My colleague, Mlada Bukovansky, from Smith College who does excellent work on the evolution of norms and the role of institutions raises some interesting points on the question at the IR Blog. She's cites three recent examples on trade and the environment in which the Obama administration's rhetoric on multilateralism is disconnected from its actions. I think her punch line is fascinating and really thought provoking:...multilateralism is difficult. It is especially difficult for a superpower. And it is most especially difficult for a democratic superpower. Anyone who studies trade and...

In response to my discussion of his post "The Trouble with Dames in World Politics," Dan Drezner (among other things) challenges me to blog more, and to blog more about the issues directly related to Gender and IR - an encouragement so emphatic that it gets both bold and italic emphases.While I will start blogging more about when my book publisher thinks that's an acceptable substitute for a manuscript, those deciding on my tenure consider it service, and it paints my new house ... I (kind of) accept the challenge. Dan is right that I have not blogged a lot about issues related to gender and...

I am writing to introduce a new guest blogger to the Duck of Minerva. Jon Western is a Five College Associate Professor based at Mt. Holyoke College and has an extensive background in US foreign policy, including stints at the United States Institute of Peace and at the Department of State during the 1991-95 crisis in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Jon is the author of Selling Intervention and War: The Presidency, the Media, and the American Public and most recently published "The Death of Dayton" in Foreign Affairs. Please extend a warm welcome.

The Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy, a group of scholars and foreign affairs experts formed -- or at least solidified -- around the time of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, has issued an open letter to President Obama calling for a rethinking of US policy in Afghanistan. Below the fold I'm going to reproduce the letter, the text of which (and the full list of signatories) can also be found here on the Coalition's website. I'm doing this for two reasons.First, the Coalition's efforts seem to me very much like a logical extension of the work that I (and Dan Nexon, among others) did...

A reporter for OpenDemocracy spent the month of August touring China, looking for signs of democratization. He finds more than he bargained for: Indeed, in interviewing people from various organisations and from very different perspectives, I was struck by a consistent undertone of worry about the prospect of a regime change (even a "colour revolution") along the lines of those in the post-Soviet states in the early 2000s - which culminated in the governing communist or reformed-communist parties being ejected from office. elections China's clear official aim is to ensure that it doesn't...

Recently, I've been reading and mostly enjoying Fareed Zakaria's The Post-American World. It is a remarkable book, offering sweeping analysis of all sorts of global trends. Not just anyone could have tackled this project and it is definitely to Zakaria's credit that he has put together a well-written and interesting book about an important topic -- the apparent long-term relative decline of the U.S. and the rise of the "rest" of the world (especially China and India). "The great shift taking place in the world might prove to be less about culture and more about power" (p. 86; author's...

I am overdue on a journal contribution I need to finish today (hopefully, the editors don't read this blog), but couldn't pass this one up ...Referencing an article in The Daily Telegraph called "Men Lose Their Minds When Speaking to Pretty Women," Dan Drezner writes a blog entry on Foreign Policy, "The Trouble with Dames in World Politics," where he, among other things, blames the Cuban Missile Crisis on Jackie Kennedy, expresses concern that Michelle Obama might be the next Helen of Troy, muses about Angelina Jolie's relative success as a celebrity activist, and wonders what a country...

I didn't get my local newspaper in Blacksburg, and usually use national sources (the New York Times and Wall Street Journal online, mostly) to get my news. Its been awhile, actually, since I've gotten a "local" newspaper (actually, I think, since the Pensacola News Journal where I grew up) and even longer since I've had to rely on it for news ... I don't have the APSA excuse for not blogging (for the first time in my career, I didn't go). Instead, my excuse is that I didn't really have an idea how hectic moving across the country (a week before classes started), closing on my (just-built)...