The Duck of Minerva

Laura Sjoberg

Laura Sjoberg is British Academy Global Professor of Politics and International Relations at Royal Holloway University of London and Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida. Her research addresses issues of gender and security, with foci on politically violent women, feminist war theorizing, sexuality in global politics, and political methodology. She teaches, consults, and lectures on gender in global politics, and on international security. Her work has been published in more than 50 books and journals in political science, law, gender studies, international relations, and geography.

Recent Posts

a bear in duck’s clothing: reflections on the end of my blogging career

by Laura Sjoberg | 12 November, 2013 |

Blogging is an exercise of academic freedom, like writing journal articles or books.  Blogging is something that has evolving norms and rules, like writing journal articles or books. However, given its nature, the evolution of the field, and the evolution of technology, the norms of blogging are, for better or worse, unique. It is the question of what those norms are and what they demand of us that has dominated the significant discussion about who is accountable for, and who should hold culpability for, the controversy around Brian Rathbun's post and departure from the Duck. The Duck, like...

read more

The Politics of “Fitting” Feminist Theory in IR

by Laura Sjoberg | 17 October, 2013 |

(Note: This post is cross-posted at The Research Centre in International Relations at King's College, London's Blog) Feminist theorists have long made and substantiated the argument that gender "matters" in International Relations (IR) theory and practice, and that it matters in complicated and hybrid ways. Gender analysis has been used (in my view effectively) across a wide spectrum of theoretical approaches, issue areas, and contemporary political events.  I thought about this as I was reading news stories and opinion pieces expressing disappointment that Malala Yousafzai did not win the...

read more

What’s Wrong with FETs? Thoughts from Gendering Global Conflict

by Laura Sjoberg | 16 October, 2013 |

(Note: This post is cross-posted at the Columbia University Press Authors' Blog)  Over the last couple of years, the US military has begun to employ FETs (Female Engagement Teams) in Afghanistan, characterizing their purpose as "to engage the female populace" of the country. The mission of these groups of female soldiers seems to be divided between victim services, trust building, influence seeking, and intelligence gathering. Many feminist scholars (e.g., Keally McBride and Annick T. R. Wibben) have expressed their deep concerns about both the effectiveness of FETs and the ideas about sex,...

read more

Words of Mass Destruction in the Syria Debate

by Laura Sjoberg | 12 October, 2013 |

Note: This is a guest post by Ty Solomon, Lecturer at the University of Glasgow Even though the war in Syria has been raging for the past two years, much of the global outrage that we now see has only erupted with the recent reports about Bashar al Assad’s government attacking civilians with chemical weapons.   Arguably, the past two long years of war has not provoked the same level of indignation as we are now seeing from world leaders and publics.  Why is it only now, with the use of chemical weapons – and not the use of “conventional” bombs and guns – have the US and UK governments...

read more

Big Brother meets Network Analysis?

by Laura Sjoberg | 29 September, 2013 |

A story in the New York Times this morning suggests that the National Security Agency has been analyzing our social networks through email and phone call records, apparently accomplishing “large-scale graph analysis on very large sets of communications metadata” of American citizens and foreign citizens alike.  This network analysis uses not only contact data but GPS tracking to understand not only how we relate but how we move in relationship to each other. From the description in the article, the methods that the NSA uses seem to be very similar to those that political science is using, in...

read more

Make Love and War? Sex and Syria …

by Laura Sjoberg | 5 September, 2013 |

Among the more famous anti-war slogans in the US is the 1960s' declaration of "make love, not war." I found myself thinking about that phrase when a student sent me a link to the Daily Show on Monday - where Jon Stewart made some insightful comments about sex, gender, and the presumably impending military action in Syria. And yes, I used the words "insightful comments" to describe something Jon Stewart said. Those of you who know me know how hard that was to say. But his description works for me .... and suggests that "make love not war" is actually a false dichotomy. After playing a group...

read more

A Networking Post Inspired by Networking

by Laura Sjoberg | 28 August, 2013 |

So, I ran into Dan Drezner in the trendy-food part of the West Loop in Chicago tonight, as you do when you are at APSA. Dan asked if I was planning to respond to his post on networking, which is critical of my earlier post. Honestly, it was not high on my agenda, but who can resist networking as a motivation to write a post on networking? In my post, I suggest that networking can have efficiency, career opportunity, and political benefits, with the caveat that it is not easy, does not always come naturally, and can actually be harmful if it goes awry. Dan suggests that neither myself nor...

read more

The Glass Half Empty: Gendered Problems in Academic Networking

by Laura Sjoberg | 24 August, 2013 |

Editor's Note: This is a guest post by Sara McLaughlin Mitchell, Professor and Department Chair of Political Science at the University of Iowa. It is Part 1 of a 2-part discussion.  Many recent posts (e.g., posts here by David Lake, Dan Nexon, and Laura Sjoberg, and elsewhere by Christian Davenport and Steve Saideman) have discussed professional networking in political science.  Given my belief that academic experiences are not universal, a viewpoint articulated by Will Moore (https://willopines.wordpress.com/2013/08/17/some-dimensions-over-which-the-return-to-networking-is-not-uniform/), I...

read more

In Defense of Networking

by Laura Sjoberg | 18 August, 2013 |

There's been a lot of discussion, here (1)(2) and elsewhere (3)(4) about the value of networking. Dan Drezner suggests that the best kind of networking is doing good research, and that there is a small professional benefit to networking, but not much. Eric Voten agrees, suggesting that networking is not going to lead to significant professional opportunities. Dan Nexon suggests that one not network at all, but talk to and meet people as an end in itself. While there are a lot of gems of advice in all of these posts (do good research, be professional, have fun, don't chase around "big names"...

read more

Marriage Debate in France Strikes at the Heart of the Republican Consensus

by Laura Sjoberg | 12 June, 2013 |

 A Guest Post by Michael Bosia, Associate Professor of Political Science, Saint Michael's College In a startling juxtaposition, neofascists killed young leftist activist Clément Méric in the first days when city halls across France opened for lesbian and gay couples to marry.  And perhaps the debate on marriage weakened President François Hollande despite his victory.  That is because no one anticipated the revival of a moral intransigence and violence reminiscent of the rightist movements of the 1930s, as the debate intensified divisions within the Gaullist-led coalition essential to the...

read more