The Duck of Minerva

This is a guest post by Wendy Wong, Associate Professor of Political Science at University of Toronto, Director of the Trudeau Center for Peace, Conflict and Justice, and author of Internal Affairs: How the Structure of NGOs Transforms Human Rights. When the great fall from grace (especially those who have built their reputations on being high-minded and altruistic), it makes a great story. And that’s exactly the view of the expose written by NPR and ProPublica that hits us with the punchline: the American Red Cross (ARC) is mismanaged, somewhat incompetent at its job, and misguided in its...

With the United Nations First Committee on Disarmament and International Security convening in New York this month, one point of debate will be the potential health risks of depleted uranium weapons in post-conflict zones. And rightly so: depleted uranium is a byproduct of nuclear enrichment processes used in armor-piercing incendiary projectiles to penetrate tanks, and correspondingly to harden armor against attack. Since the Gulf War, veterans groups, doctors and civil society groups have raised concerns about the possible health effects on humans of radioactive DU dust left in the...

                A day late, but not a penny short: at the Monkey Cage this week I look at the interplay between science fiction references and the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots: The media might be forgiven for using such terms and images as click-bait. But some people have accused the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots of invoking “Hollywood paranoia” as well.  NBCNews tech writer Keith Wagstaff asked whether “hysteria over the robopocalypse could hold back technology that could save human lives.” At the conference, autonomous weapons proponent...

Every year at this time I receive several queries a day from colleagues, would-be colleagues and students asking me if I'll be "at APSA" - the Annual Conference of the American Political Science Association - and when we could meet up for a coffee. Every year I reply several times a day: "Sadly, I won't be at APSA this year because it conflicts with the start of school for my children." This is more or less the truth but I confess it's not the complete truth. First, I've realized this canned response implies I might be there next year, whereas I've actually been AWOL from Labor-Day-Weekend...

About two weeks ago I had pledged to go on blogging hiatus in order to vacation with my family, a pledge I only broke once so far. However, while traveling south from Durango, CO with my partner and son last week, I ran across this post by LGM’s Erik Loomis,’ on the treatment of Central American refugees in US facilities north of the Mexican border. I also read the entire linked document by Wendy Cervantes, an Immigration and Child Rights expert First Focus – one of several NGOs who were permitted to tour the facility in Artesia, New Mexico, the previous week. I also found other sources on...

Although I'm technically off the grid, the news that ISIS proclaimed women and girls in Mosul should submit to genital mutilation (FGM), and the report's subsequent debunking, compel me to emerge from hiatus. Leaving aside why a fake report on FGM should be viewed as needed to discredit a group who is  executing civilian, forcibly displacing minotiries and destroying cultural property,  I have mixed feelings about the outcry this story raised. On the one hand it indicates a widespread norm in the West, in UN circles and among the Muslim population in Mosul to view FGM as a heinous human...

As of tomorrow I am turning on my "vacation" auto-responder, ceasing blogging for a bit, and hitting the road for some combined business/leisure. Highlights will include: Some Colorado conference travel to present my research findings to one of the activist communities whose work I profiled in my book London for a week of exploratory research among NGOs that specialize in civilian casualty-counting, plus visits with my son to the newly re-opened Imperial War Museum and 222B Baker Street Some southwest road-tripping fun with children, partner and siblings sandwiched in. Between all this I'll...

Lots of ink is being spilled over Gaza. Watching and reading, I am reminded of something I read early in my career, while writing my second book. This thing I read was a manual for reporters, written by veteran British war correspondents Annabel McGoldrick and Jake Lynch. Jaded by knowledge of how the media can exacerbate or dampen conflicts, their manual contained specific suggestions for producing "peace journalism." For example, McGoldrick and Lynch suggest reporters avoid portraying conflicts in zero-sum terms, emphasizing essentialist divisions, adopting language that victimizes or...