The Duck of Minerva

Vikash Yadav

Vikash is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Asian Studies at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, NY. His main areas of academic interest are (post-) globalization, economic development, and economic freedom, with a regional focus on South Asia

Recent Posts

Monday Morning Linkage

by Vikash Yadav | 8 April, 2013 |

Good Mornin' Ducks!  Here are some links on the crise du jour... Tim Shorrock discusses what what the US media is missing in its coverage of North Korea on FAIR's CounterSpin. (MP3 Podcast at 9.30 - 18:25) Kongdan Oh discusses how to understand North Korea and the "Republic of Pyongyang" on Brookings FPRI E-notes. UCSD's Stephan Haggard argues that Kim Jong-Un is not crazy. Professor Yoon Young-kwan at Seoul National asks us what would have happened if the Realism of Metternich guided our approach to North Korea. The CFR's Scott Snyder and the Duck's very own Robert Kelly discussed the...

read more

The worst questions to be asked at a conference

by Vikash Yadav | 3 April, 2013 |

The following is a guest post by Peter Henne. -- Once again, the International Studies Association annual meeting is upon us, followed by the Midwest Political Science Association conference. It's a good bet that most readers of the Duck will be attending one or both of these, or other upcoming meetings. One of the best parts of academic conferences is the Q-and-A portion of panels, when scholars get to respond to critiques and comments on their cutting-edge research. Of course, as anyone who has been to a conference knows, not all questions are useful. So I've decided to do my part and...

read more

Monday Morning Linkage

by Vikash Yadav | 1 April, 2013 |

Good Morning Duckies... Happy April Fool's Day. Here are some stories which we didn't make up just for this day...: Nicholas Sarkozy will soon be an employee of Qatar. The four year long battle for the Euro is not over. The top US adviser in Afghanistan is a former kebab restaurant owner from Nebraska. The $37 billion Little Crappy Ship (a.k.a. "The Klingon Bird of Prey") is not survivable in combat. The Indian Air Force loses one fighter squadron every two years due to crashes.  (Umm... maybe try better flying lessons?) If newspapers still exist in a few years, they might be delivered by...

read more

Monday Morning Linkage

by Vikash Yadav | 25 March, 2013 |

Good morning, Duckaroos!  Here's your Monday linkage from... "Dixie": The South will rise again - according to the UN.  No, not that South, the Global South.  For the first time in two centuries, Brazil, India, and China's combined GDP is nearly equivalent to the combined GDP of the leading powers of North America and Europe.  What lessons can the US learn? Himadeep Muppidi's "Reflections on Narrative Voice" in IR is a smart, "must read" article over at the Disorder of Things blog.  He writes, "After soaking oneself in the nuance and complexity of narratives, conventional accounts of IR...

read more

Monday Morning Linkage

by Vikash Yadav | 18 March, 2013 |

Good mornin' duck fans! Let's start the week by revisiting last week's firestorm in ... Afghanistan Hamid Karzai has become a bewildering enigma for many Americans as he launched yet another verbal tirade against the US last week.  This time he recklessly accused the US of colluding with the Taliban.  The NY Times speculates that Karzai is keen to shape his legacy given the ultimate fate of Mohammed Najibullah and many other Afghan leaders who came before him.  This is certainly plausible, but hardly the whole story.  Unfortunately, the article also condescendingly implies that the Afghan...

read more

Monday Morning Linkage in Space

by Vikash Yadav | 11 March, 2013 |

Good mornin' Duck-o-nauts!  Let's start the week in ... Space (i.e. Asia's Playground)... India is goin' to (orbit) Mars with a launch set for November 2013, only a few years after India landed an unmanned probe on the moon and detected water on the lunar surface. (The US is also sending an atmospheric orbiter to Mars this year.)  India is not exactly new to space; it has had 101 successful space missions but mainly with satellites.  The mission to Mars will cost about as much as buying one Boeing passenger airliner.  Yes, India is still poor and beset with numerous problems, but India...

read more

Monday Morning Linkage

by Vikash Yadav | 4 March, 2013 |

Good morning, ducks! Let's start the week in Pakistan The horrific and systematic killing of the Shia in Pakistan continues in full swing. Sunil Dasgupta asks: "How will India Respond to Civil War in Pakistan" (h/t C. Barwa) General Musharraf has promised (again) that he is coming back to rescue Pakistan...  But will it be the crazy, try-to-provoke-a-nuclear-war-with-India Gen. Musharraf or think-outside-of-the-box and try to resolve the Kashmir dispute Pres. Musharraf?  Does anyone in Pakistan still care about him? Arif Rafiq looks at Pakistan's Powerful Chief Justice, Iftikhar Muhammad...

read more

Monday Linkage

by Vikash Yadav | 25 February, 2013 |

Mornin' ducks... In anticipation of the P5+1 talks in Kazakhstan this week, let's start the week  in... Iran Yousaf Butt, a nuclear physicist, urges the West to make Iran a serious offer.  But Patrick Clawson argues that the Islamic Republic is just too dysfunctional to cut a nuclear deal.  Farhang Jahanpour at Juan Cole's Informed Comment blog argues that talks with Iran might just work this time.  Whose argument should we believe? In other news... For the first time since Iran and the US cooperated in overthrowing the Taliban, they have joined forces again to save ... wrestling.  Wait ......

read more

Monday Morning Linkage

by Vikash Yadav | 18 February, 2013 |

Good Morning! Let's start the week in the Asia-Pacific... North Korea It looks like US officials met secretly with North Korea three times in 2011 and 2012 without telling Japan or South Korea.  Why the US loaded heavy equipment, including a bulldozer, on their plane during a stopover in Tokyo remains a complete mystery.  Not surprisingly, the Japan-US relationship appears strained on the issue of sharing intelligence about nuclear proliferation. Rory Medcalf finds a few silver linings in North Korea's latest mushroom cloud. Our very own Duck blogger, Robert E. Kelly, comments on BBC World...

read more

Monday Morning Linkage

by Vikash Yadav | 11 February, 2013 |

Good Morning, here's your linkages... Let's start the week in South Asia: Afghanistan General Allen, the 15th of 16 commanders of ISAF in a dozen years, is  delusional if he really thinks ISAF is on the road to victory in Afghanistan as he exits to become the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO.  Unless of course, by the word "victory" he just means handing the ball off to the Afghans while the insurgency continues and the country crumbles.  Notably, the transfer of power from Gen. Allen to Gen. Dunford was held indoors and President Karzai didn't even bother to show. Bangladesh Remember when...

read more