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

Film class — week 14

by Rodger Payne | 26 November, 2006 |

Film #14 "The Whale Rider" (2002). We viewed it Tuesday.Reading: Ann Tickner, "Man, the State, and War: Gendered Perspectives on National Security," Chapter 2 of Gender in International Relations; Feminist Perspectives on Achieving Global Security (NY: Columbia University Press, 1992). (CIAO subscribers only)Ann Tickner's book is perhaps the best-known feminist treatise in the field of international relations. In the assigned chapter, she describes how classic levels of analysis studied by scholars in the field -- man, the state and war (for individual, national and systemic) -- reflect and...

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Film class — week 13

by Rodger Payne | 17 November, 2006 |

Film #13 "Gandhi" (1982). We viewed it Tuesday.Reading for Thursday: Sharp, Gene, There Are Realistic Alternatives (Boston: Albert Einstein Institution, 2003). Photo credit: U.S. Department of State"Gandhi" is an outstanding film about the public life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, often called Mohatma for "great soul." The work won 8 Academy Awards, including Oscars for Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Director. Unfortunately, at 188 minutes, it is difficult to use in a classroom setting. The Tuesday section of my class meets for 150 minutes, plenty of time for almost every film this...

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Can Baker channel Scowcroft?

by Rodger Payne | 14 November, 2006 |

Soon, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by longtime Bush family friend James Baker (and former Indiana House member Lee Hamilton, who filled a similar role on the 9/11 Commission), is going to report its recommendations about the future of the US war. Inside the beltway, the great hope is that the 10-member team will "solve" the wrenching problems concerning the future of America's role in Iraq. As reported in today's Christian Science Monitor: "Maybe an outside group can craft a policy that both sides [in the US domestic debate] can accept, though they don't want to have...

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Film class — week 12

by Rodger Payne | 10 November, 2006 |

Film #12 "Network" (1976). We viewed it Tuesday.Readings for Thursday: Michael Massing, "Now They Tell Us," 51 The New York Review of Books, February 26, 2004.PIPA (Program on International Policy) and Knowledge Networks Poll, "Misperceptions, the Media and the Iraq War," October 2, 2003.I selected this film for a number of reasons. First, it highlights the power of transnational corporations in global politics. Arthur Jensen, head of a conglomerate that owns the television network highlighted in the film's title, eventually lectures anchorman-turned-prophet Howard Beale:You are an old man...

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Film class — week 11

by Rodger Payne | 3 November, 2006 |

Film #11 "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" (1964). We viewed it Tuesday.Readings for Thursday: Lee Butler, "The Risks of Nuclear Deterrence: From Superpowers to Rogue Leaders" National Press Club, February 2, 1998.Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press, "The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy," Foreign Affairs, March/April 2006."Dr. Strangelove" is one of my all-time favorite films and its powerful 40-year old critique of American nuclear deterrence strategy continues to resonate today -- even though the cold war is over and contemporary nuclear delivery...

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How cool was that?

by Rodger Payne | 1 November, 2006 |

If you missed IR scholar John Mueller's appearance on the Daily Show, watch it soon on the Comedy Central website.Mueller has been writing a great deal about the overblown threat from terrorism -- and he managed not only to plug his current book, but also his next one!Incidentally, that next book is going to be The Cold War as Farce. Perhaps Nayef Samhat and I will produce The Comedy of Global Politics first. Incidentally, I've been on a conference panel with Mueller, frequently assigned his writings in my class, and even hosted him in Louisville in a work-related endeavor. Thus, even though...

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Afghanistan war reconsidered

by Rodger Payne | 28 October, 2006 |

Rob Farley of LGM has a thoughtful "web exclusive" article up at The American Prospect that everyone here should read. Here's his question: Does the justification for the invasion of Afghanistan hold up in retrospect, or have our difficulties there belied the wisdom of this war in the same way the disastrous occupation of Iraq has underscored the folly of that one?Again, I urge everyone to read the entire piece.That does not, however, stop me from offering this spoiler: Rob thinks that the decision to go to war was correct and that progressives were right to support it. Most of the essay...

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Film class — week 10

by Rodger Payne | 27 October, 2006 |

Film #10 "Wag the Dog" (1997). We viewed it Tuesday.Reading for Thursday: Jane Kellett Cramer, "'Just Cause' or Just Politics? U.S. Panama Invasion and Standardizing Qualitative Tests for Diversionary War," 32 Armed Forces & Society, Spring 2006, pp. 178-201.The students and I are in the midst of watching a number of comedies about global politics in order to consider various critical perspectives. After all, among other virtues, comedies amplify the ridiculous and help one identify hypocrisy. The biting satirical film "Wag the Dog" was made in 1997, but it resonated powerfully throughout...

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Actually, the bad news is very good news

by Rodger Payne | 25 October, 2006 |

I commented on this point more than three years ago, but since President Bush said something dubious again today, it seemed worth repeating. First, here's what Bush said at his news conference, with the egregious part in red: Over the past three years I have often addressed the American people to explain developments in Iraq. Some of these developments were encouraging, such as the capture of Saddam Hussein, the elections in which 12 million Iraqis defied the terrorists and voted for a free future, and the demise of the brutal terrorist Zarqawi. Other developments were not encouraging, such...

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Film class — week 9

by Rodger Payne | 19 October, 2006 |

Film #9 "The Great Dictator" (1940). We viewed it Tuesday.Readings for Thursday: J. Michael Waller, "Ridicule as a weapon," White Paper No. 7, Institute of World Politics, January 2006.This is a terrific Charlie Chaplin film, which satirizes Nazi Germany under Adolph Hitler -- and takes on Mussolini and war as well. Roger Ebert's review of the film accurately describes Chaplin's portrayal of Adenoid Hynkel, dictator of Tomania. Chaplin, writes Ebert, ...did not find Hitler at all funny, needless to say, and so although he uses his own comic genius to inspire the movie, the comedy is never...

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