Originally circulating as "Every Sci-Fi Starship Ever In One Mind-Blowing Comparison Chart," there are some pretty important gaps in this picture, including (allegedly) no Serenity and nothing from Spaceballs. Still, a noble endeavor. If you haven't already seen them...
Casual observation suggests that the two most common answers to the question above are: 1) there's a very good chance that they'd start a nuclear war with Israel; and 2) there's no real reason to...
The first video ever played on MTV, back when MTV played music videos most of the time, was the one-hit wonder "Video Killed the Radio Star" by The Buggles. A lament about how new technology ended...
The subfield of international relations seems to suffer from an inferiority complex. While most subfields of political science do their research and trust that the results are relevant to policy for...
Editor's Note: This is a guest post by Janice Bially Mattern. It is the 15th installment in our "End of IR Theory" companion symposium for the special issue of the European Journal of International Relations. SAGE has temporarily ungated all of the articles in that issue. This post refers to Patrick Thaddeus Jackson's and Daniel Nexon's article (PDF). Their post appeared earlier today. Other entries in the symposium--when available--may be reached via the "EJIR Special Issue Symposium" tag. Jackson and Nexon’s map of IR theory presents a different perspective on the field. The authors are...
It was perhaps appropriate that yesterday's tale of a young pundit's career unraveling due to falsely claimed PhD coincided with the first meeting of the Doctoral Research Seminar I am teaching. Elizabeth O'Bagy had given the impression that she had finished her dissertation, but apparently not so much. After tweeting about it, I got some push back--how big of a sin is this? Do academics have a role in gate-keeping/outing those who lie about their credentials? My answers: big in academia and hell, yeah. To clarify this, let's focus on what a PhD is. It is not a certificate that says you...
Editor's Note: This is a  post (mostly) by Patrick Thaddeus Jackson. It is the 14th installment in our "End of IR Theory" companion symposium for the special issue of the European Journal of International Relations. SAGE has temporarily ungated all of the articles in that issue. This post refers to PTJ's and Daniel Nexon's article (PDF). A response, authored by Janice Bially Mattern, will appear at 10am Eastern. Other entries in the symposium--when available--may be reached via the "EJIR Special Issue Symposium" tag. To begin with the punchline: we feel that the state of international theory...
If you are like me, you have been transfixed by the unfolding story on Syria, the diplomatic gambit that has forestalled an imminent military strike. Alongside this important news has been the more picayune question of a Syria intervention advocate falsely claiming her academic credentials from my alma mater. Lost in the midst of all this Syria drama is the fact that the United States Men's National Team qualified for the World Cup. In my one vaguely nationalist refrain, we are going to Brazil! Read on about all of these things... It's an open question whether the Obama administration has...
I haven't worked a "real job" since being an undergrad. However, I often get asked by undergrads for advice about preparations for real world policy jobs.  I recently asked my former PhD student, Kate Kidder, a research associate at the Center for a New American Security, to provide some advice for an undergrad wanting to get into the policy world.  Kate's response was awesome.  So awesome, in fact, that I asked her to share it with the Duck community: My question to Kate: I'm advising a really wonderful undergrad who would like a career like you have.  Could you give her some advice as to...
Editor's Note: This is a guest post by Cameron Thies. It is the 13th installment in our "End of IR Theory" companion symposium for the special issue of the European Journal of International Relations. SAGE has temporarily ungated all of the articles in that issue. This post responds to Stefano Guzzini's article (PDF). Guzzini's post appeared earlier today. Other entries in the symposium--when available--may be reached via the "EJIR Special Issue Symposium" tag. Stefano Guzzini provides us with yet another in a long line of thought provoking contributions on International Relations (IR)...
Editor's Note: This is a guest post by Stefano Guzzini. It is the 12th installment in our "End of IR Theory" companion symposium for the special issue of the European Journal of International Relations. SAGE has temporarily ungated all of the articles in that issue. This post refers to Guzzini's article (PDF). A response, authored by Cameron Thies, will appear at 10am Eastern. Other entries in the symposium--when available--may be reached via the "EJIR Special Issue Symposium" tag. My article argues for the fundamental importance of theorizing in International Relations (IR) against two by...
Just a week ago, NPR's Planet Money reported: "The government of Ecuador has abandoned a plan that would have kept part of the Amazonian rainforest off limits to oil drilling. The initiative was an unusual one: Ecuador was promising to keep the oil in the ground, but it wanted to be paid for doing so." The deal was offered to the world by President Rafael Correa in 2007. Ecuador would leave oil under the Yasuni National Park, a biodiversity hotspot, in exchange for a payment of 3.6 billion US dollars. The country offered to save a global public good -- biodiversity is not only cute, but also...