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

War Powers, My Ass…

by Brian Rathbun | 9 July, 2011 |

The House of Representatives recently just voted on a bill that would require the U.S. to remove its forces from Libya on the basis of the War Powers Act, arguing that the President had not received the Congressional go-ahead to keep the military in hostilities past a certain time threshhold. It earned the votes of 148 Congressmen of 435, 87 Republicans and 61 Democrats. The media presented it as demonstrating the muscles of the Tea Party libertarians defending congressional prerogatives against executive encroachment in true Jeffersonian tradition. I call bullshit and I have the crude data...

read more

Dear Professor Rathbun….

by Brian Rathbun | 3 July, 2011 |

Friends, Unfortunately I recently received this rejection letter from Political Science Job Rumors for my recent post, Stuff Political Scientists Like #5. Apparently they do not actually like this. I thought I would share it with you.BCRDear Professor Rathbun,We are writing to inform you that unfortunately we cannot recommend your recent submission on the Duck of Minerva, "Stuff Political Scientists Like #5: a Large-N, for cross-listing on our website. While some of the reviewers found positive things to say about the piece, the overwhelmingly negative nature of the other reviews means that...

read more

Stuff political scientists like #5 — a Large N

by Brian Rathbun | 28 June, 2011 |

I have been doing a lot of work with survey data lately, as well as some reading in critical theory. Maybe that inspired my deconstruction of the gendered language of stats. Or maybe I just like to work blue. Your girlfriend has told you, "Honey, your data set is big enough for me. It's OK if it doesn't get you into the APSR." She might tell you, "It is not the size of p-value that matters, it is what you do with it." A good theory can make up for a large-N, she reassures you. But political scientists know the truth. Size matters. Political scientists like a large-N.A large-N enables you to...

read more

Papa Don’t Preach: Rationalism is an Ism

by Brian Rathbun | 17 June, 2011 |

Just yesterday I cautioned a graduate student not to get on the wrong side of some powerful people for the sake of principle if he could not truly effect change. And yet here I sit typing this right now, about to begin a rant on David Lake's new ISQ article: "Why ''isms' are evil: Theory, Epistemology, and Academic Sects as Impediments to Understanding and Progress." Nexon started it. It is his fault.The piece is taken from David Lake's keynote address as ISA president and identifies five pathologies with dividing our field up the way we do, along 'ism' lines. We reify research traditions,...

read more

Ned is dead, baby. Ned is dead.

by Brian Rathbun | 14 June, 2011 |

So I have finally caught up on all the back episodes of Game of Thrones, so I know what the hell you are all talking about. I thought I'd take up Charli's challenge about the paradigm that Dead Ned represents because I think that it says something deeper (always deeper) about something missing in IR theory these days.Ned represents duty, honor and integrity as opposed to old school Machiavellianism (although I guess duty, honor and integrity are even more old school). But that is not liberalism, not at all. Those are all deeply conservative virtues. They are more romantic than rationalist,...

read more

Write less. Read more.

by Brian Rathbun | 10 June, 2011 |

I thought I would offer my take on the series of posts below on how to reform the peer-review system. Part of the problem is bad reviews. We can remove the anonymity of them, but that raises the obvious problems (bad blood, retaliation, pulling punches, speaking truth to power, etc). A better solution would be to rely on the expertise of editors. A really stupid review is obvious to even non-experts. And if one reviewer says X and the other says 'opposite of X', then you should know that you have to get a third opinion, not just reject the piece for not garnering sufficient support from the...

read more

Stuff political scientists like #4, political psychology edition — calling you stupid, but not to your face

by Brian Rathbun | 2 June, 2011 |

Lest I be accused of shielding myself from satire.....Political psychologists are a kind of political scientist. Or maybe they are a kind of psychologist. In truth, no one really gets to know them very well. That is because political psychologists think everyone is stupid.Political psychologists think you have never made a good decision in your life. For instance, if 600 people are going to die of a terrible disease and you are given a choice between a health program that will 1) surely kill 400 and save the rest or 2) will have a one third probability of saving 600 people but 2/3 of killing...

read more

Ew.

by Brian Rathbun | 28 May, 2011 |

Politics is always somewhat gross, but there seems to be an abundance of stories lately that make me queasy. In the tradition of saying to your friends, "You have got to try this; it's so disgusting" or to your wife, "I think this milk is going bad; taste it," I share them with you, my online friends (or if you like, wives).Budweiser wrapping itself in the flag: This ad shows a split screen of an American soldier coming home and a family getting ready to throw him a homecoming party. There is, of course, an Official Bear of the Homecoming Party and it is not Coors. I have always hated ads...

read more

Breaking News: International Relations Expert Nexon Responds to Leak of Dirty Pictures

by Brian Rathbun | 9 May, 2011 |

The Canard"All the fake news that's fit to print"Warning: This story is intended for mature audiences only.Washington, D.C. -- Racy pictures emerged today of noted international relations professor Dan Nexon. The academic, whose book The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change (Princeton University Press, 2009) recently won the International Security Studies Section (ISSS) Best Book Award for 2010, teaches at Georgetown University. The photos were taken while Nexon was a graduate student at Columbia University.In an exclusive...

read more

Structural Realism and the British Liberal Democrats

by Brian Rathbun | 7 May, 2011 |

In the Duck tradition of offering analysis of elections in countries where we do not reside or where we have no citizenship, I offer you this. During the last UK election, I remember remarking that there was no way that the Liberal Democrats would form a coalition with the Conservatives. This went against everything that I have always written about parties -- that they are policy-seekers as much as they are office-seekers, that parties don't jump across other parties to form coalitions with parties further away from them ideologically. People wrote about how the Liberals and Conservatives...

read more