Duck of Minerva

Iran and the shadow of the Kosovo intervention When I was in grad school in the mid-aughts, one Professor was a die-hard supporter of George W. Bush’s foreign policy. When challenged over the legality of Iraq, he noted that it is inconsistent for any liberal to oppose the invasion of Iraq while supporting the NATO intervention in Kosovo. Both were ostensibly in support of humanitarian goals, and neither received UN Security Council authorization, rendering them illegal.

Iran and the shadow of the Kosovo intervention

When I was in grad school in the mid-aughts, one Professor was a die-hard supporter of George W. Bush’s foreign policy. When challenged over the legality of Iraq, he noted that it is inconsistent for any liberal to oppose the invasion of Iraq while…

Rubio’s civilizational appeals will backfire US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s speech at the Munich Security Conference demonstrated he is a better diplomat than Vice President J.D. Vance, although that’s not much of a hurdle to clear. Where Vance gave a bullying lecture, Rubio’s speech focused on emphasizing the importance of transatlantic ties and maintaining the US-European alliance. He argued the goal of this alliance, however, was to defend a common culture against the “threat” of immigration, raising concerns.

Rubio’s civilizational appeals will backfire

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s speech at the Munich Security Conference demonstrated he is a better diplomat than Vice President J.D. Vance, although that’s not much of a hurdle to clear. Where Vance gave a bullying lecture, Rubio’s speech focused…

“Fair Trade” and the revenge against the “Foreigner”: From Chamberlain to Trump A century before Trump’s tariff threats, Joseph Chamberlain pitched the same idea: use duties as a “big revolver” to force rivals into “fair trade.” That history helps explain why “unfairness” rhetoric and coercive foreign policy keep returning when hegemonic powers decline.

“Fair Trade” and the revenge against the “Foreigner”: From Chamberlain to Trump

A century before Trump’s tariff threats, Joseph Chamberlain pitched the same idea: use duties as a “big revolver” to force rivals into “fair trade.” That history helps explain why “unfairness” rhetoric and coercive…

What’s with all the racism? I’ve been wanting to write this post for some time. But every week just brings more bad news. More terrible examples. In November last year, the Dutch government almost collapsed over racist remarks made by one of the coalition government ministers. December was witness to the horrifying antisemitic attack at Bondi beach. President Donald Trump has called Somalis “garbage.”

What’s with all the racism?

I’ve been wanting to write this post for some time. But every week just brings more bad news. More terrible examples. In November last year, the Dutch government almost collapsed over racist remarks made by one of the coalition government ministers. December was witness…

An Accidental Academic: 20 Years Later This is my 20th year at the University of Texas. Although my dad was a university professor, I'm something of an accidental academic. I sought to get my PhD with the hopes of doing something more in terms of public service. I started off my PhD at Georgetown inauspiciously. In the first week of school, I sat down with the legendary comparativist…

An Accidental Academic: 20 Years Later

This is my 20th year at the University of Texas. Although my dad was a university professor, I'm something of an accidental academic. I sought to get my PhD with the hopes of doing something more in terms of public service. I started off my PhD at Georgetown…

How To Review Efficiently and Fairly Instead of Dry January, I'm going review free for January after having nearly 80 review requests last year. My New Year's resolution was to have a healthier relationships with reviewing, which had become a part-time, unpaid job (though I recognize that I'm still coming from a place of privilege). Nevertheless, while I didn't accept all of those requests, I did more than 30 last year.

How To Review Efficiently and Fairly

Instead of Dry January, I'm going review free for January after having nearly 80 review requests last year. My New Year's resolution was to have a healthier relationships with reviewing, which had become a part-time, unpaid job (though I recognize that I'm…

Renee Goode and the limits of false terrorism charges On 7 January, US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents opened fire on Renee Goode, killing her. To be honest, I wanted to write a post on just how sad and terrifying this murder was. How wrong it is that ICE agents are targeting opposition-led cities and using brutal tactics against people suspected of being in the US illegally and protesters, including…

Renee Goode and the limits of false terrorism charges

On 7 January, US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents opened fire on Renee Goode, killing her. To be honest, I wanted to write a post on just how sad and terrifying this murder was. How wrong it is that ICE agents are targeting…

Trump, US foreign policy and Venezuela: Aberration or Honesty? In my international relations classes, I encourage my students to not just express their (mostly negative) views of Trump’s foreign policy. I also ask them to reflect on the extent to which Trump’s actions are in line with the history of US foreign policy. Some see the United States as adhering to liberal international norms, with Trump a major break. Others argue the United States was always domineering and aggressive, so Trump shouldn’t be much of a surprise.

