One of the main reasons I started blogging was to force me to keep up with current events. I spend so much time reading history and social theory that I often lose track of why I wanted to study international relations in the first place. Sometimes, however, the news just isn't all that good, as it was last night.The worst news continues to come out of South Asia, where reports place the death toll at over 79,000. Foreign aid remains inadequate...

John J. Miller on the Time book list:"Also, I was pleased to see C.S. Lewis and no Philip Pullman."Words fail me.(Hat tip: "JJE".)Filed as: hackery, hacks, hacktitude

A few days ago Younghusband posted some thoughts about an old post of mine, in which I argued that, from an IR theory perspective, "neoconservativism" is not an alternative vision of international politics on par with realism and liberalism. I further claimed that neoconservativism shares more with the liberal than the realist tradition of IR theory. Younghusband asked, in essence, if neocons were leftists (let's put aside jokes about old...

Astute readers will already have noted the lack of new content here since last Thursday. I can't speak for the rest of the crew, but I've been swamped with genuine academic work. I expect a flurry of posting will start again within the next few days.In the meantime, a very few links:* I suspect the Reuter's editor who came up with this title must have been feeling a bit punchy.* My colleagues at Georgetown, Robert Lieber and Tony Arend, discuss...

I want to take a break from the standard fare here (whatever that is) to very publicly wish my wife, Maia, a happy anniversary. Maia and I eloped, so we never had the big wedding. We always figured we'd do something major for our tenth as compensation; but I dragged her to Columbus for the year, away from our closest friends and our family. Also, it would appear, away from being able to find a babysitter for the night. So, no party, No dinner...

There's been something of a debate in IR journals over the past decade about what a reunified Germany was likely to do, since the basic components of its foreign policy as set after the Second World War rested on assumptions that were no longer valid. Specifically, postwar Germany was a) divided into two pieces which were b) integrated into separate alliances which were c) implacably opposed to one another in the titanic global settlement...

Last night my wife and I watched Epsiode 9 of Serial Experiment: Lain. Over the course of the episode viewers are given a synopsis of UFOlogist claims about Roswell and Majestik 12, Vannevar Bush and his concept of the memex, John Lilly’s psychedelic experiments and his ‘contact’ with ECCO, the Schumann resonance, theories about human beings as synapses in a vast neural network of collective consciousness, Ted Nelson's invention of hypertext,...

The Congressional Research Service has recently (October 3) estimated that the Iraq war is costing about $6 billion per month. DOD’s current monthly average spending rate is about $6 billion for Iraq, $1 billion for Afghanistan and $170 million for enhanced base security for the first nine months of FY2005. Compared to FY2004, those averages are 19% higher for Iraq, 8% lower for Afghanistan, and 47% lower for base security.That works out to...

The ripples on Dan's tenure decision continue to spread. Today the New York Sun published an article entitled "Blogging Prof Fails To Heed His Own Advice" (hat tip: David M.). Key quotations:On Friday, Mr. Drezner's first blog entry came back to haunt him: He was informed by his department that he was denied tenure and would have to look elsewhere for a job.Under normal circumstances, a scholar who is denied tenure assumes that the decision was...

Here's a friendly hint to David Brooks: it probably isn't such a good idea to write "I believe in the lost tradition of American politics, the tradition of Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, and the Bull Moose" if most of the policies you're about to advocate are exactly the opposite of their "lost" traditions.Otherwise, people might think you're chronically disingenuous. Or historically ignorant. Or an idiot.After a while, you get sick of...

[I wasn't happy with the earlier version of this post, so I've revised it substantially]I've talked about the role of multivocal signaling in American politics before, particularly in terms of "dog-whistle politics": the art of sending different signals to different audiences. Henry Farrell's review of Jacob Hacker's and Paul Pierson's Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy shows that I'm not the only...

Dan let us know today that the Political Science Department of the University of Chicago decided not to extend him tenure. Given how upsetting this is for Dan, I thought his announcement on his blog displayed a great deal of class and wit.There's been some discussion of the matter on Crooked Timber, and many condolences (and displays of outrage) in the comments section of Dan's blog.A few comments.1. As hard as this is for Dan, keep in mind...