagoMichael C. WilliamsUniversity of Wales, AberystwythNothing like a roundtable on realism to have the slim...
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...