18 Nov 2014
by Brandon Valeriano
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I have to admit it, I have had a problem blogging lately. It has been so long it took me a minute to remember how to login and start a new post. It is not that I have writers block in general, its just that I have been out of a blogging mode for a bit since I have been knee deep in grant applications. So why are grants so destructive to the writing process? 
6 Nov 2014
by Laura Sjoberg
3 Comments
The first time I thought about not voting, I was at the APSA teaching and learning conference some years ago (2009?) in a stream of discussions about learning outcome assessments for core courses in Political Science. While measurement issues pose a problem for learning outcome assessment, the bigger problem our group talked about was the normative content of the assessed learning goals, and the ethics of putting professors in a position to endorse certain normative outcomes. For example, someone suggested that all “Introduction to American Politics” courses should share a number of common learning outcomes, one “teaching the value of political participation through voting.” As I listened to that – I realized such a goal would be a real problem for me. I wasn’t sure I believed in “the value of political participation,” particularly “through voting,” and, even if I did, I didn’t want to impose those values on my students.
I didn’t refuse to vote yesterday because I don’t want to impose that value on my students, though – or because I don’t believe in the value of political participation. And its not because I’m too busy. I could have been voting rather than writing this blog post. In part, I didn’t vote because, like Phil Arena, I don’t get any joy out of it, and I don’t buy arguments that I individually influence the outcome of elections or that my behavior will be modeled. But its more than that. Voting is a performance that does not work for me. Take, for example, the proposition of voting in the Florida gubernatorial election – choosing between Rick Scott and Charlie Crist – the most unpopular set of candidates in recent history. Sure, I would have preferred Crist to Scott. But that’s like asking me if I’d rather eat broccoli or cauliflower (I don’t eat vegetables) – I have a mild preference for broccoli over cauliflower, but I find both revolting and the suggestion that I voluntarily endorse either is so unsettling that I can’t do it – at a visceral level – even if those people who say my vote matters, and I set an example – even if they were right. Why not?
I guess, because I hate the idea of living in a world in which the political spectrum is constituted by Rick Scott and Charlie Crist; or even by Barack Obama and his opponent(s). I feel like choosing among them is complicity in a system that sets their beliefs as the political spectrum, which is itself a problem. The idea that I should vote one way or another to make a marginal difference in a system that I find on the whole corrupt does not make any sense to me – and no amount of research in electoral politics makes it make sense to me. I’m not going to widen the American political spectrum, or break the Democrat-Republican consensus on foreign policy, by voting. I’m not going to be able to voice my rejection of both candidates in almost every election in which I would be asked to vote. I’m not naive enough to think that my refusal to endorse the ‘better of evils’ communicates that message widely – or even to anyone but me. But at the end of the day, I think I refuse because I hear the message. And that helps me be sane.
There was this Garth Brooks song that was the b-side of a single cassette when I was in high school – when single-cassette b-sides existed. It was called “The Change.” The last two lines of the chorus – “its not the world that I am changing, I’ll do this so the world will know it will not change me” – is kind of where I fall on voting. Its not that I don’t want to change how the world works – especially how the US government works – its that to try to do that with integrity, I can’t vote like its all ok. Because that would change me, and it wouldn’t change what I see is wrong with the ways that the people I would vote for run the government that in theory represents me. If I must, I’ll take responsibility for the electoral result – but I’m doing it so I can take responsibility for my own performance too.
18 Oct 2014
by Laura Sjoberg
1 Comment
I have the privilege this week of being at the Millennium Conference in London, where the conference theme is method, methodology, and innovation in IR. I’m learning a lot, especially since these issues are core to the book project that I am currently working on – and there are some very smart people talking about very diverse issues in very interesting ways.
Even in this conversation, though, there is a lot of talking past each other – which, though maybe it should not have been, has been a surprise to me. As a group, we are people loosely based in similar literatures, loosely with a common understanding of a critical mission for IR, and loosely in agreement on the need to create space for diverse work in IR/international studies/global studies. At the same time, I tend to forget that we all work in fairly insular environments – and I have seen that here a bit. For example, Can Mutlu made the argument that IR does not talk about failure – and made a very compelling case for the inclusion of the failed, the disastrous, and the messes in the theoretical analyses of what we do as well as in published work. The latter part was fascinating to me, but the foundational claim actually seemed on-face ridiculous, given that I have spent most of the last year working in queer global studies and queer IR literatures – where discussions of failure are a central feature. And Cynthia Weber’s discussion of queer methodology in IR was on the same panel. While it did not explicitly address those issues, it was based broadly in the products of those discussions.
My point is not that there is a literature of which Can Mutlu was unaware, and that was relevant to his work. That’s true constantly, for all of us, all the time – and he may even find it less useful to his work than I do. My point is that our cultures of knowledge production in the IR/international studies/global studies are just that – cultures- where norms set up the ways that we view even critical concepts, and where knowledge production is grouped and group-able, by both literatures and people. What do I mean by that?
