It's been a rough week for John Mearsheimer. He has come under a barrage of criticism for his claim that Russia's aggression towards Ukraine is the West's fault. His theoretical tradition, realism, has also come under fire, for producing not only (arguably) bad policy...
In 2016 I took a job at university in the UK. As an American, British academic culture was new to me, especially its ‘audit culture’. The key elements of audit culture are mechanisms for the...
We've all spent the weekend processing the killing of Iranian official Qassim Suleimani by a US airstrike. While this is obviously very important, we should think about a secondary implication of...
Four years ago I accepted a job at a university in the UK. When I took the job I didn’t think a whole lot about how working in the UK might differ from my previous academic posts in the US. I’m an...
I've wrote a post today with Bethany Albertson for The Monkey Cage. The post reports the findings from a recent article we wrote for the relatively new academic journal Research and Politics. The article includes a survey experiment we conducted to assess what messages, if any, the American public finds persuasive on climate change. Both represent interesting departures in the academic blogosphere and publishing. The Monkey Cage The Monkey Cage was independent up until September 2013 when it came under the aegis of the Washington Post. Since then, it has become the central hub for academics...
Recently, articles have emerged in both the United States and the United Kingdom concerned over the current politico-intellectual trend toward diminishing the importance and funding of the humanities and social sciences (HSS). For all the reasons the authors indicate, this trend is problematic. STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) disciplines are of course incredibly important. But they are only part of the collective agenda of intellectual inquiry, and cannot be made to dominate universities without intellectual, economic, and political costs. In this short post, I will...
So I'm a wee bit late to the post-International Studies Association Annual Conference blogging ritual, but better than never right? Let me begin with a first-time experience for me at ISA that I truly enjoyed and highly recommend: participation on a Junior Scholar Symposium Panel. If you've never done this, here's how it works: You read four papers by emerging scholars, but instead of a regular panel format the papers are discussed in combined poster/workshop format at one of several round-tables in a big ballroom. Authors bring poster versions of their papers, and everyone reads in advance....
Hi all! File this post under "unsolicited advice from a newbie DGS." Here are my tips on how to not crash-and-burn on a Skype interview: Take a professional picture and make sure your Skype handle is professional – this might be the perfect time to set up an alternative, work-related Skype account. DON’T have a mood listed. No one wants to see that you love pirates or pigs or whatever at this stage. Be on early and make sure Skype is set up as online. Dress professionally – get your dog, bike, etc out from behind you – you can take a sample picture right from Skype so you can see what they...
The Online Media Caucus was ratified at the ISA in New Orleans. The question is: now what? First, we now have a variety of online media outlets to publicize: ISA's homepage for us: https://www.isanet.org/ISA/Caucuses/OMC Twitter: https://twitter.com/OnlineMediaISA or @OnlineMediaISA Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ISAOMC Blog to be announced later. Pinterest, Vine, Instragram, and other online media outlets will be developed by volunteers. Second, I have been asked by the 2016 ISA Program Chairs to put together a panel for the Presidential Theme of Peace. So, if you are working on...
So you've finally received research funding to hire a research assistant....now what? Attaining resources to get research support is a wonderful thing, but figuring out who to hire and how to work with them can be a challenge. While I have been very fortunate to work with some excellent research assistants, I've also experienced difficult situations where I've hired someone with the wrong skill set, or clearly not mentored or managed the relationship well. These different experiences have taught me a few things about working with research assistants that I hope others find useful. Since I'm...
As part of the new Duck, we have revamped our guest blogging policy. The old policy, dating from way back when Dan and Patrick were slowly expanding the blog: The procedure for bringing on guest bloggers is one of those “salami factory” things… and strangers just aren’t very likely to make it through the process. In other words, guest blogging happened by invitation only. At first it happened sort of ad hoc and accidentally. We would scout new talent in the blogosphere and offer upcoming bloggers a place to build a profile. Or we would reach out to those in our social networks we wanted to...
We gave out the Online Achievement in International Studies (OAIS) a.k.a. the Duckies, Thursday night, in a wonderful reception sponsored by SAGE. Given that this is Oscar night, we should say that there are no winners, just that the Duckies went to: Best Independent Blog: Dart Throwing Chimp. Runner Up: Chris Blattman Best Group Blog: The Monkey Cage. Runner Up: PV@aGlance Best New Blogger: Allison Beth Hodgkins. Runner Up: Brandon Valeriano Best Blog Post: Erica Chenoweth, "Nonviolent Conflicts in 2014 That you May have Missed Because They Were Nonviolent" at Political Violence at...