January 2006

Substantive stuff
This has been proving quite the period on the international relations front: spats over gas between Russia and former satellite states, Ariel Sharon knocked out of politics, Hamas elected to power, the Iranian nuclear program again generating international attention, and the Conservatives emerging from twelve years of opposition in Canada to take a minority [...]

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I just realized that I have another essay due on Tuesday, this one for the core seminar. For my own reference, and that of people in the IR M.Phil, here’s the big stuff for this term:
31 January : (Tuesday of 3rd week)
Core Seminar : Paper 19 February : (Thursday of 4th week)
Qualitative Methods : Take [...]

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To me, today’s qualitative methods lecture embodied much of what is frustrating and unattractive about academia. It’s the parochialism, the turf-wars, the egos, and the navel-gazing. It’s playing an intellectual game with your fellow practitioners, rather than focusing on some project with external value. That value needn’t be the improvement of the world, per se, [...]

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I am curious about who makes up the readership of this blog. Most days, about 100 people take a look. The better part of those people come directly to the page, suggesting they are returning to it, rather than finding it through Google or another search engine.
Some aggregate information that may interest people: Based on [...]

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My essay on realism and neorealism has finally been dispatched to Dr. Hurrell. It will be nice to give my EndNote databases a rest, though it really just means a return to more reading. The last class on foreign policy analysis is tomorrow and I’ve yet to do the reading for it. Hopefully, this class [...]

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