Robert Cox’s landmark article, “Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Rela…
Episode 32: Social Forces, States, and Clydeside Whisky
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Patricia Owens
Professor Patricia Owens joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Professor Owens grew up in London, with Irish parents who'd emigrated from Ireland during the Troubles, and the conflict in Northern...
Talking Great-Power Competition in the Heart of Empires Past
It turns out that it’s hard to write a roundup of happenings at the Duck of Minerva when there aren’t many to speak of. Much of that’s on me. What’s my excuse? Well, the kid finally contracted...
Episode 24: International Relations in China
What is the topography of international-relations theory in the People’s Republic of China? What …
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Episode 7: Duckcalls Events Series 1, Solarwinds discussion with Nina Kollars and Mark Raymond
A discussion with Nina Kollars and Mark Raymond about the SolarWinds hack, recorded in March, 2021
Bridging the Other Gap: Approaches for Blending STEM and Social Science Education
The COVID-19 pandemic makes it clear – our students need a blend of science and policy literacy. Transnational challenges with technical dimensions are increasingly common. Pandemic disease, climate change, artificial intelligence, biotechnologies, and other issues touching our politics and society demand fluencies that no single academic department houses. So, how might educators prepare students for this complex world? Scholars in the mid-20th century recognized interdisciplinary needs in harnessing nuclear weapons. A few decades later, others did the same to address environmental issues....
Is bullying baked into academia?
Recently, David Edelstein and Jim Goldgeier circulated an open letter for signature to address bullying in the profession. The open letter can be found here. So far, there are nearly 100 signatures, including mine. As a sophomore in high school, I was 5’2”, weighed 215 pounds, was in a bunch of advanced classes with much older students, and played role-playing games in my spare time. I know a little bit about being bullied. And I know a lot about its toll. I know also that bullying can come in many forms, with some bullies savvier than others in terms of how they ply their craft. Verbal...
How do you kill a zombie argument? Middle East studies edition
I've started practicing mindfulness, partly to deal with the stress of being a Professor and parent of small kids in a pandemic, and partly to reduce the number of times I become unreasonably angry over bad policy arguments. I experienced a major setback this week, when I encountered yet another evidence-less argument on Saudi-Iran relations. What's worse, it looks like this zombie claim is not only refusing to die, but it is--in zombie apocalypse fashion--replicating itself and spreading. The offender was this article in Slate by Fred Kaplan. Reports have emerged of secret talks between...
Introducing Bridging the Gap’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Fellow: Emmanuel Balogun
The Bridging the Gap team is thrilled to announce the addition of a new member of our leadership team: Emmanuel Balogun, the inaugural BtG Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Fellow. We recently sat down with him to ask about his work, hobbies, and plans for the fellowship. Welcome to the team, Emmanuel! BTG: Tell us a bit about yourself. What drives your scholarship? EB: What drives my scholarship is my desire to highlight the multitude of ways African countries engage with the international community. I am also very curious about the role of African expertise in IR. My research on African...
Not everything outside the Pentagon is “soft power”
As someone who works on religion and politics, I encounter the term "soft power" a lot. Most of the time it's in a good way; soft power is a means to advocate for policies that draw on our values but still advance our interests. But, occasionally, the term frustrates me. Too often it's used as a catch-all to address any foreign policy that doesn't involve military force or economic sanctions. If we want to advocate for a broader set of foreign policy tools, we need a better set of terms to describe them. Soft power Soft power was famously introduced by Joseph Nye in a 1990 Foreign Policy...
Writing a Dissertation isn’t Running a Marathon… it’s Training for One
Hilary Matfess is a PhD candidate at Yale University, an incoming professor at the University of Denver’s Korbel School, and a 2020-2021 United States Institute for Peace (USIP) Peace Scholar Fellow. She will participate in the Bridging the Gap NEW Era workshop in 2021. Her work has been published in International Security, Security Studies, Stability, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, and African Studies Review. Her first book, Women and the War on Boko Haram, was published in 2017 with Zed Publishers. Relevant to this article, she has also completed several marathons and looks forward to...
We want you to write for us!
This post from our partners at Bridging the Gap is written by BTG Fellows Danielle Gilbert and Erik Lin-Greenberg, who are now the new editors of the BTG Duck channel, coordinating contributions from BTG’s network of scholars. The past twelve months have been fraught with challenges, yet they have also given rise to a host of new opportunities. We’ve faced a global pandemic, a contentious U.S. election, social and racial injustice, and assaults on democracy around the world. These experiences have led scholars to ask tough questions, have difficult—but critically important—conversations, and...