This is a guest post from Zoe Marks. Zoe Marks is currently Director of the Global Development Academy at the University of Edinburgh and Program Director of the MSc in African Studies; in September 2018, she will join the faculty at Harvard Kennedy School. Her research focuses on peace and conflict, gender, and inequality and has been published in various outlets, including African Affairs and Civil Wars. As Steve Saideman wrote here last...
This is a guest post from Eric Van Rythoven. Eric Van Rythoven recently finished his PhD at Carleton University studying emotion, world politics, and security. His work is published in Security Dialogue and European Journal of International Relations. There is a recurring frustration among observers of the Trump administration that commentary easily becomes distracted. Stories about the Trump family’s everyday nepotism and corruption may be...
As August accelerates and academics panic as their summer dreams/plans meet the harsh reality that one usually does not get done all that they want to do, it is time to give unsolicited advice to the new folks. For great advice on how to manage one's mental and emotional well-being, see this thread. I have some more tactical advice about expectations and getting through the first year, as I remember making the same mistake three times on the...
This is a guest post from Peter Henne, Assistant Professor at the University of Vermont. Robert Gilpin passed away recently. Most of us knew him as the author of War and Change in World Politics. Others knew him primarily from his work on international political economy. But I had another connection with him; Gilpin was a Vermonter, and an alumni of the University of Vermont (where I am a professor). This gave me the opportunity to meet with...
This topic came up on twitter--how do we get our friends and relatives to understand the academic job market? My first take: don't bother. It can get really confusing really fast. I consider my family well-educated, yet deep into my career, my mother thought that my appearances on TV and radio would help me get another job. Nope. Given that job market season is approaching (sorry!),* here's my listicle of things you have to explain: 1. The...
This post comes from Steve Weber, Professor at the I-School and Department of Political Science and Director of the Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity at the University of California, Berkeley, and a co-director of the Bridging the Gap project. It has become common in 2018 to hear that the United States and China are locking themselves into an Artificial Intelligence 'arms race'. While global politics will certainly change in the machine...
Readers of the Duck will be very familiar with Duck editor Josh Busby's commentary on climate change and security, U.S. foreign policy, and a host of other topics. Earlier this year, Bridging the Gap (BTG) awarded Josh a Policy Engagement Fellowship (PEF). The purpose of this fellowship is to support efforts by scholars to connect their research on international issues to the policy community. Josh is using his PEF to write policy-oriented...
For the first year of the Trump Administration, the Washington D.C.- based denizens of the U.S. foreign policy establishment assured themselves that although Donald Trump had tipped over the geopolitical apple cart, everything broken could be put back into place without undue difficulty. They were wrong. Taking their cue from the caustic reactions of American allies to Trump's twin summit debacles, foreign policy elites on both sides of the...
This post comes from James Goldgeier, professor of international relations at American University, Visiting Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a co-director of the Bridging the Gap project. You can follow him on Twitter @JimGoldgeier. Earlier this month, we held our annual Bridging the Gap (BtG) International Policy Summer Institute (IPSI) for faculty and postdocs who want to be more publicly engaged and policy relevant....
The following is a guest post by Mason Richey, an associate professor of international studies at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. I am Trump; I am Trump. Trump I am. That Trump I am, that Trump I am, I do not like that Trump I am. Would you like CVID[1]? I do not like it, don’t you see? I do not like CVID. Would you like it here or there? I would not like it here or there, I would not like it...
This is a guest post from Linda Åhäll, a Lecturer in international relations from Keele University, UK. Follow her on Twitter at @DrLindaAhall This is the sixth post in the series on #metooacademia An Australian newspaper described #MeToo in Sweden as “the biggest Swedish women's movement since women secured the right to vote almost a hundred years ago”. Here I offer my impression on events in Sweden during 2017 and examine: What is distinct...
This is a guest post from Swati Parashar, an Associate Professor in Peace and Development at the School of Global Studies, Gothenburg University, Sweden. She tweets @swatipash This is the fifth post in the series on #metooacademia #Metoo started as a twitter hashtag, but has no doubt become one of the most effective, visible and also controversial feminist strategies across time and space. While it has been embraced widely for its ‘impact’...