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

A General Arms Race in US Conventions: Not Great But Unavoidable

by Steve Saideman | 2 August, 2016 |

LTG (retired) Mike Flynn has become a Trump advocate and appeared at the Republican National Convention.  General (retired) John Allen surprised many by not just speaking at the Democratic National Convention but giving such enthusiastic support to Clinton.  The big question is: is this problematic to have recently retired military officers take such public positions in the middle of a national election?  Yes.  But what can you do? Let's talk about the yes.  The former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, is peeved (so much so that he wrote more here).  Peter...

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NATO Summit Ahead!

by Steve Saideman | 7 July, 2016 |

Tomorrow, the NATO summit in Warsaw starts.   What do we expect, other than jet-lagged Steve being more incoherent than usual? Lots of decisions to be announced, none to be made.  These summits are akin to academic conferences--events that force folks to do the work.  So, all of the work to come to agreements, make commitments, draft talking points has been done.  Now, it is about announcing them. The big decision--a persistent presence.  Two years ago, many allies were reluctant to provoke Russia with a long-lasting deployment of troops to the Baltics and Poland.  The old agreement was...

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Brexit Hottake

by Steve Saideman | 24 June, 2016 |

We will have much, much time to ponder and study what happened yesterday... whether it was the weather that made the difference in London, why Cameron was such an idiot, and on and on.  I have a few quick reactions guided by and due to my faith in confirmation bias! While I am kind of surprised by the results, I should not be as I co-authored a book that argued that individuals and leaders will often embrace xenophobia for its short term allure despite the  great costs to the country. That is why we named the book: For Kin or Country: Xenophobia, Nationalism, and War (now available in an...

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Lame Counterfactuals and American Politics

by Steve Saideman | 19 June, 2016 |

This has been going around: Why is this such a dumb counterfactual?  Let me count the ways: Unlike parliamentary elections, individual voters could not vote for the full range of candidates--they voted in either the Democratic process or the Republican process Unlike parliamentary elections, the primary/caucus processes in the US were not simultaneous but sequential.  Which meant that folks voting later had few choices and were reacting to the outcomes of the previous primaries/caucuses Turnout? Primaries have lower turnout than general elections.  In primaries, the most passionate tend to...

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NATO Ministerial FAQ

by Steve Saideman | 15 June, 2016 |

This week is another NATO ministerial.  What is that?  Here's a handy guide to the basics and why NATO is run like an academic conference. What is the NAC?  Nope, not these guys.  The North Atlantic Council refers to a meeting of the representations of NATO members (not partners--those who play well with NATO but are not actually members).  Ordinarily, as in all the time in Brussels, the NAC consists of senior diplomatic representatives from each member--this is a very high post for an Ambassador or Foreign Affairs official.  They are called permanent representatives or PermReps. A NAC FM is...

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Brexit Epiphany

by Steve Saideman | 8 June, 2016 |

As I was chatting with my dissertation adviser yesterday while in DC (yes, my dissertation was completed in 1993 but the relationship goes on), I had an epiphany that had been on the edges of my thinking but finally popped: the Brexit folks are secessionists. Sure, the European Union is not a country (nor does it have an army), but the effort to pull the UK out of the EU is very much like the effort to secede from an advanced democracy.  How so?  While the EU's democratic credentials have long been criticized (so many articles about its democratic deficit), the key here is that it is not...

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The Most Important Corpses: Eastern Front Edition

by Steve Saideman | 25 May, 2016 |

I was on twitter talking with some folks about what Canada might promise at the Warsaw Summit, with the focus on who is going to provide the troops for the four battalions that will be based in the Baltics and Poland.  The conversation went into a bunch of directions, so I had an epiphany while shopping--it is not about proximity or folks who have ties to the Baltics--it is about whose corpses would have the greatest international political relevance.   The basing of NATO troops in the East (the Eastern Front is what people are calling it) is all about two things: reassuring the allies...

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Selling Out to the Enemy of Open Access

by Steve Saideman | 18 May, 2016 | ,

Yesterday, news quickly spread that the Social Science Research Network was bought by Elsevier.  This quickly caused an uproar on twitter.  Why?  The SSRN was established to provide a place for social scientists to share their work in progress.  Elsevier is one of the most rapacious rent-seeking profitable publishers of academic journals. Elsevier charges large amounts of money to universities so that universities can provide access to bundles of journals (the de-bundling movement in cable might remind folks that bundling is not an altruistic strategy by those facing little competition). ...

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Friday Nerd Blogging: Superhero Oversight

by Steve Saideman | 13 May, 2016 |

Every time I think I am out, they pull me back in.  No, not leading the mafia.  Principal-agent theory.  Yep, and I blame Stan Lee.  How so?  I saw the new Captain America: Civil Wars movie... explanation below the break: The entire movie is essentially about who guards the guardians (a title used more than once for civ-mil relations books)--who is the principal that oversees the agents?  This is the classic question in civil-military relations--who oversees the folks with the guns?  We take it for granted in democracies in part because it is an essential ingredient.  But scholars have not. ...

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