Dov Levin answers 6 (+1) questions about 2020 book on foreign electoral interference. When do great powers back a specific party or candidate in another country? Can they change the electoral outcome? Find out.
For Russia watchers Christmas always comes early (or Hanukkah comes right on time!) when Putin gives his annual presser in mid-December to the journalists from Russia and around the world. This year...
This is a guest post by Hanna Kleider, an assistant professor in the Department of International Affairs at the University of Georgia. She is currently on a research leave at the European University...
AÂ dilute alcoholic solution of Brilliant Green (Viridis nitentis spirituosa) is a topical antiseptic, effective against gram-positive bacteria, also known under a Russian colloquial name zelyonka....
On Interstate 71, south of Columbus; Ohio’s most famous sign So it’s election time, which means CNN, etc. will be filled with pundits with only the vaguest credentials – never any PhDs - telling you why the outcome inevitably had to be such-and-such. (Retrodiction is so insufferably smug.) And they’ll explain it as if these tired clichés are real insights and not the same flim-flam they pedal every November. So let me predict the future: here are the five worst clichés you’ll hear Tuesday – the lamest, most recycled, simplistic, and least analytically useful (because they’re so...
What?? It was too good to resist...
Did anyone else find the third presidential debate just appallingly narcissistic and self-congratulatory? Good lord. Good thing America is around to show you bubble-headed foreigners the way to freedom. I could run through all the offensive, ‘America-is-tasked-with-upholding-the-mantle-of-liberty’ patronizing condescension, but why bother? (Nexon does a nice job here.) I told my students to watch it, and in retrospect, maybe I shouldn’t have. It was so embarrassing, and in class this week I kept trying to explain why we talk down to the rest of the world like this while my students rolled...
To the best of my knowledge, no prominent peer-reviewed article in political science has reported a difference in the frequency with which the United States enters into conflict under Democratic presidents relative to Republican presidents. Â That's not because no one has looked for such a difference (I know I have). Â It's because, to date, no one has found one. Â This is the file drawer problem in action. Now, we want to be careful not to over-interpret that. Â Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Â There could be lots of reasons why we might fail to observe such a difference even if...
I got bogged down with NK for awhile, so I missed a chance to comment on the RNC and the US election more generally. I have some thoughts after the break, but a Democrat friend of mine wrote the following, which is a pretty good first draft of the GOP’s problems I think, in this election cycle:On the whole, I found the Republican convention disgusting and not simply because I disagree with their policies. They substantively are disconnected from the problems of the average person. They offered nothing which will help average people and, what they do offer, is bereft of details. They said...
<img src="https://lh3.ggpht.com/-lXf905vas9I/T4Zfu5yVCwI/AAAAAAAAAJg/Cgr7ZRk41Cg/videoefa933ead93d%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" style="border-style: none" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('6321b8cf-9761-4208-8fea-48b2a79cce22'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "";" alt="" />Dancing for Votes in Dongnae!  Because I work for a public university, I am a national civil servant. So it was inappropriate for me to comment on my site about the recent Korean parliamentary election. But now that it’s over (here are...
 Haven't had time to form serious thoughts on the matter, so outsourced to the Power Vertical.
If you're that rare sort of person who doesn't avidly follows political machinations in South Caucasus breakaway republics, then you're missing some surprising developments in South Ossetia. RFE provides some good background:Tensions are rising in the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia following a clumsy attempt by de facto President Eduard Kokoity to thwart Moscow's attempt to install its preferred candidate to succeed him and simultaneously prolong his term in office by having the republic's Supreme Court annul the outcome of the November 27 presidential election runoff.But the...