9 Oct 2014
by Laura Sjoberg
4 Comments
We are seeing too, too many children and other non-combatants dying in Gaza. Global reaction has ranged from justification (What do you expect when Hamas intentionally places weapons in hospitals and schools?) to mobs attacking Jewish establishments and chants of “death to the Jews.” Somewhere in the middle is the reaction of many of my political science colleagues and friends on social media who are appalled and repeatedly post about this horrific situation.
To borrow Judith Butler’s term, innocents in Gaza are grievable for these colleagues and friends as well as for those who are rioting in Europe and elsewhere.
They are grievable for me, as well. And yet, it strikes me that we are rather fickle about which non-combatants we grieve. A while back, Joyce Karam, Washington Bureau Chief, Al-Hayat and Al-Arabiya English Columnist tweeted:
#Syria is essentially #Gaza x 320 in death toll, x30 number of refugees, but no protest in Pakistan about. Not yet at least.
And the mobs in France are not attacking or protesting outside the Syrian embassy. It’s Jews and Israel who are the targets. My colleagues and friends are not posting on Facebook and Twitter about Syria; only about Gaza. Why are Gaza’s innocents more grievable than Syria’s? Could it be that Arabs killed by Jews are more grievable than Arabs killed by Arabs? Perhaps. That is the conclusion that Jeffrey Goldberg comes to: http://www.theatlantic.com/jeffrey-goldberg/
I think that the mass protests are sparked by anti-Semitism, an ugly beast that has been rising in Europe (See Kaplan & Small, 2006, in JCR doi: 10.1177/0022002706289184). That is a different cause than the anti-Israel positions of my colleagues and friends — at least I hope so. In some cases (perhaps most), I think my colleagues and friends are getting caught up in an emotional reaction to something they feel as hypocrisy: Israel claims to be a rights-protecting democracy that fights wars justly. The reality on the ground appears to contradict those claims. So Israel falls short of the higher standard to which it is held as a result of its own proclamations. The unfortunate consequence, however, is that non-combatants in Syria and Iraq are less grievable because we expect their government to be more brutal.
I have other friends and colleagues who take a principled stance that the creation of the State of Israel was illegitimate from the start and consequently all actions by an illegitimate state are illegitimate. For them, the tragedy in Gaza is compounded by a deep-seated sense of injustice that the Syrian case is not tainted by.
And perhaps we only have time for a limited amount of grieving.
I don’t want to apologize for Israel. I think this war is unnecessary and the tragedy of lives lost stands out in stark relief to me. Yet I also see the conundrum faced by the Israeli leadership: The State has a responsibility to protect its citizens and territory from attack, and this means that when rockets are flying, the State must respond.
4 Oct 2014
by Laura Sjoberg
0 comments
As I was cruising Inside Higher Ed this early afternoon, I found a post about finding perspective in a tough academic job market. In it, William Bradley, a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at St. Lawrence University, tells the story of his VAP job alongside the story of his battle with, and survival of Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Bradley’s post serves as a reminder of the ties between job security and medical security, but it also serves as a reminder of the need to work to live rather than living to work. Bradley talks about the good times he’s had over the years of trying to establish an academic career, from meeting his spouse to traveling to raising kittens. As he explains, “teaching and writing have been important parts of my life, and I definitely would like to continue doing both” but “it seems to me at this moment that, if I have to give up the academic life, I can do so.”
I think the reason that those words seem so unfamiliar to many of the readers of the post is that, especially in a time of economic shrinkage and the rising percentage of courses taught by adjunct labor, it is easy to get sucked in by the notion that one has to do everything one can possibly do to succeed – to become the job. And even when people don’t become the job, its easy to see ourselves and our colleagues as the job – not looking deeper, not seeing dimensionality and depth, and not treating ourselves and our colleagues as people who work rather than as workers.
So, as I read Bradley’s post, I thought it might be a good idea to think about who I am, and to ask who the people around me are. As people, rather than just as CVs, impact factors, citation counts, teaching evaluations, and argumentative engagements. But then there’s a balance to be struck – because if there’s a risk of sharing and knowing too much. After all …
23 Sep 2014
by Laura Sjoberg
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In trying to explain the results of the Scottish Referendum, the Telegraph, a major British newspaper, claims that the unemployed supported independence. The evidence? Aggregate results that show Scottish counties with high unemployment rates supporting independence at a higher rate than counties with low unemployment rates. Not to be outdone, BBC, the source of record in Britain, has argued that party affiliation did not predict voting behavior in the referendum? The evidence? Counties with Labour members of parliament (the party was strongly against Scottish independence) were no more likely to support continued union than counties with SNP representatives (the Scottish nationalist party pushing for independence). Both examples are straightforward cases of an ecological fallacy – aggregate-level data is being used to explain individual-level behavior – a big no-no in the social sciences. The question I want to address is why such fallacies are so common (and they are certainly not limited to the British media as anyone paying attention to CNN post-election coverage has undoubtedly figured out).
