While political comedy thrives, IR comedy, whatever that phrase might mean, is virtually non-existent. omedy gap’? Is it a figment of my imagination or a real problem?
Why isn’t IR funnier?
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Various and Sundry
Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word
It's the eternal quandary of thinking about the intersection of international politics and global health: where does Elton John fit in? We now have an answer. It's where we try to understand issues...
WPTPN: Lessons from Turkey: Populist Nationalism and the Threat to Democracy
This World Politics in a Time of Populist Nationalism (WPTPN) guest post is written by Gizem Zencirci, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Providence College. Her research interests include...
Call for Guest Posts: World Politics in a Time of Populist Nationalism
There are many reasons to be concerned about world politics. Over the coming weeks and months the Duck of Minerva will run a series of posts from regular contributors as well as guests on the state...
More Various and Sundry Posts
UN Passes “Right to Water”: Diplomacy everywhere but not a drop to drink.
Yesterday the General Assembly passed a non-binding resolution declaring “the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of the right to life."The vote passed with 122 countries voting and 41 countries abstaining, including United States, Britain, Canada, Australia – but also other nations like Botswana and Turkey. On the other hand, China, Russia, Germany, France, Spain and Brazil backed the resolution.This vote comes after many years of debate. Water, increasingly seen as a strategic issue and a natural resource, is not...
Why states shouldn’t count on Facebook for foreign policy
My colleague, Ben O’Loughlin at Royal Holloway, has written a blog post on the potential consequences of states in the West, particularly the US and UK, increasingly relying on informal social networking of its citizens to promote foreign policy priorities. This would be a move away from the kind of ham-fisted attempts at public diplomacy seen in the wake of 9/11 aimed at getting Arab states to “like” the west to allowing every day citizens to debate the international issues of the day.Thus, “The War on Terror” becomes the “The Long Change” – or changing people’s minds.However, Ben points...
It’s radical, man.
Through the very good King’s of War blog I was directed to a post on Jihadica on the recent emergence of an apparent Al-Qaida affiliated English-language publication called “Inspire”. While the author suggests that this has thrown Western media into a panic, there was very little to actually be worried about (other than the fact that it might contain a computer virus).The bottom line is that Inspire is a drop in an ocean of jihadi propaganda. The recent media coverage suggests that otherwise educated observers don’t seem to realise 1) how large and 2) how old that ocean is. I find this both...
Happy Canada Day!
For Canada Day I wanted to post my favourite Canadian short film ever - The Sweater by Sheldon Cohen. It's based on the story by Roch Carrier (who narrates with the most awesome Quebecois accent ever). It's so popular among both Anglo and Franco-Canadians that they printed an excerpt on our $5 Bill.I just feel that it really helps to understand what Canada "is" because we're so often defined by what we're not.Quite frankly, we make Constitutional Monarchy look pretty sexy. And here is some Stan Rogers. Because he's awesome. PS: Go Leafs Go!
Some NPT Reading… if you’re out of summer novels.
International Affairs – the (increasingly policy oriented) official journal of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (aka Chatham House) has published a “virtual” issue of articles on the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) dating back to 1968 and going up to the present. It includes one by Hedley Bull published in 1975 which (although very much dated) highlights the dilemmas of nuclear diplomacy during the period of detente and when India shocked the world by conducting a nuclear explosion in 1974 and China re-emerged as a major player on the world stage.Not exactly beach-y kind of summer...
The ICC Review Conference : The Belgium Amendment
For those of you who are international law junkies (– and really, who isn’t?) ASIL has a very interesting blog on the ICC Review Conference that took place over the last two weeks in Kampala, Uganda. David Scheffer, a notable scholar on both the ICC and international criminal justice, has a really interesting post summarizing most of the decisions that were made.Of course one of the most interesting developments is, of course, the crime of aggression. However, what I find to be more interesting is the expansion of the prohibition of weapons banned in international armed conflict (including...
Taking it Personally
Earlier this year, all eyes were focused on Iceland in a very negative way for the second time in 18 months. First their banks collapsed in 2008 which caused many in Europe who had savings accounts there to take a rather substantial financial hit. For example, in the UK local councils were estimated to be at risk for up to £840 million in cash. And secondly, as is pretty well known, the Icelandic ash cloud basically paralysed Europe for the better part of April. (There's the whole "whaling" thing too - but that's relatively long-standing.)The Icelanders, for their part, couldn’t do much....
On the Israeli Convoy Raid – briefly
I wanted to write/post something about the Israeli-Turkish ship incident but this post here on Information Dissemination pretty much sums up everything I wanted to say: the attack was legal… but this doesn’t mean it was in any way intelligent or a clever thing to do. (Hat tip to LGM's Robert Farley's Twitter for pointing out the post.)Drezner also has a post on this last point (ie: that it wasn’t really clever) at FP and brings up the the North Korean angle: Indeed, the parallels between Israel and -- gulp -- North Korea are becoming pretty eerie. True, Israel's economy is thriving and North...