The Duck of Minerva

Charli Carpenter

Charli Carpenter is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. She is the author of 'Innocent Women and Children': Gender, Norms and the Protection of Civilians (Ashgate, 2006), Forgetting Children Born of War: Setting the Human Rights Agenda in Bosnia and Beyond (Columbia, 2010), and ‘Lost’ Causes: Agenda-Setting in Global Issue Networks and the Shaping of Human Security (Cornell, 2014). Her main research interests include national security ethics, the protection of civilians, the laws of war, global agenda-setting, gender and political violence, humanitarian affairs, the role of information technology in human security, and the gap between intentions and outcomes among advocates of human security.

Recent Posts

The Cultural is Political

by Charli Carpenter | 16 February, 2012 |

Recently, Mike Innes tweeted playfully that he feared the Duck had become a "creative writing" blog due to the proliferation of satirical posts about pop cultural topics. This tweet was in response to my refutation of Brian Rathbun's (also satirical) assertion that nerd / metal-head subcultures in US society are mutually exclusive, a post which also included critiques of the genre-specificity of pop cultural research in IR, commentary on a recent documentary about heavy metal music (itself quite political) and a satirized commentary about the strictures of institutional rules and norms on...

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Blind Men, Elephants and Drones

by Charli Carpenter | 13 February, 2012 |

There are many good reasons to read David Scheffer's All the Missing Souls: its insider story of the war crimes trials, written by one of their architects, the in-depth case studies on Bosnia, Rwanda, Cambodia, the impassioned defense of international justice as a moral idea. But the part I found most useful is in the post-script, where Scheffer re-articulates his theory that we need a new concept to describe the types of crimes dealt with by the emerging law of war crimes tribunals, because these types of "mega-crimes" fall at the intersection of a patchwork of broader legal regimes,...

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Friday Nerd Blogging

by Charli Carpenter | 10 February, 2012 |

Yes, it's soon to be back. Now if you've read A Clash of Kings, you might rightly wonder who the "priest" is in this allegory, since while Season 2 will feature kings and rich men the only important religious figure is actually a woman. But if you're read A Clash of Kings closely and obsessively you know that the narration by Varys in the trailer is only passingly related to setting up Season 2 itself, and is instead a more generic tale about political power that serves as part of the dialogue (and not a particularly important part at that)in a particular scene on p. 50. “In a room sit three...

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The Security Council and Norm Creation

by Charli Carpenter | 9 February, 2012 |

It's easy to think of the Security Council as essentially a reflection of great power interests when we see outcomes such as the failure of a resolution calling for President Assad's departure. However I am re-reading Cora True-Frost's article on the other side of the Security Council this week, and thought I'd flag this article as an excellent example of scholarship about the power and politics of such international organizations as norm consumers / diffusers. In short, her work reminds us that the UNSC not only sometimes wields (through its members and procedures) institutional and...

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Travel Notes From The Human Rights Frontier

by Charli Carpenter | 8 February, 2012 |

Guest Post by Joel OestreichA few days ago I met the woman in the attached photograph. Her name is Karima. She is a college graduate who was born a male and, at 21, had gender reassignment surgery. Some time later she entered the “Miss Transgender India” contest and took fifth place. Her boyfriend, out of jealousy, set her on fire (her neck, torso, and upper arms show terrible scars) and broke her leg so badly that she can no longer stand unassisted.After that experience, Karima joined a group of “hijra”. In India, hijra are communities of transgendered people who identify as women or who...

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Drone ‘Wars’?

by Charli Carpenter | 6 February, 2012 |

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism has released a new report alleging that CIA-piloted drones have regularly attacked rescuers and funerals as well as high-value targets - a damning claim given Obama's recent assertion to the contrary in his digital town hall meeting.The report correctly suggests that in the context of international humanitarian law, intentionally targeting individuals who come to the rescue of victims would be considered a violation of the rules of war.* But in doing so, and in using the term "drone wars" to describe this campaign of executions, the BJI also...

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BREAKING NEWS: Brian Ratbun Exposed As Secret Mastermind Behind Recent Rockumentary; USC Concerned About Contract Violation, Mental Health

by Charli Carpenter | 5 February, 2012 |

THE CANARD"All the fake news that's fit to print."-- Los Angeles*A political science professor at University of Southern California came under fire this week for the role he may have played behind-the-scenes on a recent documentary about the heavy metal band Metallica. Administrators at the university are investigating whether Professor Brian Christopher Rathbun’s participation in the project may have violated rules permitting faculty to consult no more than one day a week on projects outside the university. The film in question, Some Kind of Monster, is described by Rotten Tomatoes as “a...

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Friday Nerd Blogging

by Charli Carpenter | 3 February, 2012 |

Last week I posted the trailer. Yesterday, Volkswagen released its much awaited sequel to its "Vader Kid" Super Bowl Commercial from last year. The original: Which do readers think is funnier? Personally I think the "The Bark Side" wins. NPR considers what this ad strategy tells us about the future of marketing.

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Toward Pracademia

Toward Pracademia

by Charli Carpenter | 30 January, 2012 | ,

Among the assigned readings for my new doctoral seminar in Human Security this week are a number of pieces from last year's International Studies Review Theory v. Practice Symposium. There are numerous fascinating pieces here, including Dan Drezner's case study on the evolution of "smart sanctions," Roland Paris' discussion of "fragile states" as a case study in epistemic agenda-setting, and Kittikhoun and Weiss' debunking "The Myth of Scholarly Irrelevance for the U.N."In particular, a quote from Jentleson and Ratner's contribution jumped out at me:"The profession-based incentive structure...

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Friday “I Really Am Just a Nerd” Blogging

by Charli Carpenter | 27 January, 2012 |

I was shocked, shocked to read Brian Rathbun's characterization of me in a recent Canard as a "robot" who has only been posing as a Battlestar Galactica addict as part of my cover (!):The 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. An anonymous source told this paper: "There were the academic writings, then all the policy work, the grant writing and management. She never missed her son's soccer games though... it was just too much. Her makers made a mistake by not giving her any...

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