Patrick and Dan talk about the newest feature of the podcast: a series in which they combine thei…
Episode 29: Introducing: Whiskey & IR Theory… in Space!
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Recent Posts
Recentering the Catholic Church in European State Transformation
Did the study of state formation ever lose its religion? There’s a new wave of interest in the Catholic Church as an institutional formation.
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?
More Recent Posts
Much Ado About Nothing (Very Intellectually or Politically Important)?
The following is a guest post by Jeffrey C. Isaac, the James H. Rudy Professor of Political Science at Indiana University, Bloomington. What constitutes important political science research? This question has been much discussed lately in connection with “When Contact Changes Minds: An...
What’s at Stake in TPP?
President Obama's difficulty in convincing Congress to grant him authority to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership without legislative amendment is a serious setback for his foreign policy agenda. Most commentary on the subject has focused on the trade deal's likely economic impact -- which...
The Threat of the BDS Movement
Hello there! I'm very excited to be blogging here at Duck of Minerva for the next several months, and I'd like to thank all the full-time Ducks for the opportunity! For my first post, I thought I'd address something I've been thinking about ever since a student asked about it in my US Foreign...
Surfing the Cesspool: Political Science Rumors and the LaCour Scandal
This is a guest post submitted by Chris Barker, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Southwestern College For the past three weeks, “Political Science Rumors” (PSR) has been on fire over a falsified data scandal involving Michael LaCour’s research showing that the presence of a gay canvasser...
Welcome New Guest Bloggers!!!
After much anticipation, nail-biting anxiety, rumors and speculation, we are finally able to announce our new team of guest bloggers!! Below are the eight amazing minds you will see posting regularly over the next six months.* Please make them feel welcome!! Seth Weinberger is an Associate...
Partly Missing the Point: Rethinking US and EU Sanctions on Russia
Recently, Suzanne Nossel published a piece critical of US and EU sanctions against Russia. A number of her points make sense. For US-EU sanctions to really isolate Russia and thus have a chance to change Russian behavior in the short term, they need to have the participation of other major states...
Friday Nerd Blogging: Jumping the Shark
A friend of mine mis-typed Sharknado and found this: And, of course, as someone who co-authored a book on NATO, I could not help but consider the picture and then over-analyze. Specifically, the Dave and Steve book considers, among other things, the caveats or restrictions that countries placed...
Are Germans Against Upholding NATO’s Article V Commitments?
A recent Pew poll says that they are. According to Pew, "at least half of Germans, French and Italians say their country should not use military force to defend a NATO ally if attacked by Russia." Indeed, the news is grim. The public release informs us that, "Americans and Canadians are the only...
Blogging the Gap
Yesterday, I had the chance to participate in the Bridging the Gap workshop led by Bruce Jentleson. It is an effort every summer to help younger scholars figure out how to engage the policy world in a variety of ways, including figuring out how to write and publish op-eds, how to get into...
Additional Arguments Against Legalizing the Trade in Rhino Horn Pt. 3
In my last two posts (here, here), I wrote about a recent Foreign Affairs piece that proposed lifting the ban on trading rhino horn and the political and substantive reasons why such an idea is problematic. Are there reasons to think that a one-off sale or even a permanent normalization of the...
Arguments Against Legalizing the Rhino Horn Trade Pt. 2
In my last post, I reacted to a Foreign Affairs piece that suggested lifting the ban on rhino horn, as South Africa has toyed with in the lead up to the 2016 CITES meeting it will host. Whether or not this would be a one-off sale like the one for ivory in 2008 or more of a permanent lifting of the...
Legalizing the Rhino Horn Trade: A Terrible Idea? Pt. 1
Two weeks ago, I came cross a provocative piece (paywall, free version here) Foreign Affairs published earlier this year by Alexander Kasterine from the UN/WTO International Trade Center on legalizing the trade in wildlife, namely for rhino horn, but conceivably for other species that are...