Trump, US foreign policy and Venezuela: Aberration or Honesty?

In my international relations classes, I encourage my students to not just express their (mostly negative) views of Trump’s foreign policy. I also ask them to reflect on the extent to which Trump’s actions are in line with the history…

Is Peer Review Broken? Should Reviewers Be Paid? My New Year's resolution for 2026 is to somehow make peace with reviewing for journals. Something is amiss, at least for me, but perhaps it reveals a larger problem related to journal and book publishing. I kept a running tally of review requests for 2025. Give or take some error, I had 79 review requests, which includes some R&Rs, book proposals, and a several full books.

Is Peer Review Broken? Should Reviewers Be Paid?

My New Year's resolution for 2026 is to somehow make peace with reviewing for journals. Something is amiss, at least for me, but perhaps it reveals a larger problem related to journal and book publishing. I kept a running tally of review requests…

Remembering Our Lost Colleagues I started this post sort of confessionally. It's been a while since I wrote on the blog. I had started one earlier this year on the destruction of USAID and PEPFAR but redirected my energy into advocacy (such as it was). One reason for my relative absence on the blog is government service. From 2021 to 2023, I was in the Biden Administration serving as a Senior Climate Advisor in the Department of Defense.

Remembering Our Lost Colleagues

I started this post sort of confessionally. It's been a while since I wrote on the blog. I had started one earlier this year on the destruction of USAID and PEPFAR but redirected my energy into advocacy (such as it was). One reason for my relative absence on the…

Farewell The Hayseed Scholar podcast has come to a close. In this farewell episode, Brent's brother Kyle hosts it and they chat about the podcast and why Brent is closing it down. Two friends of the pod, Matt McDonald and Jelena Subotic, also join to mention what they liked and what they (Jelena) did not like about the podcast. Brent closes by asking Kyle, who is a LinkedIn rockstar, about the changing landscape of social media and reaching beyond an academic audience, before the two of them sign-off for good.

Farewell

The Hayseed Scholar podcast has come to a close. In this farewell episode, Brent's brother Kyle hosts it and they chat about the podcast and why Brent is closing it down. Two friends of the pod, Matt McDonald and Jelena Subotic, also join to mention what they liked and what they…

Can the news ever be impartial? Probably not, but the problem isn't impartiality it's the politics of impartiality On November 9th, the director general of The BBC, Tim Davie, along with the head of news, Deborah Turness, resigned. Their resignation was in response to a report published in the British newspaper, The Telegraph, that claimed a BBC News programme, Panorama, edited a speech by President Donald Trump to make it appear as though he encouraged the Capital Riot.

Can the news ever be impartial?

Probably not, but the problem isn't impartiality it's the politics of impartiality On November 9th, the director general of The BBC, Tim Davie, along with the head of news, Deborah Turness, resigned. Their resignation was in response to a report published in the…

Here We Go Again: Why American Presidents Can’t Resist Regime Change The U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean is confusing the MAGA faithful. With rumors swirling of an imminent operation to topple Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro, the president’s supporters are asking what happened to “America First”? Tucker Carlson recently remarked it was a “little strange” that the U.S. was telling another country, “we don’t like your leadership — leave or we’ll kill you.” Trump’s former chief strategist, …

Here We Go Again: Why American Presidents Can’t Resist Regime Change

The U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean is confusing the MAGA faithful. With rumors swirling of an imminent operation to topple Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro, the president’s supporters are asking what happened to “America…

Bullies, Follies, and Decadent Orders: Constructing Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern  On November 1, 2025, President Donald Trump threatened to end all U.S. assistance to Nigeria and — if he deemed it necessary — launch a military attack against insurgents in the country. As National Public Radio reported: “If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities,” Trump posted on social media.

Bullies, Follies, and Decadent Orders: Constructing Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern 

On November 1, 2025, President Donald Trump threatened to end all U.S. assistance to Nigeria and — if he deemed it necessary — launch a military attack against insurgents in the country. As National…

Exploring the Meaning of Responsibility I’ve been thinking a lot about the meaning of “responsibility,” specifically in the context of politics and governance. We live in an age of populism, rising authoritarianism, disinformation, climate change, and the slaughter of civilians in places like Gaza and Sudan. The notions of responsibility associated with the so-called “liberal international order” are all under strain. Most of us, I think, rely on a kind of “

Exploring the Meaning of Responsibility

I’ve been thinking a lot about the meaning of “responsibility,” specifically in the context of politics and governance. We live in an age of populism, rising authoritarianism, disinformation, climate change, and the slaughter of civilians in places like Gaza…

Nuclear apocalypse now? Reflections on the movie “House of Dynamite” I had high hopes for director Kathryn Bigelow’s House of Dynamite, a new Netflix movie about U.S. nuclear command and control. There’s so much potential for cinema to unpack the dilemmas and tragedies of living under a nuclear sword of Damocles, and my initial reaction was disappointment at the ways this fails to be that movie. But for all its shortcomings, the film also serves as a sobering reminder of the profound peril nuclear weapons entail.