SNP leader Alex Salmond conceding defeat
19 Sep 2014
by R. William Ayres
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There has been a lot of buzz lately about secession, owing to the Scottish vote yesterday on the question of whether to leave the United Kingdom. As a scholar of secessionism, it’s thrilling to see this stuff back in the news, if for no other reason than somebody might think some of our work is relevant. It’s also just plain fun to watch.
Now that the results of Scotland’s vote are in, discussion will turn – if only briefly – to what this means for other parts of the world. My coauthor and partner in ethnic conflict scholarship Steve Saideman has already posted a piece re-arguing a point we have made elsewhere: that secessionism and its outcomes in any one place aren’t really contagious anywhere else. That’s what our research has shown, and it suggests that Scotland’s failure to secede likely won’t deter others from trying (just as success would not have instigated secessionism where it wouldn’t have happened anyway).
This is true because secessionist movements are really driven by underlying political dynamics that are unique to each place. Tip O’Neill was right – all politics really is local. And with that in mind, I read this Reuters piece reporting on secessionist sentiment within the United States with some fascination. Maybe the Scots do have something to teach us – that we should be having much more significant conversations about deep political issues here at home.
18 Sep 2014
by Laura Sjoberg
0 comments
When I first applied to edit a journal, it was in part about thinking that I would really enjoy some of the tasks – reading submissions and reviews, putting together issues, and engaging with cutting edge work in the field. That is what I’d enjoyed about editing books before I became a journal editor – that, and creating space for interesting conversations between scholars and research I found interesting. Three years and two journals into it, I think about editing more as a duty than as a privilege – something I am sure many editors come to feel.
I don’t mean I don’t like it anymore – quite the opposite – the more I edit, the more I enjoy it. I mean that editing a journal is not primarily a cool supplement for one’s own research or a privilege imbued with the power to discipline the discipline. It is, or at least it should be, a service performed for the authors and consumers of the content of the journal. It seems appropriate, then, to think about what that service entails. What should I expect of journal editors to whom I submit? And what should authors expect of me? What is involved in taking editing seriously?
I’ve had a lot of opportunity to think about that in the last couple of days. Here’s my .02.
18 Sep 2014
by Laura Sjoberg
3 Comments
Editor’s Note: This post is co-authored by Andy Osiwak and Chad Clay, Assistant Professor of International Affairs at the University of Georgia, and is cross-posted at Quantitative Peace. It also owes a debt to our colleagues in UGA’s Departments of International Affairs and Political Science that participated in the Graduate Student Professionalization seminar on September 12, 2014. Because of security issues at RelationsInternational, the author byline is incorrect. We’re sorry for the inconvenience.
Last week, we, along with several of our UGA School of Public and International Affairs colleagues, met with graduate students in our program to talk about graduate school expectations. For first year students, this was an introduction to graduate school. For those past their first year, it was a refresher. Over the course of the meeting, a few points were raised that we feel may be of broad interest, and so we have listed those points below. Of course, this isn’t a comprehensive graduate school survival guide. For more guidance on these issues, you should check out the recent posts by Amanda Murdie and David Shorter on the topic.
You will have existential crises.
You will ask yourself why you chose graduate school. You may even contemplate quitting. It is normal to think about this. You’re making a large career decision by going to graduate school, and it makes sense to ask yourself along the way whether it is really the path you want. As you ask and answer these questions, though, talk with other graduate students and (if appropriate) faculty members. Your thoughts may be motivated by a short-term issue (e.g., not understanding the political science jargon), which remedies itself over the longer-run.
Likewise, students also tend to believe that everyone around them “gets it” more than they do in the early stages of graduate school. Indeed, most political scientists have stories about the moments in graduate school when they were convinced that everyone else in their classes knew more, was better prepared, was getting more sleep and exercise, had better ideas, etc. In the vast majority of cases, these things simply weren’t true. Those students that seem to “get it”? They likely feel the same way that you do. This is yet another reason to get to know your fellow graduate students, talk with them, and work with them. You are all in this foxhole together, and graduate school is much easier when you help one another through the hard times.
11 Sep 2014
by Brandon Valeriano
9 Comments
Many people love APSA (at least until they are sleeping on the lawn because someone decides to find their inner fire bug), but IR folks have a less than cozy relationship with the conference. Often, our attendance depends on the location. Many people just don’t like how big the event is, how difficult it is to find colleagues among the masses, how few panels are allocated to IR thus making it tough to get on the program. For me, the danger with APSA comes from running into people from the past. Since everyone enjoys a tenure denial train wreck, I will describe an interaction I had that symbolizes the greater field’s inability to be civil, decent, and take responsibility extreme actions like tenure denial votes. I have always been told don’t burn your bridges, but this advice goes both ways. Nothing is likely more awkward than asking someone you tried to vote down if they had any positions for you are their new school, a situation I was confronted with and just walked away from – like I did that past job.