This is a guest post from William G. Nomikos, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Washington University in St. Louis. Follow him on Twitter @wnomikos. Recent relations between North Korea and the United States suggest a puzzle for International Relations. The Trump administration has relied on what it has called a “maximum pressure” campaign—a set of sections and threats of military escalation—to prevent North Korean nuclear missile...
We are going to begin calls for contributions to thematic series. The Monkey Cage for example had a terrific series on the gender gap in political science. The first in our call for contributions is for guest posts on how the discipline--broadly understood as international relations--should change. We will be using the hashtag #IRchange. This can be in terms of publishing, teaching, research, methods, whatever changes you think are needed. We...
Remember this summer, when we were about to go to war with Iran? Iran seized an oil tanker passing through the Persian Gulf. Iran also shot down a US drone. The United States responded by shooting down an Iranian drone flying near a US ship, and nearly launching an air strike against Iran. The United States also expanded sanctions on Iran. With Trump's behavior becoming...unpredictable, and hawkish advisers like John Bolton and Mike Pompeo...
Between the burning Amazon and burning Siberia, Brexit clustercoitus and Hurricane Dorian, there is still some space in the tired news cycle for the tear gas in Hong Kong and broken limbs in Moscow protests. Elections to the local parliament in Moscow have proved unexpectedly difficult for the ruling vertical: by refusing to register oppositional candidates for made-up reasons, the election committee and the Mayor’s office drastically...
The following is a guest post by Dr. Ryan M. Welch. Dr. Welch is Assistant Professor at the University of Tampa who specializes in human rights institutions and is a former member of the Maricopa County Human Rights Committee. Recently, the State Department created a human rights commission called the Commission on Unalienable Rights (hereinafter: the Commission). Like an oil industry lobbyist heading the Department of Interior, a climate...
Announcing a new Duck of Minerva podcast.
ian O'Driscoll from the University of Glasgow does work on Just War theory, international security, and international political theory, and international ethics. He has been a friend of Brent's for well over a decade. They spoke in April 2019 following a workshop at the University of Warwick. Their conversation went a little long, so this is part 1 of 2 episodes with Cian. In this episode, Cian tells us about his...
This is a guest post from Bear Braumoeller, Professor of Political Science at The Ohio State University. Follow him on Twitter @Prof_BearB. Graduate study in the social sciences is overwhelmingly oriented toward the process of researching and writing a dissertation that will become a book. We very rarely talk about any other aspect of publishing—how to approach an editor, how to design a book with a specific audience in mind, or...
Graduation Cap and Diploma on White with Soft Shadow. C/o Bluestocking, 2008 Uyen Le APSA is nearly upon us again, and I thought I should write something profession-related as I got back into blogging. My first thought was to make fun of annoying questions, but I already did that (six years ago...but still relevant). And there is a lot of advice floating around for grad students or others on the market. Instead, I thought I'd focus on an area...
How a shift in tactical orientation by activists opposing the border camps might make all the difference.
This is a guest post from Ben-zion Telefus. He holds a Ph.D. from Bar-Ilan University (2015), where he researched the war on drugs in the US and the EU foreign and security policies. Follow him on Twitter @BenzionTelefus When Israelis vote in the coming September 17th re-run elections the issue on the ballot will remain the same: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's political and legal future. Netanyahu’s control over Israel for the past decade...
We are looking for you! The fall 2019 semester is upon us, and we’d like to bring on a new cohort of guest Ducks. The Duck remains a unique blog in terms of our ability to cover a wide variety of topics from IPE to the environment to health to human rights as well as traditional IR topics such as security. We also have freedom to do more academic introspection on the discipline and higher education writ large. As a guest blogger, you have the...