A lot of people think that "crazy postmodernists" are the biggest threat to the integrity of social science. Certainly, in my field, it isn't hard to find disciplinary statements that exclude "postmodernism" from the acceptable range of opinion about how to conduct social-scientific inquiry. I disagree. The real threat, in my view, is the practice of incredibly bad social science. (Warning: the link and the rest of this post contain referencess to sexual activity)Michael Scherer of Salon.com:With those words, Brownback kicked off a 90-minute discussion of hardcore sex scenes,...

In September I started series on the balance of power. Since then, I've been distracted by breaking news and other obligations. I am returning to the topic today.The first part of the series discussed, in very stylized terms, the history and core concepts of the balance of power. Since then, I've mentioned some aspects of the argument about "soft balancing" as it relates to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. At least part of the reason why some scholars have introduced the concept of "soft balancing" relates to the general crisis of balance-of-power theory - in particular, the apparent...

The latest issue of Foreign Affairs has a fascinating piece by Alex Cooley called "Base Politics." Cooley writes about the dilemmas posed by American basing policy in the context of the kinds of political regimes that play host to US military bases. Cooley echoes some of the claims I made way back in a debate over Uzbekistan and K2, but he does so with far greater knowledge and eloquence. None of this is surprising, since Cooley has spent a great deal of time studying American basing policy and the "political economy" of American bases abroad. As he argues, there are real costs associated...

Stuff worth looking at:Zenpundit's roundtable on "Globalization and War" kicked off today. Mark put together a good, and very diverse, group of people to contribute. I'm already annoyed by some of the pieces, which is a good sign (I hope) that the roundtable will provoke some more general blogo-discussion.The Princeton Project on National Security has issued the report (PDF) of its Working Group on Grand Strategic Choices, which was co-chaired by Francis Fukuyama and G. John Ikenberry.

John Whitesides, of Reuters, writes:Voters across the United States went to the polls on Tuesday in elections that could gauge the depth of President George W. Bush's political woes and affect next year's critical congressional elections....With control of both chambers of the U.S. Congress and 36 governorships at stake in 2006, both parties will scour Tuesday's off-year election results for clues to next year's political climate and the long-term effect of Bush's plummeting approval ratings, now the lowest of his presidency. Mark Kennedy,of the Associated Press, tells us that, without a...

There's an interesting discussion (see also here) of the issues raised by the existence of an "information aggregator" for the International Relations job market over on IR Rumor Mill.The experience of looking for a job in the academy - or, at least, in the field of International Relations - can be a very difficult one.[fn1] At least some of the comments are best seen, in my view, as reflecting the psychological toll the job search takes on individuals, and how they respond differently to the experience.On the other hand, it is nice to see discussion of the job market's pathologies in an...

Who, in the wild world of sports, speaks out for peace and social justice in the way that Muhammad Ali once did? After all, this is the age of Nike endorsements and globalization, not protest. Well, did you hear about the former Argentine soccer star who is speaking out against the Free Trade Area of the Americas? You probably did because it was in the news this past weekend.From the BBC: [Ex-soccer star Diego Maradona] "has become the unlikely champion of the anti-American demonstrations being held around the Summit of the Americas that George Bush has been attending.Maradona presents a hit...

I've been meaning to write a new post on the question of threat inflation and intelligence failures in the run-up to the Iraq War that reacts, in part, to some questionable arguments put forth by one of my favorite center-left bloggers. However, as should be clear from my sparse posting lately, I haven't had a lot of time. So, in the meantime, here's the latest not-so-variation on the theme....Agence France Press:US military intelligence warned the Bush administration as early as February 2002 that its key source on Al-Qaeda's relationship with Iraq had provided "intentionally misleading"...