UPDATE: As a commenter helpfully pointed out, the person whose tweet I'm responding to was a political science Professor, not a historian. This kind of messes with the framing of this post but rather than stealth re-write it I'll leave it as is and let you interpret...
Paul Musgrave concludes the “Lab Leaks” symposium by engaging with his interlocutors and reflecting on the challenges faced by political science in an era of public-facing scholarship.
Musgrave’s identification of dangerous ideas is correct, but his metaphor risks entrenching the fundamental problem: the (inevitable) weaponization of “scientific objectivity.”
Perhaps the problem isn’t that theories leak from the lab, but efforts to seal the lab in the first place. If political scientists spent more time observing the policy world, me might get both better and more careful theories in the first place.
https://twitter.com/dhnexon/status/1088916204184629248 What's the right amount of reviews to do in a year? For my university's annual performance review, I went through and counted how many I did last year, which included some grant and book proposals. I topped out around 40, which seemed like a high number to me. How many is too many?Is that actually a high number though? Perhaps that is just the price of seniority and being in the business for a good number of years. In my case, I get a lot of requests for reviews from journals outside political science, since I write on climate change...
This is a guest post from Brent Sasley, Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Arlington and chair of the ISA Online Media Caucus. Just a reminder that nominations for the Duckies (Online Achievement in International Studies) will close February 1, but we are still accepting nominations until then! Send nominations to onlinemediacaucus@gmail.com. Self-nominations are welcome. The categories are: Best Blog (Group) in International StudiesBest Blog (Individual) in International Studies Best Blog Post in International Studies Best Twitter Account Special Achievement in...
This is the second of two guest posts ]by Eric Parajon, Richard Jordan, and Marcus Holmes. The first can be found here. In our last post, we explored recent TRIP survey data illustrating that International Relations scholars overwhelmingly blame President Donald J. Trump for a perceived decline in America’s international respect. We also detailed how this individual level explanation seemed at odds with a reluctance over the past three decades on the part of IR scholars to publish articles focusing on the role of the individual or the “first image”. We closed our piece with some possible...
This is a guest post, the first of two, by Eric Parajon, Richard Jordan, and Marcus Holmes. Eric Parajon is a recent graduate of William & Mary and currently a Project Manager for the Teaching, Research, and International Policy Project. Richard Jordan is an assistant professor at Baylor University. He researches game theory, security, and leadership. Marcus Holmes is an associate professor of Government at William & Mary. He recently published Face-to-Face Diplomacy: Social Neuroscience and International Relations. Among IR scholars, research on the role of individuals in world...
I'm not much for New Year's resolutions, but I just listened to Pod Save America's resolutions podcast. Ana Marie Cox was a guest and talked about her approach to New Year's resolutions. She talked about "intentions" rather than resolutions since resolutions have the air of failure about them: you either completed the task or you didn't. Intentions has a quality that is less judgmental and more aspirational. Aside from some discussion of self-care (which I think is generally good), the podcast focused on time management and our interaction with technology, which resonated with me. Several of...
This is a guest post from Brent Sasley, Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Arlington and chair of the ISA Online Media Caucus. ISA 2019 is coming up fast, so it’s time to start thinking about the Duckies! A lot has happened in the last year, and scholars and researchers have been more active than ever in trying to help us figure it all out. Let’s recognize their efforts! The Online Achievement in International Studies Reception and Awarding of the Duckies will take place on Wednesday, March 27 at 7:30pm, hosted by the ISA’s Online Media Caucus (OMC). We will first listen to...
This is a guest post by Lahoma Thomas, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto. This piece on reflexivity and positionality emerged from a panel she organized at APSA 2016, titled: “Race in the Field: Understanding How Identity Frames Field Research”and has evolved as one of her primary research agendas. Follow her on Twitter at @LAHOMAthomas. The issues of reflexivity and positionality have been prominent features of my academic career, especially throughout my doctoral studies in political science. Reflexivity entails a critical reflection...
Dillon Tatum had an interesting post here last week, calling for a “radical” international relations. As Tatum notes, "radicalism intervenes in the political domain with the goal of fundamental transformation" and IR could function similarly. What would that look like? I think many would imagine a radical IR as radical in its approaches and methods. That is, scholars would critically examine biases and assumptions, uncover power structures and erase them. In this envisioning of critical IR, conventional methods—quantitative analyses, positivist qualitative studies—are part of the problem....