by Dan Nexon | 28 May 2005 |
The collapse of the most recent NPT conference is already gone from the headlines. The general tenor of the reporting has gone, more or less, like this:When the conference began on May 2, countries had hoped to agree on a plan to plug loopholes in the treaty that enable countries to acquire sensitive atomic technology and to hear from Washington and the four other NPT members with nuclear weapons that they remained committed to disarming.But it...
by Dan Nexon | 28 May 2005 |
There were two sets of very interesting comments on my recent post on hegemony. Bill Petti questions whether US hegemony only has another few decades left in its lifespan. At the most basic level, Bill is right. I definitely overstated the case. At the same time, Bill presents far too optimistic a picture of the prospects for medium-term American primacy.Bill argues that hegemonic decline is driven by one of four processes: "imperial...
by Dan Nexon | 28 May 2005 | Featured
The Duck of Minerva is now a collaborative endeavor. Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, an assistant professor at American University, and William Petti, a doctoral student in international relations at the University of Pennsylvania, have agreed to join the staff.They will be introducing themselves shortly.
by Dan Nexon | 26 May 2005 |
The life of an academic is all about balancing the scales. The pay isn't so hot, but the hours are good. Grading is a pain, but they give you money to read stuff. And so on.But one thing that really does unequivocally suck about being an academic, at least in political science, is the constant rejection - or the existential threat of rejection. Russell Arben Fox captures this feature of academic life quite well (although I wish he didn't have...
by Dan Nexon | 26 May 2005 |
How many recent developments in international politics can be attributed to US hegemony as opposed to structural shifts in the international economy, technology, or other factors that might be considered at least partially autonomous from American primacy? The answer to this question matters a great deal, because no one expects US primacy to last much more than a few additional decades.1 Dan Drezner weighs in on the question in his review of a...
by Dan Nexon | 26 May 2005 |
I stumbled across Orson Scott Card's review of Star Wars whilst reading Lawyers, Guns and Money, which itself links to the article via Lance Mannion. There's been some disappointment over the tenor and quality of Card's article, but this is what jumped out at me:As a religion, the Force is just the sort of thing you’d expect a liberal-minded teenage kid to invent. There’s no God and there are no rules other than a vague insistence on...
by Dan Nexon | 25 May 2005 |
In response to Time Burke's "Rampant Geekery: Star Wars Thoughts [SPOILERS]", I made a comment about what I called "nerd hermeneutics": the analysis of the text and media of speculative worlds, such as Star Wars and Star Trek, as if they were complete, self-contained systems. In a followup, Tim expands masterfully on this concept. He talks about it as "ways in which a fiction like Star Wars invites a particular kind of reader to make it into...
by Dan Nexon | 24 May 2005 |
Even though nobody reads this blog, I'm going to pretend that this isn't the case. Thus, a request for help.One of my side projects is am edited volume on Harry Potter and international relations. The current opening paragraph reads as follows: This volume is about Harry Potter and world politics. This may seem like an odd topic. What, one might ask, can works of children’s fantasy possibly teach us about war, peace, intervention, international...
by Dan Nexon | 20 May 2005 |
I have this long post in draft form about U.S. foreign policy and Central Asia, but I'll probably never finish it before it gets stale (not least because I have an edited volume to finish). There is, however, a very interesting discussion going on over at Crooked Timber about academia, ideas, and progress. You can read the details yourself. I only have a few comments:1. The goal of cumulative knowledge in the social and natural sciences is all...
by Dan Nexon | 19 May 2005 |
Our area is served by two local elementary schools, New Hampshire Estates (K-2) and Oak View (3-5). The schools used to both be K-5, but about twenty years ago they were "paired." In other words, Montgomery County instituted a busing system to try to improve demographic and racial diversity at both schools. A lot of people in our neighborhood want to unpair the schools, including Ruy Texeria of Emerging Democratic Majority fame. This would...
by Dan Nexon | 17 May 2005 | Featured
Because everyone is doing it. I mean everyone. Even John Ikenberry is going to be blogging at TPMCafe.com.1 Plus, all the cool kids are non-anonymous now.2Who am I? I'm an Assistant Professor in the Department of Government and the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. My official webpage is pretty spare, but it does have a picture of me looking kind of 'old-school Jewish socialist' in Copenhagen. In 2005-2006 I'll be a fellow at...
by Dan Nexon | 17 May 2005 | Featured
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