The professional bureaucracies of both the US and Chinese national security states encourage mistrust, jingoistic attitudes, pessimistic assumptions, and hawkish policies. This is a growing source of war risk, and the only near-term fix is a security dilemma...
A couple of years ago, I conducted a Gary Steyngart-esque experiment and watched Russian TV for a day, to find out in what kind of information bubble a regular Russian person lives. This...
This is a guest post by Jeffrey C. Isaac, James H. Rudy Professor of Political Science at Indiana University, Bloomington. You can follow him at his blog at Democracy in Dark Times. Democracy is a...
This is a guest post from Kimberly Turner, a doctoral candidate at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Her research focuses on contentious politics, political economy, and street protests....
Last week I was able to host and facilitate a multi-stakeholder meeting of governments, industry and academia to discuss the notions of “meaningful human control” and “appropriate human judgment” as they pertain to the development, deployment and use of autonomous weapons systems (AWS). These two concepts presently dominate discussion over whether to regulate or ban AWS, but neither concept is fully endorsed internationally, despite work from governments, academia and NGOs. On one side many prefer the notion of “control,” and on the other “judgment.” Yet what has become apparent from many...
With any luck, the myth of Patient Zero being responsible for HIV/AIDS in the US will finally be completely put to rest. Gaétan Dugas may not be a household name for most, but he’s the man who has largely been blamed for HIV/AIDS in the United States. Dugas was a gay French-Canadian airline steward who worked for Air Canada in the 1970s and 1980s. Because his work involved a significant amount of travel and because of the number of his sexual contacts, a 1984 study linked him to some other early cases (though it could not necessarily prove a direct line of infection). Dugas came to public...
When I walk down the street, I don’t see signs saying “Tedros for WHO” or “Vote Szócska.” The television and radio airwaves don’t have endless campaign commercials ending with the tagline, “I’m Flavia Bustreo, and I approve this message.” Sania Nishtar does not hold large public rallies in sports stadiums to bolster her candidacy. Neither David Nabarro nor Philippe Douste-Blazy do phonebanking. These facts don’t distract from the fact that there is a vigorous and hotly-contested electoral race for the Director-General of the World Health Organization. Think of the current period as the...
It should come as no surprise to anyone that a political scientist like me gets really excited about elections and campaigns, and we’re currently in the thick of a doozy of a campaign season. Candidates have splashy websites and brochures, and they regularly meet with voters to pitch their candidacies. Whoever wins will take over an organization whose standing in the world is up in the air—and the winner will have a big job restoring the organization’s place in the larger global landscape. Of course, I’m talking about the campaign for the next Director-General of the World Health...
Rousseau once remarked that “It is, therefore, very certain that compassion is a natural sentiment, which, by moderating the activity of self-esteem in each individual, contributes to the mutual preservation of the whole species” (Discourses on Inequality). Indeed, it is compassion, and not “reason” that keeps this frail species progressing. Yet, this ability to be compassionate, which is by its very nature an other-regarding ability, is (ironically) the different side to the same coin: comparison. Comparison, or perhaps "reflection on certain relations" (e.g. small/big; hard/soft;...
I have one more Trump post I have to write. My first bemoaned how Trump could possibly be competitive in the presidential race and the second lambasted Trump's positions on domestic and foreign policy. I have no illusions that I'm convincing anyone who isn't already convinced he is a danger to the republic. However, should you read this and have friends in your orbit who are flirting with supporting Trump, here is some ammunition for your Facebook feed, dinner conversation, passenger pigeon, what have you. Basically, my hunch is that people will listen to you because they know you, but they...
In my last post, I lamented that Donald Trump is the presumptive GOP nominee, despite his outrageous series of slurs against different groups, his lies, and unscrupulous business practices. Before exploring what arguments might persuade Republicans and undecideds to vote against Trump, what other substantive objections are there to Trump? Trump has policy stances and utterances, based on some gut check about what outrageous thing might rile a receptive audience and keep him in the news so that he doesn't have to pay for TV ads. His style is based on improvisation and pandering, so he...
Is there such a thing as blogger's block? I suppose there must be. I've found the whole Donald Trump saga to be emotionally exhausting. It's hard to write more than 140 characters about this presidential race. How is it possible that he could or will be the nominee of a major party? Which groups has he not offended? This weekend it was the Jewish community's turn after Trump retweeted an anti-Hillary picture that featured a six-sided star and a background of dollars. A news organization tracked down the origins of the image on a neo-Nazi thread on a message board. This is not the first...