Back in 2019, Uri Friedman wrote that we “find ourselves—as you will have heard in the corridors …
Episode 31: Great Balls of Power
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Recent Posts
The Power of Philanthropic Foundations
Divorces don’t usually send shockwaves through the global policy field. They almost never create uncertainty about the health of hundreds of millions of people. The split between Bill and Melinda...
Grand Strategists Need to Dump Kissinger
So the New York Times reported on Beverly Gage, a history professor at Yale University, resigning from her post as head of the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy because of donor pressure....
The American Political Science Association Should Condemn the Calremont Institute Connection
Academic freedom is a very important value. Professional integrity is another. Both values admit complexity, and are the subject of reasonable disagreement among colleagues and leaders of academic...
More Recent Posts
The Anthropocene and the End of Large Fauna? Will Political Scientists Show Up?
Geologists now say that humans have had such an impact on the earth that we have entered in to a new age, what has been termed the Anthropocene. On some level, this is a political statement, but on another level, it could be an observable layer in the physical surface of the earth that future...
Is it possible to be a realist?
Some weeks ago, Stephen Walt lamented the absence of realist commentators in the American media space. What was striking to me at the time was Walt’s claim that realism is a ‘well-known approach to foreign policy.’ That claim—that realism is a foreign policy approach—makes sense in the context of...
Why is Paypal Blocking Aid to Syrian Refugees?
Last December, on “Giving Tuesday,” I encouraged friends and family to send donations to three of my favorite charitable causes in lieu of birthday presents: low-income housing, domestic violence, and Syrian refugee relief. My son and I had signed up to compete that week in the Habitat for...
Interventionism and Restraint in Democratic Foreign Policy
At War on the Rocks, Mieke Eoyong intervenes in the Sanders-Clinton foreign-policy debate. Although the case made for Sanders' foreign policy by those she critiques—including Sean Kay—is much broader, she focuses on three arguments: that "Sanders has superior judgment because he opposed the Iraq...
Happy Anniversary, Canada!
This week is the 10th anniversary of the start of Canada's combat mission in Kandahar. This was the most stressful Canadian "expedition" since the Korean War, as Canada skipped Iraq 2003 and Vietnam. Today also happens to be the third anniversary of the rejection of an access to information...
A New Plan B for Syria
Syria’s civil-proxy war is on the cusp of turning into an all-out regional war, with negative repercussions for all involved in the conflict. The humanitarian disaster is at its most acute to date, with Russian forces systematically attacking the Syrian opposition and on the verge of a rout of...
Transforming Markets and Social Movements
Why do some transnational advocacy movements have more success transforming global markets than others? Can we look to look to differences in market structure for a preliminary account? Why were AIDS advocates able to achieve extended access to antiretroviral medications for millions of people...
Citation Count Data and Faculty Promotion
The following is a guest post by Dan Reiter, the Samuel Dobbs Candler Professor of Political Science at Emory University. Dr. Cullen Hendrix’s recent Duck of Minerva post on citation counts sparked a vibrant discussion about the value of citation counts as measures of scholarly productivity and...
The ISA Awakens
A short time from now, at a conference venue far, far away (at least from Amherst, MA...): The papers on this panel examine the relationship between the Star Wars franchise and socio-political dynamics in the area of international security, broadly defined. In other words, this panel focuses...
Strategic Surprise? Or The Foreseeable Future
When the Soviets launched Sputnik in 1957, the US was taken off guard. Seriously off guard. While Eisenhower didn't think the pointy satellite was a major strategic threat, the public perception was that it was. The Soviets could launch rockets into space, and if they could do that, they could...
The Kurdish Conundrum
Now that Canada has decided to continue to train and support the Kurds in Iraq along with the Iraqi government, the question of the future of the Kurds is being questioned. Indeed, yesterday, I received a phone call from a magazine in Kurdistan asking me about referendums and why some...
Why Isn’t There More Public Scrutiny of the U.S. Military?
This is a guest post by Risa Brooks, Associate Professor at Marquette University Americans’ relationship with the military exhibits an odd paradox: the country’s citizens profess to hold deep regard for the military, while in fact knowing little about it and paying minimal attention to its...