Nuclear apocalypse now? Reflections on the movie “House of Dynamite”

I had high hopes for director Kathryn Bigelow’s House of Dynamite, a new Netflix movie about U.S. nuclear command and control. There’s so much potential for cinema to unpack the dilemmas and tragedies of living under a nuclear…

6+1 Questions About “The Social Construction of Christian Persecution through Quantification in International Religious Freedom Advocacy” What is the name of the journal article (or book) and what are its coordinates? Miray Philips. 2025. “The Social Construction of Christian Persecution through Quantification in International Religious Freedom Advocacy.” Sociology of Religion. 2. What’s the argument? In Washington, DC, International Religious Freedom advocates mostly rely on data by the Pew Research Center on religious restrictions and Open Doors on Christian persecution.

6+1 Questions About “The Social Construction of Christian Persecution through Quantification in International Religious Freedom Advocacy”

What is the name of the journal article (or book) and what are its coordinates? Miray Philips. 2025. “The Social Construction of Christian Persecution through…

Ceasefire NOW (but not *now*) After years of calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, a ceasefire was recently announced and…those calling for the ceasefire are upset about it. There are some valid reasons to hold off on celebrating, but I worry this represents a deeper issue with how we conceive of peace and how we study the Middle East. And this will only hurt the Palestinians these voices claim to champion.

Ceasefire NOW (but not *now*)

After years of calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, a ceasefire was recently announced and…those calling for the ceasefire are upset about it. There are some valid reasons to hold off on celebrating, but I worry this represents a deeper issue with how we conceive of peace…

Antisemitism, Israel and the Problem with no Easy Solution Debates about Israel and Palestine have, as one scholar remarked to me, become the “third rail” in British academia. That needs to change. The terror attack in Manchester makes clear that UK academics must engage in a public, thoughtful, and careful discussion about Jews, Israel and Palestine. On October 2nd, 2025 — on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur — a Synagogue in Manchester was attacked in what has been officially labelled a…

Antisemitism, Israel and the Problem with no Easy Solution

Debates about Israel and Palestine have, as one scholar remarked to me, become the “third rail” in British academia. That needs to change. The terror attack in Manchester makes clear that UK academics must engage in a public, thoughtful,…

The Mirage of Great-Power Competition Photo by Dave Photoz on Unsplash Back in March, I wrote a post at Lawyers, Guns and Money called “Remember ‘Great Power Competition?’ Lol.” As the “Grand Strategy” of Trump 2.0 comes into focus, I thought it would be a good idea to revisit and update it. In brief, the normie national-security advisors who dominated the first Trump administration needed a way to make Trump’s semi-coherent ramblings legible to the global foreign-policy community.

The Mirage of Great-Power Competition

Photo by Dave Photoz on Unsplash Back in March, I wrote a post at Lawyers, Guns and Money called “Remember ‘Great Power Competition?’ Lol.” As the “Grand Strategy” of Trump 2.0 comes into focus, I thought it would be a good idea to revisit and update it. In…

The State of the Union is Grim The Republic as we knew it is over. The fight now is whether the new one will be a fascistic, competitive authoritarian regime or a pluralist democracy that, one hopes, is better than what came before.

The State of the Union is Grim

The Republic as we knew it is over. The fight now is whether the new one will be a fascistic, competitive authoritarian regime or a pluralist democracy that, one hopes, is better than what came before.

6+1 Questions about American Conquest: The Northwest Indian War and the Making of US Foreign Policy What’s the name of the book, and where can we find it? American Conquest: The Northwest Indian War and the Making of US Foreign Policy (Stanford University Press, 2025). What’s the argument? Relations with Native American groups were constitutive of early U.S. foreign policy, and this should make us reconsider the notion that the United States was isolationist in this period.

6+1 Questions about American Conquest: The Northwest Indian War and the Making of US Foreign Policy

What’s the name of the book, and where can we find it? American Conquest: The Northwest Indian War and the Making of US Foreign Policy (Stanford University Press, 2025). What’s the argument?…

Will the recognition of Palestine matter? What IR scholarship says The UN General Assembly meeting has seen a growing number of states recognizing a state of Palestine, including Western powers like France, the United Kingdom and Canada. Debate has swirled over why they are doing this: is it a principled stand, an attempt to gain international or domestic clout, etc.? But there's a bigger question over whether this matters and when it may matter: that is, at what point does the informal recognition of an entity as a state lead to actual changes in international relations?

