The Duck of Minerva

Brian Rathbun

Rathbun is a professor of International Relations at USC. Brian Rathbun received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley in 2002 and has taught at USC since 2008. He has written four solo-authored books, on humanitarian intervention, multilateral institution building, diplomacy and rationality. His articles have appeared or are forthcoming in International Organization, International Security, World Politics, International Studies Quartlery, the Journal of Politics, Security Studies, the European Journal of International Relations, International Theory, and the Journal of Conflict Resolution among others. He is the recipient of the 2009 USC Parents Association Teaching and Mentoring Award. In 2019 he will be recognized as a Distinguished Scholar by the Diplomatic Studies Section of the International Studies Association.

Recent Posts

Friday Anti-Nerd Blogging Early: When Sports and International Relations Meet, the Dumbest Things Happen

by Brian Rathbun | 11 April, 2012 |

I am headed out to Coachella this Thursday for three days of music in the desert. Well, two days. I am too old to make it all the way through, and I have to teach on Monday. In any case, I thought I would offer this Friday anti-nerd blogging column a little early in the week. For those of you teaching or taking classes on the semester system, it is that time of year that you are very, very tired. You need the break a bit in advance. The MLB team, the Marlins, just suspended their manager, Ozzie Guillen, for complimentary comments he made about Fidel Castro. The Marlins play in Miami where...

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Stuff Political Scientists Like #15 — The Thrill of the Hunt

by Brian Rathbun | 5 April, 2012 |

The big cats in political scientists like to hunt big game, the book contract at a “major university press.” Landing such a catch can feed oneself and his or her cubs for a long time, even for a lifetime. The “book at a major university press” can get you tenure. You will never have to eat again. Book editors are wily prey, however, and have adapted to their dangerous environment through a number of clever strategies, the most important of which is not answering their email. Another behavioral modification to survive in this Darwinian world of eat-or-be-eaten is the platitude. “This book is...

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Stuff Political Scientists Like #14 — Fantasy Role-Playing, or Game Theory

by Brian Rathbun | 13 March, 2012 |

Political scientists like fantasy role-playing games. But this does not mean they are simple nerds. They like a particularly elegant and sophisticated escapism called game theory. While it might seem obscure and overly complicated at first, you can grasp game theory and impress your political scientist friends with a very simple insight -- game theory is just like Dungeons & Dragons. Like Dungeons & Dragons, game theory players embark upon imaginary adventures in which they interact with others in situations never before seen in the real world. The game theorist operates as the dungeon...

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Here is something you can’t understand….

by Brian Rathbun | 6 March, 2012 |

...How I could just kill a man!Obama said today, or at least I think it was today, that "we have Israel's back." So have we replaced the cowboy swagger bullshit with some urban swagger bullshit? Fo shizzle.In general, I object to any dumbing down of foreign policy, even in the public discourse, and I don't really think Presidents did this before. This seems to be a modern phenomenon. But now, apparently even Obama feels the need to talk in this over-simplistic way. Ladies and gentlemen, President B-Real. If only that were a blunt he is smoking. Add the 40, and away we go!I always hated the...

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Mediocre International Relations Scholar and Prominent Anti-Nerd Hits Rock Bottom, Admits to Abuse of Science Fiction

by Brian Rathbun | 2 March, 2012 |

The Canard “All the fake news that’s fit to print” --Los Angeles Part-time political scientist and blogging provocateur Brian Rathbun yesterday checked himself into a rehabilitation center for addiction to science fiction. Although Rathbun’s public face was as an anti-nerd, he secretly had succumbed to the vice of Battlestar Galactica, which he watched in its entirety over the last few weeks. Reached for comment, Rathbun simply said, “I haven’t left my room in weeks. I watched over eighty episodes of BSG. Oh my god, I even know the acronym. There is a bogey on my dradis! There is a bogey on...

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Friday Anti-Nerd Blogging: Downton Abbey Jumps the Shark

by Brian Rathbun | 10 February, 2012 |

In a previous post, I puzzled about the popularity of Downton Abbey. It is (was?) a very well-done show, but no different, I thought at the time, than the standard PBS Masterpiece Theater that generally attracts very little viewership. One of the responses was that Downton was a soap opera dressed up as costume drama. I didn’t see it at the time. Downton seemed to hit all the usual British period piece points – the problem of the heir, the declining fortunes of the aristocracy in the modern age. But that comment was prescient. Downton Abbey revealed this week that it is actually a soap opera...

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Friday Anti-Nerd Blogging: Headbanger Edition

by Brian Rathbun | 3 February, 2012 |

I am not a nerd. I have tried to make this abundantly clear. So what if I just watched 12 episodes of Battlestar Galactica in the last week? That doesn’t PROVE anything. But I haven’t always been a fan of period pieces and pro football. My anti-nerdishness in high school expressed itself much differently – I was a metalhead. Not one of those poofy-haired spandex-pants-wearing metalheads. If you wore a Poison shirt to school, I’d have shunned you. A Warrant shirt and I’d have kicked you in the balls. Metallica, Iron Maiden, Megadeth, Black Sabbath – those were my bands. I had the mullet to...

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BREAKING NEWS — Charli Carpenter is a Machine!

by Brian Rathbun | 27 January, 2012 |

THE CANARD"All the fake news that fit to print."-- AmherstThe academic and foreign policy worlds were rocked today by the news that Charli Carpenter -- prolific academic, policy wonk, and mom -- is in fact a robot. She was taken captive this morning in a rare joint operation by the FBI, the CIA, and NASA.Friends were shocked, but not necessarily surprised. Dan Nexon, a professor at Georgetown University, said, "We always joked that Charli was a machine. She writes like a book a week. And good ones, too. Not the usual schlock we turn out." He added, "She was always so good with technology....

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Friday Anti-Nerd Blogging: The Appeal of Downton Abbey

by Brian Rathbun | 20 January, 2012 |

People are going mad about Downton Abbey. The Rolling Stone calls it "crack for Anglophiles." The demand was enough to create a second "season," and is even giving PBS the notion that it might begin to draw in some of the types who watch Showtime and HBO series, maybe even Game of Thrones fans. I doubt it, if for no other reason that there are a lot more gratuitous boobs and f-bombs on the cable networks.I have watched it. I like it. I will keep watching it. But I am curious as to why this particular British BBC import has done so well in the US, because, as I can tell, it is a pretty garden...

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Blondie

by Brian Rathbun | 10 January, 2012 |

If you are running for the nomination of the Republican Party for President, there are a fewindispensables – you have to hate welfare recipients, oppose gay marriage, and have fired a gun at an animal at some point. (But apparently you no longer have to support a robust military presence overseas. Or have fired a gun against another person in a foreign war. That has not been a requirement since Eisenhower.) But it seems there is another sine qua non. If you are a man, you need a blond wife. Here are pictures of the wives of all the major contenders for the Republican nomination for...

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