The Duck of Minerva

 Given some of the recent discussion on the Duck about the use of force in the Arabian Gulf, I thought I'd point out something interesting from the recent TRIP survey of international relations scholars. It turns out that between 60 and 90 percent of IR scholars surveyed simply reject the U.S. use of force in five hot-button regions. Asked "Would you approve or disapprove of the use of U.S. military forces in the following situations?", scholars responded:War between North and South Sudan: 84.6% disapprove.If it were certain that Iran had produced a nuclear weapon: 79.9% disapproveIf...

Unless... Nothing.Nothing at all.Four years ago, we knew neither Ron Paul nor Rick Santorum would be president.Six months ago, we knew neither Ron Paul nor Rick Santorum would be president.One month ago, we knew neither Ron Paul nor Rick Santorum would be president.Two days ago, we knew neither Ron Paul nor Rick Santorum would be president.This morning, we know neither Ron Paul nor Rick Santorum will be president.Given the cavalcade of crazies that has populated the Republican primary to date, amazingly, the party is on the verge of nominating Willard Mitt Romney--the heartfelt choice of...

At The Monkey Cage, Erik Voeten notes the ascendancy of constructivism within International Relations (although "non-paradigmatic research" is an even more popular category).I suppose that's it for realism, then. So much for the null hypothesis that every article in IR published in the past 20 years has treated as a punching bag. From now on, I hope that we can all agree that theory articles don't have to start by attacking the bogeyman of structural realism and can instead begin with a more interesting discussion of the problem at hand.Next from Steve Walt: Cultural Revolution and...

Kathleen R. McNamara lays out the reasons to be skeptical that the euro can survive in anything like it's current form. McNamara's brand of political economics begins from the right presumption: that in political economy, politics comes first. Models that fail to account for the role of institutions, of beliefs, or of power will fail to capture any of features that matter most when systems begin to fail. Politics is an autonomous part of social life. It has its own logic and its own explanations. Although political science is a discipline of magpies forever borrowing from other fields'...

When I was young (ca. 2001), I was very much in Matt Drudge's target demographic, and for various reasons (I like tabloids, I like celebrity gossip, and I like to keep up with the echo chamber without subscribing to Fox News), I've stayed a loyal Drudge reader for years.Drudge is a window into the right-wing's id. And so it's always amazing to me to see things like this:First, there was a time when being a Republican meant celebrating your loyalty to Nixon. Anyone can like Reagan, but only a real s.o.b. can like Nixon. Second, if there's any historical analogy that springs to mind for...

Over on the other side of the methods divide, Andrew Gelman shares a tip: Caffeine, a lightweight and free app for Macs that keeps them awake even when you haven't clicked on them for a while. But let me double down on Gelman with a tip that, if used improperly, could destroy your computer: Insomniax, which doesn't just keep your Mac awake but actually disables its sleep function. In other words, if you have to move from one place to another while you're running calculations, or if you just want iTunes to keep playing when you close the lid on your MacBook, then Insomniax is the solution....

In an effort to change the conversation from the Duck's current all-Jobs all the time format, let me simply commend Jorge Cham, the creator of Ph.D. Comics, and the rest of his crew for the Ph.D. Comics movie, which manages to be everything that a satisfying break from writing code should be: Funny, heartwarming, and short. Graduate students, see it soon. Faculty members can see it too, but not at the same screening as your grad students; after all, do you really want to know how hard they laugh at the jokes about clueless professors?