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

Political Geography Lesson 101

by Rodger Payne | 17 April, 2011 |

In my American Foreign Policy class, I typically try to find some time to engage students about Puerto Rico. After all, most of them never have cause to think about Puerto Rico's quasi-colonial status in the US geostrategic orbit. Some Puerto Rican nationalists seek freedom from US domination, but even progressive activist American students interested in global affairs tend to overlook the plight of Puerto Rico in favor of other concerns.Apparently, beyond my students, more people in Louisville are now going to learn a little something about Puerto Rico's legacy. Cardinal basketball coach...

read more

Libya: R2P or Regime Change?

by Rodger Payne | 19 March, 2011 |

On CNN this Saturday morning, the day after the United Nations Security Council voted for Resolution 1973 (2011) to authorize a "no-fly zone" in Libya, the debate has centered around whether or not the United States and its allies want regime change in Libya. After all, a few days ago President Obama said "It's time for Qaddafi to go." Similarly, British Prime Minister David Cameron has declared: "It is almost impossible to envisage a future for Libya that includes him. Gaddafi must go, he has no legitimacy."Yet, to me, this seems like a very odd and unhelpful framing of the situation....

read more

Nuclear Disarmament: Looking Back at Reykjavik

by Rodger Payne | 17 March, 2011 |

I've been looking at some of the documents in "The Reykjavik File" at the National Security Archive. This coming October will mark 25 years since Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev almost completed a startling nuclear disarmament deal. Had they been successful, both superpowers would have been disarmed 15 years ago!The US proposal at Reykjavik was fairly startling, as reported in the Memorandum of Conversation, Reagan-Gorbachev, Final Meeting, 12 October 1986, 3:25 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. - 6:50 p.m., October 16, 1986. Document 15 (or see this archive for educators):"Both sides would...

read more

No Nukes: Arms Division

by Rodger Payne | 16 March, 2011 |

In February, Bill Clinton's second Secretary of Defense, William Perry, spoke at Harvard's Belfer Center and continued his ongoing campaign against nuclear weapons. With former Secretaries of State George Shultz and Henry Kissinger and former Senator Sam Nunn, Perry has for many years been seeking a "world free of nuclear weapons." After describing his personal experience working behind the scenes during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Perry recounted another nuclear scare: 16 years later, when he was Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. He was awakened at 3 a.m. by a phone...

read more

Multiple meltdowns?

by Rodger Payne | 15 March, 2011 |

Most of the members of the Duck are at the ISA conference in Montreal this week.Meanwhile, Japan is trying to deal with a horrific series of nuclear accidents, triggered by natural disaster -- the 9.0 earthquake and resultant tsunami. I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on nuclear engineering or physics. However, I can recommend some writing by specialists who are closely following the situation and describing the events in understandable terms.First, I always turn to the Arms Control Wonk for nuclear-related issues. Jeffrey Lewis was in Japan when the earthquake hit and he's been...

read more

A Truth Commission for Iraq

by Rodger Payne | 17 February, 2011 |

Back in 2003, the name Ricardo Sanchez appeared in several posts on my personal blog. At the time, the now-retired General was "the top U.S. military official in Iraq." Over the years, Sanchez provided honest and forthright assessments of the Iraq war. Even though I didn't always agree with his analysis of what should be done, I respected his contributions to the political debate. Lately, he's been pushing a "truth commission" for Iraq and I think that the U.S. should pursue something like that to document the course of the Iraq war. Sanchez's evolving views of the Iraq war are worth...

read more

F for the Professor?

by Rodger Payne | 4 February, 2011 |

Have you heard about a new study, Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, authored by academics Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa and released by University of Chicago Press? Their research question should be of interest to most of the people reading this blog: "are undergraduates really learning anything once they get" to college?**The results are disturbing: Their extensive research draws on survey responses, transcript data, and, for the first time, the state-of-the-art Collegiate Learning Assessment, a standardized test administered to students in their first semester and...

read more

Explosive Pakistan

by Rodger Payne | 31 January, 2011 |

Is "people power" contagious? It's easy to find examples of journalists, policymakers and/or analysts, and some scholars arguing that opposition to authoritarian rule is spreading like a winter virus from Tunisia to Egypt and Yemen. In this case, many optimists argue (though some merely hope) that the viral idea will result in more democratic governance for millions of people that have long lived under autocratic rule. Moreover, many think (or hope) that the contagion will spread to other similar states with large Arab or Muslim populations.However, the skeptics and pessimists have keyboards...

read more

The “drug war” is over?

by Rodger Payne | 22 January, 2011 |

Over the years, the so-called global "war on terror" (or "war on terrorism") has had its ups and downs as a foreign policy framing device. The George W. Bush administration, of course, relied upon the frame to sell virtually all its major foreign policies over a period of many years -- even though the Pentagon at one point preferred "struggle against violent extremists." Britain stopped using the phrase some years ago (at least in the Labor government).Barack Obama's administration allegedly abandoned the phrase very early in his term -- in favor of alternatives like "overseas contingency...

read more

Last call: 2012 Grawemeyer Award Nominations

by Rodger Payne | 5 January, 2011 |

Annually, the University of Louisville awards significant cash prizes in five fields: Music Composition, Religion, Education, Psychology, and Ideas Improving World Order. Next year, the prize will be at least $100,000 in each category.For over 15 years, I have directed the administration of the award for the World Order award. Basically, I chair the initial review committee that is housed within the Department of Political Science -- and oversee the rest of the process.The World Order Award's basic purpose is described on our webpage:Submissions will be judged according to originality,...

read more