At The Monkey Cage, Erik Voeten notes the ascendancy of constructivism within International Relations (although "non-paradigmatic research" is an even more popular category).I suppose that's it for realism, then. So much for the null hypothesis that every article in...
Rob Farley of LGM has a thoughtful "web exclusive" article up at The American Prospect that everyone here should read. Here's his question: Does the justification for the invasion of Afghanistan...
In my research methods class, I assign David Kang's fantastic article, "International Relations Theory and the Second Korean War." Its a very well written, well argued piece that criticizes IR...
I assume we'll be closer to an answer when I get up.The North Korean news agency KCNA says its country has successfully conducted an underground nuclear test."Our science research section has safely...
As if on cue the Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, yesterday released the US National Intelligence Strategy of the United States (NIS). The WP has a nice article which summarizes the report as well as notes what is different from past reports. Most of the rhetoric in the report is unremarkable. However, the portion of the report getting the most attention is the appearence of democracy promotion as a main strategic objective of the intelligence community (pg. 4). Apparently, this is the first time this kind of language was included in an intelligence mission statement....
The latest issue of Foreign Affairs contains a review by John Owen IV of Ed Mansfield's and Jack Snyder's Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War. Mansfield and Synder contend, among other things, that a transition from authoritarian to democratic regimes can make states more war prone than it would otherwise have been. As Owen argues, this has profound implications for Iraq:The Bush administration's desire to break with its predecessors and alter the authoritarian status quo in the Middle East was admirable. But the White House got its science wrong, or at least not completely...
A growing number of professors use podcasting - or the functional equivalent - to distribute their lectures, overviews of readings, and so forth. When I have the time, I know that I want to supplement blogging with podcasting. Our very own Patrick Jackson, on the other hand, has long been on the cutting edge of using technology in the classroom. Perhaps some day he'll tell us about what he's been up to.Meanwhile, Stanford is testing the waters in a big way. Coming Anarchy reports on iTunes at Stanford. The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (which was the "Stanford Institute...
Mother Jones recently had a brief note about the Roosevelt Institution, which is a progressive think tank organized by and for college students: The Roosevelt Institution takes students’ ideas out of the filing cabinet and places them on the desks of reporters, civil servants, and politicians so that students’ ideas change public policy. One of the ways Roosevelt brings the innovative ideas of brilliant students to an audience capable of influencing public policy is through its national student research journal, the Roosevelt Review, a journal devoted to publishing high quality research,...
Adesnik's latest post confuses me.Much of the incoherence at the heart of Jimmy Carter's foreign policy reflected an inability to reconcile realist anti-interventionism with an idealist commitment to human rights. Today we tend to think of Carter as exclusively a dove and an idealist, but his strongest supporters included liberal realists such as Harvard's Stanley Hoffmann.When Reagan embarked on a crusade against communist Nicaragua, his liberal critics often invoked the realist principle of respecting state sovereignty as a justification for leaving the Nicaraguans alone. Yet the exact...
Here's the AP's headline:Lawyers Condemn Oil Tycoon's New HomeWhat's the story about?Lawyers for imprisoned oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky condemned his being sent to a penal colony in Russia's Far East and said Friday they would appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.In early October, after his appeal of the conviction on fraud and tax evasion was rejected, Khodorkovsky was transferred out of a Moscow jail. But the oil magnate's location was not announced until Thursday.Khodorkovsky's Moscow-based lawyer, Genrikh Padva, said his client had been sent to prison colony No. 10 in...
From the BBC: A parrot that died in quarantine in the UK has tested positive for avian flu, the government has said.Insert the appropriate Monty Python joke here. I know, I know, it's not funny. It's serious.
Brad DeLong criticizes Dan Drezner thusly,danieldrezner.com :: Daniel W. Drezner :: Blog: [Colonel Larry] Wilkerson also points out, however, that there was a stronger pre-war consensus on Iraqi WMD intellgence than many want to believe..."WMD" means chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. Nearly everybody in the intelligence community was confident that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons. But there was no consensus that Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons, or an ongoing nuclear weapons program--as indeed he did not.Nukes are the big deal. Nukes can justify an invasion....