The blogosphere peaked somewhere in the mid-2000s, so why would anyone start blogging in 2023?
Why Blog Now? An Introduction
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Featured
How Quals can avoid becoming our own worst enemies
Simple steps to promote qualitative research in journals It happened again. After months of waiting, you finally got that "Decision" email: Rejection. That's not so bad, it happens to everyone. But...
6+1 Questions About MAKING THE WORLD SAFE FOR Dictatorship
Why and how do authoritarian regimes manage their image abroad?
Welcome New Ducks and an Invitation
The Duck has a new look and a new lineup of our core group, what we used to call "permanent contributors." We haven't yet settled on a new term. Blog Jedi Masters came to mind. In this post, I...
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The Politics of Research on Trauma – A Gendered Perspective
The following is a guest post by Ayelet Harel-Shalev and Shir Daphna-Tekoah. Ayelet Harel-Shalev is a Senior Lecturer at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Her academic interests include Feminist IR; Women Combatants; Ethnic Conflicts and Democracy; Minority Rights; and Women and Politics. @harelayelet ayeleths@bgu.ac.il Shir Daphna-Tekoah is a Senior Lecturer at Ashkelon Academic College, and Kaplan Medical Center. Her academic interests include Gender, Health and Violence; Women Combatants; Child Abuse and Neglect; Dissociation and Trauma. shir.dt@gmail.com In the era of the #MeToo...
Charli’s Village: A Call to Arms
This is a tough post to write. In October, Charli was hospitalized for severe abdominal pain. Surgery revealed a large mass, and Charli was diagnosed with Burkitt’s Lymphoma—a systemic cancer of the immune system. This is a rare cancer, but fortunately it is highly treatable (doctors say the cancer is responding well) and Charli has access to some of the best doctors in the world in Boston. But, the treatment is brutal: an intensive, six month course of chemotherapy. Charli is soldiering on, dealing with the anticipated (the hair!) and unanticipated challenges of cancer diagnosis and...
Are Potential Peer Reviewers Overwhelmed Altruists or Free-Riders? New data reveal great inequality in peer reviewing in the social sciences.
This is a guest post submitted by Paul A. Djupe, Denison University Political Science, who is an affiliated scholar with PRRI ; Amy Erica Smith, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Iowa State University; and Anand Edward Sokhey, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Colorado at Boulder, as well as the associate director of the American Politics Research Lab and the incoming director of the LeRoy Keller Center for the Study of the First Amendment. Google “peer review crisis,” and you will find dozens of pieces — some dating back to the 1990s —lamenting the...
The Politics of Grief and the Forever War: Who Speaks for the Fallen?
Dead American soldiers became the objects of highly visible and ongoing contest this week - over the ways and means of grieving America's fallen. In fact, the events discussed in this short post mark only the latest phase and an escalation in tensions between dominant and challenging bodies over the (in)visibility of suffering and dead American soldiers that have featured throughout the Global War on Terror (GWoT). Such tensions demonstrate not only the competing logics and agendas leading to the blacking out of American repatriations via the 2003 Dover Ban (a DoD Directive prohibiting the...
New Girl
Today’s headlines in several international newspapers had to struggle with too many possessive male noun forms: Putin’s mentor’s daughter Ksenia Sobchak announced that she would run for Russian Presidency next year. Russia's Got Talent! Not that the Kremlin thought that the upcoming ‘Putin referendum’ is in Jeopardy! The main contender Navalny is currently contemplating whether orange is the new black and will probably not get on the ballot anyway. The usual suspects (such as Zyuganov and Yavlinsky) have been trying to get that rose from the Russian population for too many seasons. Given...
#MeToo
“The women who accused Harvey Weinstein did not act as women. Because sexual harassment - well, that's great, honestly. And if you have a role, what difference does it make how you got it. […] In general, how can a man be accused of sexual harassment, is it not what he exists in this world for? If he has the power that he uses in this way, that's good. It's wonderful when a man who has so much power is sexually harassing you, isn’t it?” No, it isn’t. But that is what a relatively famous Russian actress Lyubov Tolkalina had to say about the Hollywood scandal. Even though in the same article...
Americans Don’t Think Much of Trump’s “America First.” That’s Good, But …
This post comes from Bridging the Gap co-director Bruce W. Jentleson[*], Professor of Public Policy and Political Science at Duke University. “Not much” and “less and less” is What Americans Think About America First, as documented in the latest Chicago Council on Global Affairs public opinion report.[†] That’s somewhat reassuring. But only somewhat. On one America First issue after another, the data show limited and declining support. On the general issue of maintaining alliances, 49% support compared to 38% who oppose. On NATO, 69% see it as essential to American security and 53% say it...
National Security Generalists and Learning the Lessons From Lost Wars
A friend posted this piece on facebook: "Why Nerds Should Not Be In Charge of War." It draws from the new PBS Vietnam War documentary by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick to argue that it happened because of the prominent role played by "generalists." Yes, Robert McNamara and his gang of Whiz Kids are mighty arrogant, and they have much blame to share for the war. Indeed, McNamara, unlike certain other arrogant former SecDefs, has spent the time since trying to grapple with what he had wrought. There is something to the idea that we need folks involved who are regional experts. Indeed, there...