by Patrick Thaddeus Jackson | 3 Jun 2005 |
File this, perhaps, under "musical politics":Bob Geldof is at it again. The chief organizer of the fantastically successful "Live Aid" concerts in 1985 -- concerts that raised more than $100 million for famine relief -- is coordinating a series of five concerts scheduled to take place on 2 July 2005. Taking place "around the world" (which, in practice, means "in several European capitals and in one major American city"), these free concerts are...
by Dan Nexon | 2 Jun 2005 |
Dan Drezner reveals that he was (is?) a Civilization addict:Occasionally, despite my mental efforts, one of these activities sneaks it's way through my defenses. I'm convinced that had I not gotten hooked on Sid Meier's Civilization game, I'd have another article somewhere on my cv. [What about blogging?--ed. A more complex answer -- I'd probably have another article or two, but the articles on outsourcing and blogging would not be there...
by Dan Nexon | 2 Jun 2005 |
From Anders Stephanson's Manifest Destiny: American Expansion and the Empire of Right, pp. 61: "The nation," [Seward] instructed the Senate in 1853, "that draws the most materials and provisions from the earth, fabricates the most, and sells the most productions of fabrics to foreign nations, must be, and will be, the great power of the earth." This was his basic geo-economic premise. Command over the "ultimate empire of the ocean," the only...
by Dan Nexon | 2 Jun 2005 |
I am really not the person who ought to be commenting on the Dutch "no" vote, but in the spirit of "we ought to say something," I'll hum a few bars.Dan Drezner has already weighed in with his usual insightful comments. Lots of good coverage over the wires and print media. Time to go track down Dutch bloggers as well.What are the implications? Ivo Daalder is worried:This is bad news for America -- which needs a strong, outward looking partner to...
by Dan Nexon | 1 Jun 2005 |
Peter Howard has some interesting comments on my post on bribing North Korea. Peter plugs his International Studies Quarterly article, "Why Not Invade North Korea? Threats, Language Games, and U.S. Foreign Policy". As Peter knows, I believe he downplays the importance of military constraints. Attacking North Korea is a far more dangerous undertaking than attacking Iraq was. The US may have become "discursive entangled" into negotiating with...
by Dan Nexon | 1 Jun 2005 |
Nicollò Machiavelli is a household name among educated adult; most people who have taken an international-relations or political-theory course have read, at least in part, sections of The Prince or of the Discourse on Livy.His friend and contemporary, Francesco Guicciardini (1483-1530) is far less well known. Indeed, I would wager that even a majority of international-relations scholars have never heard of Guicciardini (at the very least, a...
by Dan Nexon | 31 May 2005 |
I swear that I had no idea what Bill's next post was going to be about when I started this one, but I think they compliment one another nicely.There has been a lot of attention lately to the Iranian nuclear program, but there's even less hope for optimism about North Korea's stated, and likely growing, nuclear arsenal. As of now, there don't seem to be any good choices. The military option faces two enormous hurdles: inadequate intelligence...
by Bill Petti | 31 May 2005 |
Cross posted at Discord and Elaboration:Last week I (sort of) complained about the recent move by the US to allow Iran to begin the membership ascension process to the WTO in exchange for a further (not permanent) freeze on uranium enrichment until August, when presumably the EU3 can hammer out a more permanent deal with the Persian power. The US has refused to directly take part in the negotiations, but has worked with the EU3 in order to...
by Bill Petti | 30 May 2005 |
Patrick's post regarding yesterday's "Non" vote in France brings up an interesting point, one that is often missing from discussions of European integration in the MSM (mainstream media)--the importance of identity for political outcomes. Patrick argues that the vote yesterday was not driven by economic interests per se, but rather the successful framing of the issue by right and left groups as one of "us" (France) vs. "them" (other...
by Dan Nexon | 30 May 2005 | Featured
A big "hello!" (or should that be a "quack"?) to those of you dropping by via Crooked Timber. We've only been doing this for a few days, so any comments or suggestions are very much appreciated.Feel free to come back from time to time. The owl may fly at twilight, but the Duck's usually around.If anyone knows how to get blogger to make these tags conditional, please let me know!
by Patrick Thaddeus Jackson | 30 May 2005 |
French voters rejected the European Constitution yesterday in a referendum by a pretty decisive margin: 55% opposed, 45% in favor. Pollsters had been predicting this outcome for a while, so the returns came as no surprise; now begins the tussle over why the constitution was rejected. The New York Times [free subscription required] attributed the result to economic issues:The debate had been colored by fear of the mythical "Polish plumber," the...
by Dan Nexon | 29 May 2005 |
Some time ago I joined an evolutionary-psychology listserv. Some international-relations scholars have started to draw on evolutionary psychology, and I thought reading the listserv might be one way of educating myself about the subfield. It turns out that a lot of the traffic involves posting articles that are related to evolutionary psychology in one way or another. Today. someone posted "Study: Homophobia hard wired by evolution" from...