In 2016 I took a job at university in the UK. As an American, British academic culture was new to me, especially its ‘audit culture’. The key elements of audit culture are mechanisms for the evaluation and measurement of teaching and research. The vast majority of UK higher education is delivered by public institutions, regulated and funded in large part by the government. The UK government justifies its use of oversight mechanisms on...
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The sneaky rise of “common wisdom” in Middle East studies
We've all spent the weekend processing the killing of Iranian official Qassim Suleimani by a US airstrike. While this is obviously very important, we should think about a secondary implication of this act--how this undermined the apparent Middle East analyst consensus that America was pulling back from tensions with Iran, and how this consensus even emerged in the first place. A few months ago I noticed something interesting. Saudi Arabia,...
The biggest losers from the Suleimani strike may be America’s Gulf allies
Depending on your Twitter addiction, you either went to sleep or woke up with the news that America had assassinated Qassim Suleimani, the commander of Iran's Quds force. Suleimani was one of the most powerful men in Iran, and the driver of its activities in the Middle East, so this is a big deal. People are debating whether this was just and necessary, and what happens next. But I wanted to raise a different point: what this means for...
The Russian Enigma
On an ice-cold winter evening I arrived in Moscow to untangle the riddle that is Russia. After reading two op-eds by Anne Applebaum and Bill Browder I knew what this country was about but I just wanted to see it for myself. The eyes of the border control guards reflected the thousand years of Russia’s repressive regime. I was half-expecting the KGB to arrest me there and then because four years ago I posted on Facebook that I didn’t like Vlad,...
Russians Love Their Children Too
Sting said it best What kind of questions do you usually expect from a Town Hall meeting in the US? Healthcare? Climate change? Pensions? Schools? Roads? You would be surprised, but these are also the kind of questions journalists asked President Putin last Thursday at his annual presser (his 15th one, no less). Apart from the recurrent theme of the Great Patriotic War, it was your run of the mill, banal Q & A session; just instead of...
Episode 6 – Cameron Thies
rent interviews Professor Cameron Thies of Arizona State University and the current President of the International Studies Association. Cameron talks about growing up in Nebraska, how the farm crisis along with world events got him interested in politics, almost taking a job globetrotting with Arthur Anderson, the helpful advice of his professors at the University of Nebraska during his Master’s, getting his PhD at ASU and...
The Same but Different: US vs UK Higher Education
Four years ago I accepted a job at a university in the UK. When I took the job I didn’t think a whole lot about how working in the UK might differ from my previous academic posts in the US. I’m an American, and though I have British friends who work at UK universities--one of whom warned me “not to be fooled by the fact that we speak the same language”--I was woefully underprepared for just how distinct the two higher education systems are....
Chain-ganging in reverse? Gulf states and US hostility towards Iran
I had a piece in the Washington Post's "Monkeycage" over the weekend, which you can read here. I noted that many worry Saudi Arabia and the UAE will pull America into war with Iran. But it actually looks like they're the ones restraining us. The piece was inspired by the famous "chain-ganging" dynamic in IR scholarship, but there was little discussion of that as it was geared towards a broader audience, so I wanted to expand here. I suspect...
This op-ed shows what’s wrong with US foreign policy
Today, Ryan Crocker--career foreign service officer and former Ambassador to Iraq and Afghanistan--wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post criticizing its criticism of the Afghanistan war he oversaw. He pointed to progress made in Afghanistan, which is fair (and doesn't necessarily contradict anything in the Post's reporting), but generally did little to directly undermine worries about the war. Beyond that, as I noted in a frustrated Twitter...
Lessons from Radicalization Narratives on Social Media
This is a guest post from Dr. Sybille Reinke de Buitrago, who is a Researcher and Project Manager of “VIDEOSTAR – Video-based Strategies Against Radicalization” at PolAk Nds, the Academy of Police Science and Criminology, Germany. Her research focuses on processes of identity, perception, emotions and discourse in security policy and international relations. With the multitude of ‘stuff’ anyone can say online, why does it matter what someone...
Is Domestic Violence a Security Issue?
This post is cross-posted at Climate Security in Oceania. For my course on climate security in Oceania, we read a post on the New Security Beat from Volker Boege from the Toda Institute. The piece is based on a wider report on climate and conflict in Oceania. He writes: In overcrowded squatter settlements in the few urban centers in the Pacific Islands, domestic violence is increasing. These settlements are also often the sites...
Exploring Obstacles to Social Cohesion in the Aftermath of Violent Conflict: A Scholar-Practitioner Symposium
This is a guest post by Kara Hooser and Austin Knuppe, Conflict to Peace Lab, Mershon Center for International Security Studies, The Ohio State University Rebuilding social cohesion—restoring bonds of social trust that bind people together in communities and enable them to peacefully coexist—commonly serves as a central goal for peacebuilders engaging in communities fractured by political violence. Despite a growing consensus about the...