The Duck of Minerva

Josh Busby

Joshua Busby is a Professor in the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas-Austin. From 2021-2023, he served as a Senior Advisor for Climate at the U.S. Department of Defense. His most recent book is States and Nature: The Effects of Climate Change on Security (Cambridge, 2023). He is also the author of Moral Movements and Foreign Policy (Cambridge, 2010) and the co-author, with Ethan Kapstein, of AIDS Drugs for All: Social Movements and Market Transformations (Cambridge, 2013). His main research interests include transnational advocacy and social movements, international security and climate change, global public health and HIV/ AIDS, energy and environmental policy, and U.S. foreign policy.

Recent Posts

Advice for a Junior Colleague

Advice for a Junior Colleague

by Josh Busby | 2 November, 2014 |

What kinds of advice do you give junior colleagues early on as they think about what it takes to get tenure and promotion? With some new colleagues, I've been giving that some thought based on my own pretty recent experience. Obviously, some guidance is institution-specific, and I have a fairly idiosyncratic circumstance in a policy school. Nonetheless, I think there may be some generalizable lessons, with the focus here on research. Where Are You Thinking of Publishing? Some schools have point systems for particular journals. Some have informal guidance about what journals matter.  If you...

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The Future of Climate Governance: Lessons from Failure

The Future of Climate Governance: Lessons from Failure

by Josh Busby | 25 October, 2014 |

As I mentioned in my previous post on climate and security, I went to Colorado College last week for two talks that Andrew Price-Smith organized. The second talk covered the theme of global climate governance (slides here). Last month, both Jennifer Hadden and I wrote about the People’s Climate March and the renewed optimism about possible international progress on climate change that accompanied the UN leaders meeting in New York. I wanted to expand on the theme, not simply because of the talk in Colorado. The strategy for next year’s climate negotiations has been in the news of late. Just...

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Climate and Security Revisited

Climate and Security Revisited

by Josh Busby | 17 October, 2014 |

I made two presentations yesterday at Colorado College where I first talked about climate and security and then spoke about global climate governance. I'll post about each issue in turn. With the Pentagon this week releasing its new strategy on climate change adaptation, this is a timely moment to revisit how far we have come with climate and security (slides from my presentation here). In the mid-2000s, climate activists began casting about for new ways to frame climate change as a way to broaden their coalition. One way was to frame climate change as a security threat. Tom Friedman and...

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The Strange Death of Liberal Zionism

The Strange Death of Liberal Zionism

by Josh Busby | 3 October, 2014 |

This is a guest post from Ariel I. Ahram (@ariel_ahram), an assistant professor of government and international affairs in Virginia Tech’s School of Public and International Affairs in Alexandria, Va. He is the author of Proxy Warriors: The Rise and Fall of State Sponsored Militias (Stanford University Press, 2011). Laments over the state of Israel have become increasingly common. Especially in the midst of this summer’s war in Gaza, Israel’s erstwhile sympathizers and supporters have come forward questioning the Jewish state’s viability and morality. Israel, they claim, has lost the...

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Thursday Ebola Linkage

Thursday Ebola Linkage

by Josh Busby | 2 October, 2014 |

Well, this has been a very difficult period to watch as we see the unfolding tragedy of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. We have seen dire warnings for the region, with a dramatic uptick in reported infections and some heartbreaking (and problematic) images from hospitals. There have been credible projections that left unchecked Ebola could have as many 1.4 million infections by early 2015 in Liberia and Sierra Leone, which would amount to more than 10% of the population of those two countries. With President Obama's announcement of $500 million (perhaps up to $1 billion) and the...

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“and Elinor?”: when winning a Nobel Prize isn’t enough…

“and Elinor?”: when winning a Nobel Prize isn’t enough…

by Josh Busby | 1 October, 2014 |

This is a guest post from Leslie Johns, an Assistant Professor of political science at UCLA.  The Public Choice Society---an academic organization of scholars who study the interaction of politics and economics---recently announced that it has created a new award for scholarly research: the Vincent and Elinor Ostrom Prize.  The announcement of this prize is provoking an intense reaction because of its name: “The Vincent and Elinor Ostrom Prize”? Elinor Ostrom was well-known to political scientists, policy analysts, and economists.  As a graduate student during the 1960s in the Political...

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Ready for the Weekend Quasi-Linkage: Are Political Scientists Useless?

Ready for the Weekend Quasi-Linkage: Are Political Scientists Useless?

by Josh Busby | 26 September, 2014 | ,

Steve and I had a good Twitter exchange with Tom Ricks about whether or not political science is useless to policymakers, particularly quantitative work and modeling. I thought this exchange was funny because today I saw that Colin Kahl, friend and more importantly, a damn good political scientist, was just appointed as Vice President Biden's National Security Advisor. Ricks' broadside has provoked a few choice blog posts from Steve, Paul Staniland, Tom Pepinsky, and Henry Farrell. (Dan Drezner also had a good one on the topic from 2012). I also thought Ezra Klein's column from a week or so...

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Bad Evals: Further Thoughts on Having it All

Bad Evals: Further Thoughts on Having it All

by Josh Busby | 24 September, 2014 |

So, I got some bad teaching evaluations from last semester (bad by my standards at least. Hell, by anybody's standards). It's kind of thrown me for a loop because I pride myself on being a good scholar, a good teacher, and a good husband/father. But, sometimes it may not be possible to pull off all three of these things well simultaneously, especially if you've got an ambitious research agenda, equally challenging and risky courses, and a toddler at home. That wasn't my immediate reaction when I read the students comments, but I've kind of gravitated to that conclusion, if only to stave off...

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What’s Next for the Global Climate Movement?

What’s Next for the Global Climate Movement?

by Josh Busby | 23 September, 2014 |

This is a guest post from Jennifer Hadden, who is an assistant professor at the University of Maryland. She guest blogged on the Duck before on global climate negotiations. She also has a forthcoming book from Cambridge on climate advocacy called Networks in Contention: The Divisive Politics of Climate Change. The largest climate change demonstration in history took place on Sunday. According to organizers of the People’s Climate March, an estimated 400,000 people participated in the protest in New York. For comparison, the size of the march was comparable to the scale of the February 15...

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Thursday Linkage: #Climate2014 Edition

Thursday Linkage: #Climate2014 Edition

by Josh Busby | 17 September, 2014 |

On Tuesday September 23, the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon is hosting a meeting of world leaders to discuss the issue of climate change. The aim is to build pressure and support for action in advance of the climate negotiations to be held in Paris in late 2015. In advance of Tuesday's climate meeting, activists are holding on Sunday, September 21st the People's Climate March, what aims to be the largest march of its kind with a core march in New York and satellite marches in major cities around the world. The hashtag #Climate2014 is capturing much of the news about the...

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