The Duck of Minerva

Rodger Payne

Rodger A. Payne is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Louisville. He serves on the University’s Sustainability Council and was a co-founder of the Peace, Conflict, and Social Justice program. He is the author of dozens of journal articles and book chapters and coauthor, with Nayef Samhat, of Democratizing Global Politics: Discourse Norms, International Regimes, and Political Community (SUNY, 2004). He is currently working on two major projects, one exploring the role of narratives in international politics and the other examining the implications of America First foreign policy.

Recent Posts

Update: UWE Response to My Letter

by Rodger Payne | 20 February, 2013 |

I have an update for those interested in the decision by the University of the West of England to shutter its Politics and IR programs. Last night, I sent the following message to UWE Vice Chancellor Steven West: 19 February 2013 Dear Vice Chancellor West, I learned today that the University of the West of England is seriously considering a decision to close its Politics and International Relations programs. I believe that would be a serious mistake and would urge you not to make it. From what I understand, the decision will be part of a university effort to refocus coursework around skills...

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Save IR and Politics at University of the West of England

by Rodger Payne | 19 February, 2013 |

Earlier today, I received an email alerting me to the fact that the University of the West of England’s Academic Board supported a recommendation from the Vice Chancellor’s Executive Group to close all international relations and politics programs. Apparently, the plan is to refocus the university (one of the ten largest in England) on skills-based learning and vocational courses, which essentially means that arts and social sciences have no place in future plans. As long-time Duck readers know, I think this is a very bad idea -- and some much-discussed research strongly supports the value...

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Get the Lead Out?

by Rodger Payne | 10 January, 2013 |

Yesterday, Dan Drezner's "one post about American gun violence" explicitly linked the post-Newtown debate about gun violence to Kevin Drum's interesting and provocative Mother Jones article on the disturbing relationship between lead (Pb) in the environment and criminal violence. "If the White House is smart, they will take, verbatim, Kevin Drum's suggested policy proposals for eliminating lead from our nation's homes and topsoil." Like many of us at the Duck, Drezner is an IR scholar who frequently blogs about foreign policy. However, as a group, we are somewhat hesitant about entering into...

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Africa for Norway

by Rodger Payne | 30 November, 2012 |

This video from Africa for Norway provides a humorous way to think about foreign aid: I suppose there is a good chance readers have already seen the video -- more than 1.5 million people have viewed it on youtube.  

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2013 Grawemeyer Award Winner

by Rodger Payne | 27 November, 2012 |

Congratulations to Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan for winning the 2013 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World. As readers may recall, Chenoweth is a Duck of Minerva guest blogger. Chenoweth and Stephan won the $100,000 prize for their 2011 book, Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict (Columbia University Press). This is a succinct description from the press website: Combining statistical analysis with case studies of specific countries and territories, Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan detail the factors enabling such campaigns to succeed and,...

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Thinking the Unthinkable?

by Rodger Payne | 24 November, 2012 |

Yesterday, climate activist and environmental writer Bill McKibben tweeted a link to this eye-opening graphic: In many ways, this chart is merely another disturbing bit of information about weather in a year of shocking weather news. The United States experienced a record drought this summer -- and many areas are still facing tremendous water shortages. As a fairly direct consequence, the U.S. also suffered near-record wildfires this year, burning a total area "roughly the size of the states of Massachusetts and Connecticut combined." The Weather Underground Director, Dr. Jeff Master,...

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“Get the Big Idea Right”

by Rodger Payne | 10 September, 2012 |

This morning, the McConnell Center at the University of Louisville hosted CIA Director David H. Petraeus.  The event was not publicized and required a ticket for admission. As chair of the Political Science Department, I was invited to hear the talk -- and had a seat very near the front and center of the stage, less than 25 feet from the speakers. Unfortunately, very few students outside of the (approximately 40) McConnell Scholars were invited to the event.The lecture hall was instead filled with older guests, including many veterans and some active duty servicemen (and women, though I...

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Plagiarism 2.0

by Rodger Payne | 10 August, 2012 |

The internet has exploded this afternoon with the revelation that Fareed Zakaria (a Harvard Government PhD 1993) apparently plagiarized significant elements of his Time magazine op-ed this week. As many in the media have noted, including Politico, several paragraphs in his piece about gun control are "remarkably similar" to paragraphs originally published by Jill Lepore in The New Yorker on April 22, 2012. Zakaria almost immediately owned up to the deed: "Media reporters have pointed out that paragraphs in my Time column this week bear close similarities to paragraphs in Jill Lepore's essay...

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Bear cam

by Rodger Payne | 27 July, 2012 |

Have you wasted any time viewing Bear cam? This Wired story explains:Media company Explore has teamed up with Alaska's Katmai National Park to install webcams that will deliver live video feeds of brown bears catching salmon in a popular feeding ground.Each year, around a hundred bears travel to a stretch of Brooks River to fill their bellies with salmon. Now anyone with an internet connection can witness this gathering thanks to four high-definition cameras that have been set up in this remote part of Alaska. One camera is positioned at Brook Falls, where the larger male bears fight it out...

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Baseball and American Foreign Policy

by Rodger Payne | 16 June, 2012 |

Not long ago, Robert Elias, a Professor of Politics at University of San Francisco (and editor of Peace Review), published The Empire Strikes Out: How Baseball Sold U.S. Foreign Policy & Promoted the American Way Abroad (The New Press, 2010). Unfortunately, I have not yet had a chance to obtain a copy of the book -- or read it. However, thanks to my SABR membership, I learned this week of his related article "Baseball and American Foreign Policy," which came out in Transatlantica in 2011 (but was just published on-line this month).As both a baseball fan and an academic who has taught a...

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