While political comedy thrives, IR comedy, whatever that phrase might mean, is virtually non-existent. omedy gap’? Is it a figment of my imagination or a real problem?
Why isn’t IR funnier?
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IR theory
What Makes a Great Scholar?
I attended a celebration of the life of Kenneth Waltz held at Columbia University last weekend. The service was organized and hosted by Robert Jervis, Robert Art, and Richard Betts and included...
Review of Braumoeller’s The Great Powers and the International System
The following is an all too common path through graduate school: spend 3-9 months wondering what the heck you signed up for and why realize that every topic you're interested in has been written on...
International Institutions Mobilize Opponents Too
Members of international institutions typically honor their commitments. But that does not, by itself, tell us much. States are unlikely to join institutions that require them to do things they have...
More IR theory Posts
New Duck of Minerva Working Paper: “I CAN HAS IR THEORY?”
There's been significant interest in Steve Saideman's criticisms of Mearsheimer's and Walt's working paper, "Leaving Theory Behind: Why Hypothesis Testing Has Become Bad for IR." Indeed, there are many comments in a discussion that harkens back to older posts at the Duck. Given this, it strikes me as appropriate to add PTJ's and my paper (PDF)--solicited for the same special issue as Mearsheimer's and Walt's--to the Duck of Minerva Working Papers series. Our take is a bit different. If you've heard our podcast (m4a/mp3) on the subject, what we have to say will sound pretty familiar. For...
Lamenting The Loss of the Light, The Ebbing of Grand Theory and The Decline of Old Boy Networks
John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt have written a piece that is critical of the supposed move to hypothesis testing and the failure of IR folks to do grand theory. Â I have many reactions to this development that I thought I would engage in a bit of listicle: My first reaction was: Next title: why too much research is bad for IR.... As folks pointed out on twitter and on facebook discussions, it seems ironic at the least that someone who made a variety of testable predictions that did not come true (the rise of Germany after the end of the cold war, conventional deterrence, the irrelevance of...
Podcast No. 17 – Interview with Iver Neumann
The seventeenth Duck of Minerva podcast features Iver Neumann, then of the London School of Economics.
Leader Comebacks
"This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." Â So spoke Winston Churchill, after the Allied victory in the Second Battle of El Alamein. Â We could say much the same of his defeat in the 1945 general election. Â A core assumption underlying most of the work analyzing the impact of domestic politics on international relations is that leaders want to remain in office. Â Insofar as ensuring national survival, territorial integrity, and policy autonomy might help leaders retain power, focusing on political ambition often does not tell...
The International Relations Discipline and the Rise of Asia
A few months ago, I was commissioned by the International Relations and Security Network of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology to provide a brief write-up on how Asia’s rise will impact the formal discipline of international relations (IR) within political science. I didn’t get a chance to put it up earlier, and inevitably, the brief means sweeping judgments in just a few pages, but I think it’s a reasonable effort. Here is the version on their website; below it is reprinted: “It is widely understood that international relations (IR) relies on modern (post-Columbus) and North Atlantic...
Whither constructivism?
The first posting of some of the audio from this weekend's ISA-Northeast conference is up over on my syndication site. This one is from a panel called "Whither Constructivism?" featuring Nick Onuf, Mike Barnett, and me, chaired by Sammy Barkin. I'll get the audio from the methodology workshop up in the next couple of days, and Dan has the audio from our "science fiction and IR pedagogy" panel because my recorder crapped out and didn't record it properly. The comments I make here are going to form the foundation of something I hope to write and post shortly, defending my position that sharp...
I CAN HAS IR THEORY?
I'm presenting PTJ's and my "End of IR Theory" paper at Berkeley next week. Here's a sneak peak at some of the lecture slides.Unfortunately, my LOLspeak is rusty.Â
Wight’s “Incommensurability” – An “End of IR Theory” Related Link
SAGE has temporarily un-gated Colin Wight's "Incommensurability and Cross-Paradigm Communication in International Relations Theory: 'What's the Frequency Kenneth?'" Millennium - Journal of International Studies 1996, 25: 291 (PDF). Get it while its hot! Thanks to, and via, David Mainwaring.Â