Robert Cox’s landmark article, “Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Rela…
Episode 32: Social Forces, States, and Clydeside Whisky
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Recent Posts
Centering George W. Bush in the Etiology of the Iraq War
The second- and third-most downloaded articles at the journal Security Studies both tackle the causes of the Iraq War. This might reflect an imbalance of supply and demand: there aren't that many...
The Vision Thing: More on the New Duck
Is there still room for a traditional academic international-relations blog? An overview of relevant history and the Duck’s approach to blogging.
From “Wilsonian” to “Rooseveltian” Liberalism
Daniel Deudney and John Ikenberry recently published a ‘big think’ article in Foreign Policy. They note that the Biden administration’s approach to foreign and domestic policy – including its particular understanding of the relationship between them – is best understood as “Rooseveltian” in character. What should we make of this?
More Recent Posts
Human Rights Research and Researchers in IR: Are We REALLY that Odd?
Before APSA last week, I had the privilege of attending a small conference put on the Teaching, Research, and International Policy (TRIP) Project at William and Mary. The conference was a chance for researchers in different research areas to write about the policy-relevance of their issue area...
Once more unto the (climate) breach
I just happened upon a Foreign Policy piece from May 6 of this year framing climate change as a ‘Clear and Present Danger’. To summarize, the author argues that Obama’s plans to address climate change are a political non-starter in the US: Republicans are generally more opposed to carbon control...
ISIS and Biological Weapons: Black Flag, But Not the Black Death
This is a guest post by Frank L. Smith III, lecturer at the University of Sydney and author of the new book, American Biodefense: How Dangerous Ideas About Biological Weapons Shape National Security. The 2003 Iraq War aimed to stop rogue states from using weapons of mass destruction or giving...
The Academic Arrogant Self-Important Snooty Quiz
As I was traveling back from APSA on Sunday, I completed all of the journal reviews that I had on my desk, ran some regressions for new projects, and then completed all the revisions my coauthors are requesting from me currently.[1] With the remaining few hours I had on the flight, I noticed a...
Why John J. Mearsheimer is Wrong on Ukraine
When I arrived as an incoming graduate student at Ohio State University, I was labeled a realist since I studied extensively under John J. Mearsheimer at the University of Chicago. And despite the fact that I find such labeling exercises rather silly (plus, my advisor at both Chicago and OSU was...
Doubts on Doubts: Part One
Dear Readers, apologies for the radio silence. The last few months have been eventful. But I am back in the saddle and getting ready for my graduate seminar on the politics of international law. Skepticism about international law is old but it seems to me Syria, Ukraine, Gaza, and other events...
Obama's "Lack" of Strategy Towards ISIS
The last two days have seen a maelstrom of media attention to President Obama’s admission that he currently does not have a strategy for attacking or containing ISIS (The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) in Syria. It is no surprise that those on the right criticized Obama’s candid remarks, and...
APSA Fire Update
Well, the main APSA hotel at the Marriott last night caught fire last night in what might be an act of arson, but we really don't know. For those of us staying at the Marriott, we awoke at 1am to alarms and recorded messages to evacuate the building. We stayed outside until around 4:30 or 5am when...
In Exile at Home: Impressions from Europe
I have been able to avoid this fate for almost 12 years now, but they finally got me. Being a citizen of Germany, I have been studying in the U.S. on student visas for the last decade and even though it has always been a bureaucratic nightmare, associated with significant financial costs, I...
Why I'm Not At APSA This Labor Day
Every year at this time I receive several queries a day from colleagues, would-be colleagues and students asking me if I'll be "at APSA" - the Annual Conference of the American Political Science Association - and when we could meet up for a coffee. Every year I reply several times a day: "Sadly, I...
Thursday APSA Linkage
Many of your Ducks are descending upon DC for the annual APSA conference which is appropriately timed at the beginning of the academic year and the school year. I know I have been looking forward to starting the semester completely shattered from slogging through revisions on papers. It's all the...
NATO: Silly Proposals and Enduring Realities
I was going to post about my talk in Toronto on NATO , but now I have a slightly different NATO post to write: a response to this piece by Anne Applebaum proposing that Obama magically fix NATO. Given that the title of my talk was “The Present and Future of NATO: More of the Same,” it is...