I lost my Earthsea compendium at the end of my PhD after a series of lendings and moves, so I'll check this out!

Funded PhD opportunity for a UK candidate working on the politics of Central and Eastern Europe (conceived broadly) at Liverpool University. This could be a great opportunity.
www.liverpool.ac.uk/histories-la...

Is it the 'shoot the messanger' effect that also leads to social media dogpiles of people just trying to describe political developments?

Relatedly, it's not only underspecified but poorly understood by most of its supporters, so every war is seen as a confirmation of the theory.

The protagonist in "The Gernsback Continuum" is a photographer and describes a fashion shoot early on, IIRC.

New directions for leader personality research: breaking bad in foreign policy Abstract. This article considers how leaders' personality traits change over time. I focus on how leaders become more authoritarian, overconfident and more

One more, closer to literature review and theoretical synthesis
Juliet Kaarbo (2021) 'New directions for leader personality research: breaking bad in foreign policy'
academic.oup.com/ia/article-a...

Reiter, Dan (1995), 'Exploding the Powder Keg Myth' www.jstor.org/stable/25392...

Sample, Susan G (2016) ‘Anticipating War? War Preparations and the Steps-to-War Thesis’ www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

One type of publication that my students find really useful and get a lot from is the medium-n qualitative survey of multiple cases. I'd like to find more good examples in the foreign policy analysis/international conflict field. Three good examples below.

I liked 'gadflies'. People with views, you know the ones.

Recent research on secret police in autocracies indicates this pattern as well.

Or Malaysia!

One of the most perceptive points I've seen, similar to the idea that crises are the product of complacency - a self-defeating prophecy.

I re-read the Clash of Civilizations article again recently (read the book years ago). It's still really not good in multiple respects and, although not completely wrong in terms of the role of identity, makes some wildly bad predictions like 'Russia and Ukraine are too similar to ever go to war'.

It's even worse for Ikenberry and Deudney's arguments about mutually restraining, co-binding relationships making US hegemony 'safe'.

If they stopped quoting the classics without context they might have to do some social science.

Has anyone checked on the Quincy Institute leftists since Friday evening?

Smartphone natives, computer foreigners.

Every year in Semester 1 computer lab sessions. Many are actively keen to develop computer skills they know they are lacking.

Strongly correlated with the presence of the Deftones in popular culture. Everything will change if there's a White Stripes/The Strokes revival.

Yesterday was a very busy day for our department and knowledge production! Thank you to everyone who attended the book launch for Dr @ndmlees.bsky.social and our offsite round table for the Dayton Peace Agreement which featured Dr @birtegippert.bsky.social at @ljmuofficial.bsky.social 📚👩‍⚖️⚖️

An excellent day for the Liverpool politics departments
A superb book launch by the superb @ndmlees.bsky.social at UoL

And a brilliant roundtable at LJMU reflecting on 30 years since the Dayton Peace Agreement organised by @matesuba.bsky.social @birtegippert.bsky.social

Launch event for my new book 'The International Relations of the North-South Divide' today.

This is the quality content I come to Bluesky for 👍

An underrated big picture question is why small, rich countries exist. Why aren't they bullied and extorted by countries with greater total resources?

Fascists | Cambridge University Press & Assessment

www.cambridge.org/gb/universit...

This is overall quite similar to Michael Mann's analysis of fascism's appeal as offering a) revenge for frightened elites b) 'cracking heads together' to get the nation moving again during a period of class conflict.

The bureaucratic/intragovernmental level of analysis is one of the least developed in the study of foreign policy & conflict studies, despite Allison's famous book Essence of Decision. Jost's work makes a new case that the way national security institutions operate has a big impact on war and peace.

Jost's recent book provides a new analysis of the dangers of fragmented national security institutions. The accompanying article in International Studies Quarterly has a slightly different (and better designed) quantitative analysis as well as an extra case study:
academic.oup.com/isq/article/...

Book launch event upcoming!