The Duck of Minerva

Steve Saideman

Steve Saideman is Professor and the Paterson Chair in International Affairs at Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs. He has written The Ties That Divide: Ethnic Politics, Foreign Policy and International Conflict; For Kin or Country: Xenophobia, Nationalism and War (with R. William Ayres); and NATO in Afghanistan: Fighting Together, Fighting Alone (with David Auerswald), and elsewhere on nationalism, ethnic conflict, civil war, and civil-military relations.

Recent Posts

Tuesday Post-Dusk Linkage

by Steve Saideman | 3 December, 2013 |

I tried to get this out at dusk, but Steve Martin and I both have a problem with doing things at dusk.   This week's Tuesday links follow thusly: First, Duck-ster Phil Arena demonstrated the power of twitter as his rant on twitter about the events in Ukraine got picked up by Max Fisher of the Washington Post.  Two reasons to post this--Phil's take is not only strident but also illuminating and clarifying; and it shows that twitter can cross-over to the mainstream media.  Fisher has done this before, as he likes to take social science of stuff and discuss it over at his WashPo blog.  Not a...

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Hard to Say I’m Sorry

by Steve Saideman | 20 November, 2013 |

The reports about the bilateral agreement between the US and Afghanistan that would allow American troops (and other western countries essentially) have suggested that President Hamid Karzai would support the agreement if President Obama apologized or admitted mistakes in the conduct of the war. This, of course, has produced a reaction or two, given that President Karzai might have a lot of gall to be asking of this given that more than three thousand outsiders (Americans, Danes, Canadians, etc) gave their lives to help the Afghan government.  On the other hand, Obama just apologized for...

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Tuesday Evening Linkage: Shorter and Later Than Ever!

by Steve Saideman | 19 November, 2013 |

My new job as semi-weekly Tuesday linker is off to an uneven start.  I am behind on link collection as I was roaming this past weekend in the cell phone sense--in the US where my cell phone is super-expensive and wifi was not so available. Anyhow, here are some links that may be of interest to the Duck community (or not). IR/Conflict Stuff Christian Davenport has been blogging various tales from his fieldwork in Rwanda.  Just some amazing tales that provide heaps of perspective sauce. Cullen Hendrix provides a very timely post on whether natural disasters cause or exacerbate political...

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Tuesday Morning Linkage: A Rookie Explains Himself

by Steve Saideman | 5 November, 2013 |

This is my first time doing the Duck linkage, as I will be alternating with Charli on Tuesdays.  I may eventually figure out a style, a pattern, a focus, but my first shot at this will be either completely random or entirely typical of my various fascinations and interests.  As I panic every other Monday night, y'all can send me suggests via twitter (@smsaideman). Now to the links with probably too much explanation attached: IR Stuff Over the weekend, there was a story about a supposed crisis in US Civil-Military relations.  Luckily, the folks at Outside the Beltway de-bunked it quickly. For...

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Why I Didn’t Quit Academia

by Steve Saideman | 29 October, 2013 |

There have been a spate of posts about why folks have quit academia.... so much so that Dan Drezner issued this challenge: Has anyone written a "Why I Haven't Quit the Academy" post yet? — Daniel Drezner (@dandrezner) October 27, 2013 So, I decided to figure out why I did not quit.  Sure, looking backwards from where things stand now, it would have been a mistake to quit.  Things have worked out really well for me, but that was hardly foreseeable and there were a couple of points along the way where quitting might have made sense: It took me three years to land a tenure track position,...

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Friday Nerd Blogging: Indiana Jones and the Plot Hole of Power

by Steve Saideman | 25 October, 2013 |

Two CBS sitcoms have references Indiana Jones in the past couple of weeks: How I Met Your Mother invoked Last Crusade as Barney imagined that Ted and he entered the room where the grail and the fake grails were stored at the end of Last Crusade.  The ghostly knight kept playing a role, telling Ted in "reality" that he was choosing poorly.  Not a bad bit. Big Bang Theory had the Amy Farrah Fowler character bust a big plot hole in Raiders, arguing that Indiana Jones was unnecessary for the outcome. Whether he tried to stop the Nazis or not, they would have been killed by the power of the ark...

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