The Duck of Minerva

Bridging the Gap

Bridging the Gap promotes scholarly contributions to public debate and decision making on global challenges and U.S. foreign policy. BtG equips professors and doctoral students with the skills they need to produce influential policy-relevant research and theoretically grounded policy work. They also spearhead cutting-edge research on problems of concrete importance to governments, think tanks, international institutions, non-governmental organizations, and global firms. Within the academy, BtG is driving changes in university culture and processes designed to incentivize public and policy engagement.

Recent Posts

Yes, the UN Human Rights Council Helps Dictators . . . and the US Withdrawal Will Make It Worse

Yes, the UN Human Rights Council Helps Dictators . . . and the US Withdrawal Will Make It Worse

by Bridging the Gap | 22 June, 2018 | ,

This post in the Bridging the Gap series comes from Peter Henne, Assistant Professor at the University of Vermont and a 2017 participant in BTG's International Policy Summer Institute.  Earlier this week, Nikki Haley, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, announced the United States was leaving the UN’s Human Rights Council. Haley pointed to the body’s disproportionate focus on Israel and its inaction on human rights abusers. While some cheered this move due to problems with the council, others worried this would decrease America’s ability to fight human rights abuses. My research...

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What We Learned at the Future Strategy Forum

What We Learned at the Future Strategy Forum

by Bridging the Gap | 7 June, 2018 | , , , , ,

This post in the Bridging the Gap series come from Sara Plana and Rachel Tecott, doctoral candidates in the Department of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (Sara is also an alumna of BtG's New Era Workshop.) They are the founders of the Future Strategy Forum and co-organized the Future of Force conference held in May 2018. Follow them on Twitter @saracplana and @racheltecott. Last month, the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Kissinger Center at John Hopkins SAIS hosted a conference on the “Future of Force,” inaugurating a new series called...

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Cabinet Reshuffling and the Patrimonial Presidency: Lessons from Tunisia

Cabinet Reshuffling and the Patrimonial Presidency: Lessons from Tunisia

by Bridging the Gap | 11 April, 2018 | , ,

This post marks the return of the Bridging the Gap channel at the Duck after a short hiatus. It comes from Gregory White, Professor of Government at Smith College, who will be attending our International Policy Summer Institute this June.   How can we understand the Trump administration’s ongoing reshuffles of top tier staff and cabinet officials? Recent changes at the State Department, the National Security Council, the White House Communications Office, Veterans Affairs, and the National Economic Council – and that’s just the last several weeks – are unprecedented in US politics. Some...

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The Water’s Edge is Muddier Than You Think

The Water’s Edge is Muddier Than You Think

by Bridging the Gap | 2 November, 2017 | ,

Today's post is from Bridging the Gap Co-Director Jordan Tama, Associate Professor at American University’s School of International Service. He is working on a book tentatively entitled Bipartisanship in a Polarized Age: When Democrats and Republicans Cooperate on U.S. Foreign Policy. Partisan polarization represents one of the dominant frames through which scholars and journalists see American politics today. Indeed, such polarization has increased significantly in the United States since the 1970s. A number of studies have found that this trend spans domestic and foreign policy, though...

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Americans Don’t Think Much of Trump’s “America First.” That’s Good, But …

Americans Don’t Think Much of Trump’s “America First.” That’s Good, But …

by Bridging the Gap | 16 October, 2017 | ,

This post comes from Bridging the Gap co-director Bruce W. Jentleson[*], Professor of Public Policy and Political Science at Duke University. “Not much” and “less and less” is What Americans Think About America First, as documented in the latest Chicago Council on Global Affairs public opinion report.[†]  That’s somewhat reassuring. But only somewhat. On one America First issue after another, the data show limited and declining support. On the general issue of maintaining alliances, 49% support compared to 38% who oppose. On NATO, 69% see it as essential to American security and 53% say it...

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Mr. Trump, Choose Your Own Adventure

Mr. Trump, Choose Your Own Adventure

by Bridging the Gap | 11 October, 2017 | , ,

This post comes to us from Rupal N. Mehta, Assistant Professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and an alumna of Bridging the Gap's New Era Workshop and International Policy Summer Institute (Twitter @Rupal_N_Mehta); and Rachel Elizabeth Whitlark, Assistant Professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Bridging the Gap associate and alumna of the New Era Workshop (Twitter @RachelWhitlark). In the coming days, President Trump is tasked with recertifying the Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The...

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Want to build support for ‘America First’? Try the UN.

Want to build support for ‘America First’? Try the UN.

by Bridging the Gap | 9 October, 2017 | , ,

Today's Bridging the Gap contribution comes from Theo Milonopoulos, PhD Candidate at Columbia University and alumnus of our 2017 New Era Workshop.  In an often combative speech before the United Nations General Assembly last month, President Trump at times praised, and other times disparaged, an institution he once dismissed via tweet as "just a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time." Although few doubt the need for reform of an increasingly sclerotic institution, President Trump's evident disdain for the United Nations is misplaced, not least because of its ability to...

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Darkness Falls in Cambodia

Darkness Falls in Cambodia

by Bridging the Gap | 28 September, 2017 | , , ,

This Bridging the Gap post is by BTG co-director Naazneen H. Barma, who also serves as Associate Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School. Hun Sen, the longtime leader of Cambodia, has used almost every tool in the authoritarian playbook to consolidate his grip on power over the past three decades. Things came to a head early this month when one of Cambodia’s two premier English-language newspapers, The Cambodia Daily, was forced closed after being blindsided by the government with a $6 billion tax bill that it couldn’t possibly pay. Rendering an extraordinary...

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The Book Nook: The Authority Trap: Strategic Choices of International NGOs

The Book Nook: The CIA and the Politics of US Intelligence Reform

by Bridging the Gap | 20 September, 2017 | , , , ,

Today we begin the Bridging the Gap "Book Nook," a series of short videos describing new books by scholars in the BTG network. For the first entry, our very own Brent Durbin discusses his book, The CIA and the Politics of US Intelligence Reform (Cambridge, 2017). (We hope to do a bunch of these, and we would welcome any thoughts on how to improve the format!)

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