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Academia

International Relations and the Problem of Literacy

by Lina Benabdallah | 4 April 2024, 0930 EDT | Academia, Race, Race and Imperialism in International Relations, Theory & Methods | 0 Comments

There is no shortage of knowledge produced in various traditions and diverse scholarly communities. There is no lack of theoretical traditions and political thought that come from non-Euro-American and mainstream canons. There is also no shortage in theoretical concepts and approaches to global politics that are not produced in Anglophone spaces. Rather, there is still in mainstream IR a major problem of literacy to access, integrate, and dialogue with this wealth of IR scholarship produced in and from the margins

Selection Processes in Academia: Time for a Revamp

by Consuelo Thiers | 25 August 2023, 0953 EDT | Academia | 1 Comment

Current trends in the academic job market paint a bleak picture. Data from U.S. universities reveal a drop in job postings in the Politics field over the past three years and a decline in...

Patriarchy and the Cult of Coercion: Pale, Male, and Stale Will Make Deterrence Fail

by Van Jackson | 21 August 2023, 1826 EDT | Academia, Gender, Security, US Foreign Policy | 0 Comments

Carol Cohn is the G.O.A.T. Back in 1987, she wrote what is still the best gendered take on the pathologies of deterrence in a piece called, “Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense...

Judging a book by its cover

by Lisa Gaufman | 17 August 2023, 1012 EDT | Academia, States & Regions | 0 Comments

When I was in middle school I loved history: ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, the Middle Ages always fascinated me. Often during the summer vacation, I would read the history books in advance to...

A tale of two realisms

by Peter Henne | 3 March 2022, 1410 EST | Academia

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 takes but policy takes that don't seem to flow from the theory itself. Does this mean that all of realism is flawed? I would argue no, by pointing to another target of such claims, Stephen Walt. This says something about how to make/keep realism relevant. The trouble with realism? Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine,...

How do we get IR to notice something?

by Peter Henne | 23 February 2022, 1011 EST | Academia

I excitedly read this recent tweet by Evan Perkoski of UConn, about a new article he co-authored that has been accepted in International Organization. Beyond being glad for a colleague's success, I was excited by the substance of the publication. They produced a new dataset on violent non-state actors and analyzed the conditions under which they cooperated, finding a major role for both group ideology and religious identity. That is huge! Well-crafted data published in one of the top journals in the sub-field that found that religion drives a crucially important security issue. This should...

On Academic Grudges: A Quack-and-Forth

by Adam B. Lerner | 18 February 2022, 0729 EST | Academia, Interviews

The academy is traditionally a place students and scholars go to hone their critical faculties. But perhaps, in some cases, we take this critical approach too far. In this Quack-and-Forth, Adam B. Lerner and Jarrod Hayes discuss academic grudges and whether the academy would be a kinder or gentler place if we all acted a bit more like Larry Bird (and a bit less like Larry David).

Nominations are open for the 2022 Online Achievement in International Studies (OAIS) Awards!

by Peter Trumbore | 14 February 2022, 1307 EST | Academia, Awards, Metablogging

After a two-year COVID-induced hiatus, the International Studies Association Online Media Caucus (OMC) is pleased to announce the return of the Duckies! Please send you nominations to onlinemediacaucus@gmail.com by February 25, 2022. We encourage self-nominations. Note that the OMC has updated the awards to reflect the current topography of the online media environment. We now award Duckies in the following categories: Best Blog Post by a Senior Scholar (post-tenure, or a non-tenured scholar active for five years or more)Best Blog Post by a Junior Scholar (pre-tenure, or a...

Joseph Nye 85: From Integration Theory to Complex Interdependence to Soft Power

by Zoltán Fehér | 31 January 2022, 2355 EST | Academia, Public Facing, Theory & Methods

Peter Cutler is living the quiet life of a Princeton professor when the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate asks him to become his foreign policy adviser. Cutler takes the job and his gambit pays off: the presidential candidate wins and Cutler is appointed to be Under Secretary of State in the new administration. As he becomes more and more absorbed in the new environment, he is shocked to learn how ruthless political life in Washington really is. When it seems that things cannot get more complicated professionally and personally, Cutler’s ex-girlfriend appears and he falls again for...

In Memoriam: Jon Western

by Dan Nexon | 31 January 2022, 1002 EST | Academia, Featured

Back in the Duck of Minerva's heyday, Jon Western was one of its anchors. Indeed, it wasn't that long ago that we were talking about his returning. Jon said that he'd gained important perspective on the state of higher education from his time as dean of faculty and vice president for academic affairs at Mount Holyoke. He wanted to share that with a broader audience. That won't happen. Jon died on Saturday. I don't have the details. Just a forwarded email from Mount Holyoke. It reads: Dear members of the Mount Holyoke community,It is with the utmost sorrow that I write to say that, yesterday,...

Ban the “Failed Search”?

by Dan Nexon | 30 January 2022, 0930 EST | Academia

How do colleges and universities go about hiring tenure-line (or the equivalent) faculty in politics and international relations? Back in 2013, I provided a short overview of the typical U.S. process: Starting in the late summer, political-science departments post position announcements with the American Political Science Association. Most job hunters read those announcements on e-jobs and decide whether or not to apply.Prospective hires send in materials to institutions. These typically include: (1) at least one writing sample -- sometimes a published article, sometimes an...

Where does the Academic Work End? or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Burnout

by Adam B. Lerner | 20 December 2021, 1532 EST | Academia, Various and Sundry

that I actually conceived of the idea for this post last week but was only able to force myself to write it today by promising myself a variety of self-care rewards like naps and whiskey.

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