I just came back from eight days in Israel and Palestine, as I participated in a program, Academic Exchange, that has already taken something like 600 scholars (mostly IR but also other political scientists, lawyers [including my brother-in-law], and some economists) to learn more about the place, the conflict and the politics. The experience was pretty intense, so I blogged my daily experiences at saideman.blogspot.com starting with this one...
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Will Republican voters punish Trump for a trade war with China? It depends.
This is a guest post from Shana Gadarian and Dan McDowell, both Associate Professors at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. Earlier this month, after Chinese authorities reportedly backtracked on a set of economic reform promises as part of ongoing trade discussions, President Trump announced that existing tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods would increase from 10% to 25%. China responded with new tariff hikes of its own on American...
On Responsible Scholarly Engagement
Rob Farley has posted a Lawyers, Guns and Money podcast discussing my new research with Alex Montgomery on why reports of Americans' willingness to target civilians have been greatly exaggerated. One theme we discussed that bears emphasizing are questions of why we do the survey research we do, and how we decide what findings to publicize, where, how and for whom. Do we truly need poll data on the precise conditions under which Americans would...
Why Do Opinion Leaders Misjudge Public Attitudes?
Last week, Dina Smeltz, Jordan Tama, and I had a piece in the Monkey Cage on the results of our 2018 survey of 588 foreign policy opinion leaders. We found that these opinion leaders misestimated public attitudes on (1) US engagement in the world, (2) support for trade, (3) support for military intervention, and (4) support for immigration. I did a thread on the results, which I'll summarize below, but I wanted to follow up with some thoughts...
So Call Me Maybe
A recent IR Twitter flare-up occurred on a seemingly innocuous topic illustrated by the flow-chart above: what should I call my professor? A PSA from Prof. Megan L. Cook recommended students to address their professors as Professors or Dr., avoiding references to their marital status or first names. Prof. Raul Pacheco-Vega tweeted the following: I also delete every email that first-persons me on a first email. Them’s the rules. You can decide...
The ULTIMATE Academic Job Market Guide
The following is a guest post by K. Anne Watson, a PhD candidate in Political Science and International Affairs at the University of Georgia's School of Public and International Affairs. The academic job market is incredibly stressful. This is at least partly because so much of the process tends to be opaque. (The rest, of course, is because you will be asked to handle all of it while juggling your day-to-day life and feeling a vague—or...
Are Generic Drugs Safe? Big Claims in a New Book
I was in the car when the Dallas radio station KERA came on with an interview with the journalist Katherine Eban, author of the new book Bottle of Lies, in which she claims that the generic pharmaceutical industry faces widespread problems of quality. A high percentage of generic drugs come from India and most of the chemical ingredients or raw materials come from China. Generic drugs constitute according to Eban about 90% of the...
US should support environmental peacebuilding and humanitarian efforts for Palestinians
This is a guest post from Erika Weinthal, a Professor at Duke University and Jeannie Sowers, an Associate Professor at the University of New Hampshire What is often referred to as environmental peacebuilding – the process of governing and leveraging the use of the environment and natural resources for building a sustainable peace through improving livelihoods, strengthening the economy, rebuilding trust, and fostering cooperation – has been a...
Americans Oppose Killing Civilians. Reports Saying Otherwise Are Wrong.
Three reasons why you shouldn’t worry too much about the blood-thirstiness of your fellow Americans.
A Case for Nationalism
Sorry, clickbait! But admit, it, after an apology of race science in Quillette or “The Case for Colonialism” in TWQ you probably rage-clicked on the thumbnail to let me have it. Periodic IR Twitter flares over teaching "Stoddard light" (i.e., Huntington) also show that not all scholars are aware of racialized origins of world order, existing color lines in global capitalism, or even “race relations” pedigree of IR as a discipline. This post is...
White saviors abroad – social doctors at home? Blunt and subtle colonialism in US Global Health education
This is a guest post from Tine Hanrieder who heads the research group Global Humanitarian Medicine at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center. She is the author of International Organization in Time: Fragmentation and Reform. American medicine is globalizing. Medical students request more “things global” on their curriculum, and universities rush to offer global health tracks to a global generation of students. While the types of programs vary...
What Daenerys’ Error Teaches Us About American Tolerance for War Crimes
Alex Montgomery I have a new post up at Foreign Policy arguing that "The Bells" - and audience reactions to it - tell us something about American attitudes toward just war theory. A relevant topic with rising tensions w/ Iran, a debate over whether to pardon war criminals, and the stated willingness of our own rulers to violate war law. The underlying reason for the outcry went unspoken: The deliberate targeting of civilians from the air,...