US President Jimmy Carter's funeral is being held today in Washington, DC at the National Cathedral. Since he passed away shortly after Christmas, tributes have abounded about a man once derided as a weak one-term President. After leaving the Presidency, however, he became a powerful voice for good, leading peacebuilding and election monitoring efforts, and supporting humanitarian projects like Habitat for Humanity. And, importantly to me, he...
Amid the annual deluge of end-of-year lists, I started to think about what readings generated the best classroom discussions I have overseen in the past calendar year. That list of readings is below, but I first need to provide some context. I teach seven courses per year—three each in Wartburg’s Fall and Winter Terms and one in our May Term. These include courses in Security Studies and American Politics as well as general education seminars...
As someone who studies terrorism and religion, I approach each Christmas with dread due to the possibility of terrorist attacks around the holiday. A string of bombings hit churches in Indonesia and the Philippines in 2000, killing over 40. In 2016, someone drove a truck through a Christmas market in Berlin, killing a dozen. And just a few weeks ago, German police foiled an attempted attack on a Bavarian Christmas market. Each of these involved...
I wrote a chapter for a newly published edited volume, Teaching Political Science and International Relations for Early Career Instructors. The volume itself, capably edited by Michael P.A. Murphy and Misbah Hyder, is indeed concerned primarily with providing guidance for “Early Career Instructors” (ECIs) ranging from Ph.D. students to tenure-track faculty members. I was asked to write about mentorship for ECIs—given the challenges one faces in...
Professor Jason Ralph joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Brent has known Jason's work for two decades, but only fairly recently met him in person. Jason grew up in the village of Norton Canes in South Staffordshire near the West Midlands of England. His father had worked in the coal mines years prior, but then started a business where all of Jason's family would eventually work. The original plan was to get a teaching degree focused in...
Like many who follow the Middle East, a lot has been going through my head since the civil war there suddenly reignited and Bashar al-Assad's regime even more suddenly fell. Will the victims of his persecution now get justice? Will this weaken Russia and Iran in the region? Is the Islamist group that's now in charge, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, as moderate as they claim? Will this make things worse for the Middle East's already beleaguered...
Under the Paris Agreement, states submit Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) outlining their commitments to reducing emissions. These documents are important window in the international politicization of climate change policy.
Ben Francis is a PhD Candidate in Peace Studies and Political Science at the University of Notre Dame and currently a visiting scholar at Drexel University. Ben received his BA in International Relations and English Language from the University of Westminster and his MA in Global Development and International Political Economy from the University of Leeds. Ben has over a decade's experience working in the international aid sector, living and...
We’re living in a world where policymakers are playing Russian roulette with our lives and calling it “stability.” We need to think differently about nukes and the risks of war. Specifically, we need to recognize that the projects of peacemaking and nuclear stability are fundamentally linked. Peace advocates rightly abhor nuclear weapons, but tend to simply refuse the various concepts that occupy the nuke-bro imaginary. Although I totally...
Christopher Choong Weng Wai is a PhD candidate at the University of Warwick and a Senior Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His PhD research is on the everyday political economy of raced-gendered capitalism in Malaysia
On October 23rd, militants attacked a Turkish aerospace facility near the capital of Ankara. The Turkish government blamed the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)--a Kurdish insurgent group--and launched retaliatory airstrikes. It is very plausible that the PKK is behind this, given the group's history. But the group has also tellingly not claimed responsibility for the attack, and the Turkish government has an incentive to blame the group....
Last night’s Vice Presidential debate was a textbook lesson in how to agree to disagree civilly. Senator JD Vance and Governor Tim Walz maintained a high level of professionalism and decorum, even when debating topics where they share little common ground. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the debate was the degree to which they had common ground. The debate overall was balanced, with each candidate having a roughly equal proportion of...