It has been awhile, but with the end of the term, we are due for some Friday Nerd Blogging. How some definitive proof that adding a little bit of Empire makes ordinary dancing much better?
Friday Nerd Blogging: Return of An Old Theme
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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
8 Strategies For Men To Combat Gender Bias
by Steve Saideman | 23 April, 2016 | Academia, Featured
This is a guest post by Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham (@kgcunnin), Associate Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland. Foreign Policy recently published our article on women and the tenure process in International Relations. The article centers on the challenges women face and offers some suggestions on how to manage them for pre-tenure women based on our experiences. We conclude the article, in part, with a call to allies (i.e. people who are not, or are no longer, affected by these biases or are in a position to address them). Here, I offer 8 ways that such...
Either DA-RT Works, or It Does Not
by Steve Saideman | 8 April, 2016 | Academia, Featured
This is a guest post by Theo McLauchin (@TheoMcLauchlin), Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Université de Montréal When is a norm not a norm? I ask this question when I read Colin Elman and Arthur Lupia’s vigorous defense of the Data Access & Research Transparency (DA-RT) initiative in APSA’s Comparative Politics section newsletter. I think Elman and Lupia try to have it both ways. Their piece argues, first, that journals need to adopt norms of openness. It then argues, in defense of DA-RT against a series of concerns that it will bring the editorial hammer down on many...
Gender, Rank and IR: Missing Role Models
by Steve Saideman | 29 March, 2016 | Academia, Featured
Last week, I asked a question online that was asked of me and then I asked at the ISA two weeks ago: Can you name women of color working in the US or Canada who do IR and are full professors? At the ISA, folks could only name one or two. On twitter and facebook and my blog since then, the total has increased to eleven: · Neta Crawford of Boston University. · Condoleeza Rice, who was a full prof at Stanford before becoming provost and then worst National Security Adviser. · Jacqueline Braveboy Wagner, City College of New York. · Reeta Tremblay of U of Victoria. · L.H.M Ling of the New...
Happy Anniversary, Canada!
by Steve Saideman | 25 February, 2016 | Academia, Featured
This week is the 10th anniversary of the start of Canada's combat mission in Kandahar. This was the most stressful Canadian "expedition" since the Korean War, as Canada skipped Iraq 2003 and Vietnam. Today also happens to be the third anniversary of the rejection of an access to information request (Canadian for FOIA)--I had asked for the report detailing the Lessons Learned from the war. While armed forces create such reports all the time, this was a first for the government to consider how the various agencies performed. The report got buried, not just so that I couldn't see it, but...
The Kurdish Conundrum
by Steve Saideman | 11 February, 2016 | Featured, Security
Now that Canada has decided to continue to train and support the Kurds in Iraq along with the Iraqi government, the question of the future of the Kurds is being questioned. Indeed, yesterday, I received a phone call from a magazine in Kurdistan asking me about referendums and why some secessionist movements get to become states and others do not. My short answer: "fair ain't got nothing to do with it" which could probably use a bit of nuance. This is not just a Canadian issue but one for all of the countries intervening (or not intervening) in Iraq and Syria. The one thing I do know and...
Why Isn’t There More Public Scrutiny of the U.S. Military?
by Steve Saideman | 11 February, 2016 | Security
This is a guest post by Risa Brooks, Associate Professor at Marquette University Americans’ relationship with the military exhibits an odd paradox: the country’s citizens profess to hold deep regard for the military, while in fact knowing little about it and paying minimal attention to its activities at home or abroad. Analysts of U.S. civil-military relations remain seriously concerned about this peculiar mix of societal reverence and indifference toward the military. Less clear is why Americans remain so disengaged from an institution that has such a profound role in the country’s...
Duckies 2016: Vote To Select the Finalists
by Steve Saideman | 18 January, 2016 | Featured
The Duckies have moved from Duck of Minerva to the ISA's Online Media Caucus, but the process is mostly the same. Vote for your favorite examples of outstanding Online Achievement in International Studies here.
Duckies, nomination period extended
by Steve Saideman | 4 January, 2016 | Featured
The new deadline is January 11th, so nominate away!
The Rule of Three
by Steve Saideman | 30 December, 2015 | Academia, Featured
While it is hard to do and particularly hard to do while starting out, the general conventional wisdom (and wise it is) is that one should try to have three pieces under review at most/all times. Why? Because academic review is a capricious enterprise that often takes much time. Journals have gotten much better about shortening review times, with many journals averaging something like 40-60 days... which is actually more like two to three months (do weekends count?). But that is an eternity for junior faculty, and the reality is that rejection means that one goes through this spin cycle...