The Duck of Minerva

Alexis Henshaw

Dr. Alexis Henshaw is the author of Why Women Rebel: Understanding Women’s Participation in Armed Rebel Groups (Routledge, 2017) and co-author of Insurgent Women: Female Combatants in Civil Wars (Georgetown University Press, 2019). She is currently an assistant professor at Troy University. Her research interests include gender issues in international politics, civil wars, conflict management, and Latin America. She has also published work on research methods and design, including pieces focused on pedagogy, data analysis & visualization, and inclusivity. Her work has appeared in Journal of Global Security Studies, International Feminist Journal of Politics, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Small Wars & Insurgencies, and a variety of other peer-reviewed outlets. Dr. Henshaw has written for The Conversation, Duck of Minerva, Political Violence @ a Glance, and The Monkey Cage, the political blog of The Washington Post. She has authored reports for the U.S. Army's Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute and the Centre for Women, Peace, and Security at the London School of Economics. She is an associate fellow with the Global Network on Extremism and Technology and has consulted with UN Women, the UN Counterterrorism Executive Directorate, and a variety of other organizations. Dr. Henshaw received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Arizona with a certificate in Gender and Women’s Studies and previously taught at Duke University, Miami University, Bucknell University, and Sweet Briar College.

Recent Posts

Let’s Talk About Contingency (Part 2)

Let’s Talk About Contingency (Part 2)

by Alexis Henshaw | 8 March, 2017 | ,

In my previous post, I started a discussion about full-time contingent faculty in the profession. Given that contingent faculty work is very much gendered, I wanted to continue that discussion today with a focus on how the discipline at large can better serve the growing ranks of faculty working off the tenure track. Most of the data I presented in my last post came from the American Political Science Association (APSA) and examined the outcomes for job-seekers on the U.S. job market. As you may recall, one of the big takeaways was that early career scholars on the job market are now more...

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Let’s Talk About Contingency (Part 2)

Let’s Talk About Contingency

by Alexis Henshaw | 16 February, 2017 | ,

Ah, the spring semester: When the thoughts of many turn to the promise of summer, while the thoughts of panicked ABDs turn to the question of what they’re going to be doing beyond the end of this academic year.   Right on schedule, the jobs boards are filling up with this year’s crop of “visiting” professor positions--inviting young (and not-so-young) ABDs and early-career faculty to gamble on a choice that will uproot their lives without any promise of permanent or even long-term employment. Having spent my early career off the tenure track, I wanted to take this opportunity to make a...

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Let’s Talk About Contingency (Part 2)

El Salvador’s Restless Peace at 25

by Alexis Henshaw | 17 January, 2017 |

Amidst all the political drama this week, one could be forgiven for not noting the 25th anniversary of the Chapultepec Peace Agreement. Chapultepec was the agreement that brought a negotiated end to El Salvador’s civil war, a 12-year conflict between a repressive military government and leftist rebels united under the banner of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). The Salvadoran conflict was notable for its tremendous human cost. By the conflict’s end, over a million people had been internally displaced or fled abroad and an estimated 75,000 Salvadorans were killed, many of...

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Let’s Talk About Contingency (Part 2)

No More Vietnams? Reforming the Selective Service

by Alexis Henshaw | 8 December, 2016 |

When I was young, I dreamed of Italy. Once in a while, my father would pull out the slide projector and show us pictures from his life on a mountain near Colle Isarco, not far from Italy’s border with Austria. He taught me to speak a little in both Italian and German, which I loved. My father, though, is not Italian, and his sojourn at a mountaintop telecom site (still the only time he’s ever been outside North America) came all-expenses-paid courtesy of the U.S. Air Force, which he joined after being drafted during the Vietnam War. That period of conscription, which ended in 1973, was the...

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Let’s Talk About Contingency (Part 2)

Is the International Criminal Court’s “Legitimacy” Problem Also a Gender Problem?

by Alexis Henshaw | 17 November, 2016 |

Yesterday, Russia became the fourth country in recent weeks to announce its intent to withdraw from the Rome Statute and the International Criminal Court. In doing so, it joins South Africa, Burundi, and Gambia in expressing concern about the institution’s functionality and legitimacy as an international institution. The Philippines is also reportedly contemplating departure. Because Russia never actually ratified the Rome Statute, its act of “departure” is--as many have pointed out--largely symbolic. Yet it also comes with a stinging rebuke from the government of Vladimir Putin, which...

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Let’s Talk About Contingency (Part 2)

Nicaragua: Less Interesting Than Netflix

by Alexis Henshaw | 4 November, 2016 |

An American first lady is about to make history. No, not that one. Nicaragua’s November 6 election has drawn few headlines internationally, but this week the New York Times ran a profile on Rosario Murillo, the first lady who appears on this year’s ballot alongside her husband Daniel Ortega. With the outcome relatively certain, this will be Ortega’s third consecutive term in power, and his fifth time overall leading the country. Constitutional changes passed by his party, the FSLN, have solidified his position in power, and positioning his wife as vice president is a move widely seen as an...

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The United Nations and Diplomacy’s Glass Ceiling

The United Nations and Diplomacy’s Glass Ceiling

by Alexis Henshaw | 14 October, 2016 |

While the election of Antonio Guterres as the UN’s new Secretary-General was hailed by many, it has sparked renewed debate about gender issues in the United Nations system. While Guterres has a distinguished resume—including time spent as the Prime Minister of Portugal and as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees—this election cycle was also the focus of an unprecedented (and, ultimately, unsuccessful) campaign to get the United Nations to elect its first female S-G. The Campaign to Elect a Woman UN Secretary-General highlighted the candidacies of several qualified candidates, including two...

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