by Dan Nexon | 15 Mar 2007 |
Nicole Itano of the Christian Science Monitor reports on a fascinating project that seeks to change the parameters of national identity in the Balkans:In this still-fragile region, history is often served up as a nationalistic tale that highlights the wrongs perpetrated by others. Now a group of historians from across the region is trying to change the way the past is taught in southeast Europe – from Croatia to Turkey – in an effort to...
by Dan Nexon | 13 Mar 2007 |
Robert Farley points us to the latest chapter in the continuing story of "everything I need to know about Thucydides I learned from the Melian Dialogue."Let's all remember that while realists argue that the Melian Dialogue captures a basic truth of international politics, Thucydides was cataloging, in his view, Athenian hubris and self-immolation.
by Dan Nexon | 13 Mar 2007 |
Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to let Blake Hounshell have a review copy of Harry Potter and International Relations.On the other hand, "a brilliant, subversive parody of IR scholarship..." has a certain ring to it.I've been sitting on another book review because I don't know the actual publication date, but there's a very positive write up of the book coming out--or perhaps already out--in the Norwegian Journal of Political Science.JENNIFER...
by Dan Nexon | 13 Mar 2007 |
Actually, this picture accompanies news of a leaked memo outlining plans to divert spending for high-tech weaponry, including the F-35, to Iraq and Afghanistan.Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice witnesses the signing of the Joint Strike Fighter Memorandum of Understanding between the U.S. and Australia in the Treaty Room of the U.S. State Department in Washington, December 12, 2006. The White House plans to shift $3.2 billion in defense...
by Peter | 9 Mar 2007 | Featured
China has over $1 trillion of US treasury bills. Its a well described cycle--China produces massive amounts of consumer goods, the US buys those goods, the trade is imbalanced, so China ends up with a lot of dollars, and they invest them hier in T-bills, essentially loaning them back to the US government to finance the US federal budget deficit. So far, China has been sitting on this mound of cash, content to save. That seems to be changing,...
by Dan Nexon | 5 Mar 2007 |
I missed Alex Harrowell's important February 24 post at a Fistful of Euros. The essence? First, Americans and Europeans need to protect those, such as translators, who've helped us in Iraq. Second, a basic implication of the "Pottery Barn Rule" is that the US--and the other members of the "Coalition of the Willing"--should be taking in a great many more refugees.So it’s time to talk seriously about the people who have worked for us in Iraq. The...
by Dan Nexon | 5 Mar 2007 |
[UPDATED 3/6/07]So wrote the daily Moskovsky Komsomolets yesterday after news of the death of Ivan Safronov. The Associated Press reports:Safronov, who had served as a colonel in the Russian Space Forces before joining Kommersant in 1997, frequently angered authorities with his critical reporting and was repeatedly questioned by the Federal Security Service, the main KGB successor agency, which suspected him of divulging state secrets. No...
by Dan Nexon | 5 Mar 2007 |
We've all been at the International Studies Association conference. Posting to resume soon.
by Dan Nexon | 27 Feb 2007 |
To post, or not to post, a list of "panels that look interesting"?Pros: fills a blog post; highlights panels that I find interesting; provides potential springboard for discussions about conferences and conventions.Cons: most interesting-looking panels turn out to be letdowns; will invariably piss off people whose panels I don't include; somewhat dishonest, as I've spent most of the last few conferences I've been at in the bar.
by Dan Nexon | 25 Feb 2007 |
I must admit that I find the conservapedia "world history" lectures interesting--but for the same reasons that my wife and I used to collect premillenial dispensationalist pamphlets. I promise this will turn into a more serious set of questions about the appropriateness of vandalizing, or even what it would mean to vandalize, a collective encyclopedia project. But before I do, let me note some of the list of great "homeschooled Christians" that...
by Rodger Payne | 24 Feb 2007 |
Next Wednesday in Chicago -- that's February 28, at 8:30 am -- at the Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association, I'll be presenting a paper called "The Comedy of Great Power Politics in the 21st Century." Warning: that's a pdf, which I posted on my rarely used University homepage.On the same panel, my friend Nayef Samhat is presenting "The 'Comedic Turn' and Critical International Relations Theory." If those titles sound strange...
by Patrick Thaddeus Jackson | 22 Feb 2007 |
I'm on sabbatical, which helps to explain my pronounced absence from this and any other blog of late . . . I promise to return to regular posting sometime in a month or two. (Or is that a threat? :-)But in the meantime I wanted to ask for readers' help with the design of an assignment I am considering for my introductory World Politics class in the Fall. I call it "IR Vocabulary," and the basic idea is to split students into pairs and have each...