Will the recognition of Palestine matter? What IR scholarship says

The UN General Assembly meeting has seen a growing number of states recognizing a state of Palestine, including Western powers like France, the United Kingdom and Canada. Debate has swirled over why they are doing this: is it a…

Trump’s Foreign Policy and the Purpose of the MAGA State How can we understand Tump 2.0 foreign policy? It's the product of the fusion of two different forces: Christian Nationalism and Personalist Rent-Extraction.

Trump’s Foreign Policy and the Purpose of the MAGA State

How can we understand Tump 2.0 foreign policy? It's the product of the fusion of two different forces: Christian Nationalism and Personalist Rent-Extraction.

How do we think about 9/11 in 2025? I used to feel compelled to write something on 9/11. Some of this was just to participate in the discourse, some out of fear that failure to do so would mean moving on and forgetting. In 2009--back when I provided free labor for The Huffington Post--I wrote this on the shadowy but still serious threat posed by al-Qaeda. More recently, I wrote this on the failure of security studies to…

How do we think about 9/11 in 2025?

I used to feel compelled to write something on 9/11. Some of this was just to participate in the discourse, some out of fear that failure to do so would mean moving on and forgetting. In 2009--back when I provided free labor for The Huffington Post--I wrote this…

Benjamin de Carvalho Dr. Benjamin de Carvalho joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Ben was born in Switzerland to a mother from Norway and a father from Brazil. Ben talks about how that transpired, growing up in Norway, and how a Fulbright brought him to the United States in the late 90's. Ben recounts his time at the New School for his first Master's,  moving to Cambridge for his M.Phil and PhD, and ending back in Norway at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, or NUPI, where he remains gainfully and happily employed, and thriving, to this day. 

Benjamin de Carvalho

Dr. Benjamin de Carvalho joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast. Ben was born in Switzerland to a mother from Norway and a father from Brazil. Ben talks about how that transpired, growing up in Norway, and how a Fulbright brought him to the United States in the late 90's. Ben…

Who wants AI in the classroom? I get emails. Sometimes they find me well; sometimes they try to convince me that I need to bring artificial intelligence (“AI”) into the classroom. “AI is going to revolutionize higher education!” “Prepare your students for the AI-driven job market!” "Resistance is futile!" “Sign up for our workshop!” Despite being bombarded with such messages hyping “AI” (around which I will keep using scare quotes), it remains unclear to me that there is much to gain from bringing “AI” into my Political Science classrooms.

Who wants AI in the classroom?

I get emails. Sometimes they find me well; sometimes they try to convince me that I need to bring artificial intelligence (“AI”) into the classroom. “AI is going to revolutionize higher education!” “Prepare your students for the AI-driven job market!” "Resistance is…

6+1 Questions about “The U.S.: A (Mostly) Hands-Off Superpower” Drew Hogan answers 6+1 questions about how the United States does, and does not, support its overseas citizens.

6+1 Questions about “The U.S.: A (Mostly) Hands-Off Superpower”

Drew Hogan answers 6+1 questions about how the United States does, and does not, support its overseas citizens.

Is there a strategy behind Rubio’s State Department cuts? The foreign policy world is still making sense of the Trump Administration's massive cuts to the US State Department last week. Under Secretary of State Marco Rubio, nearly 1500 employees--most of them civil servants--lose their jobs. In some ways, this isn't surprising, as Trump began his second term with a massive, Elon Musk-led, gutting of the federal workforce. But it's still catching some by surprise, given Rubio's reported…

Is there a strategy behind Rubio’s State Department cuts?

The foreign policy world is still making sense of the Trump Administration's massive cuts to the US State Department last week. Under Secretary of State Marco Rubio, nearly 1500 employees--most of them civil servants--lose their jobs. In…

After Anarchy? On Hierarchy, Heterarchy, and Multiplicity Kenneth Waltz famously claimed that anarchy—i.e., the absence of a global sovereign—is the ordering principle of world politics, and much International Relations (IR) scholarship since then has aimed to debunk the claim that anarchy defines IR as a subject. Today, some aim to do so by offering new conceptual foundations for IR. This post is not a relitigation of the “

After Anarchy? On Hierarchy, Heterarchy, and Multiplicity

Kenneth Waltz famously claimed that anarchy—i.e., the absence of a global sovereign—is the ordering principle of world politics, and much International Relations (IR) scholarship since then has aimed to debunk the claim that anarchy defines…