Salt rocks: a tour of highland Bolivia
New eco-lodges in little-visited Bolivia are making the most of wonders from salt flats to multicoloured lakes – all at well over 3,000m. Photographs: Anna Batchelor
Starting tomorrow, I’m spending the summer in Bolivia (co-teaching a social science research methods field school program with my wife, an anthropologist). So I’m taking a two-month hiatus from my little teaching (comparative) politics Tumblr.
But we’ll be posting at our “Ole Miss in Bolivia” Tumblr. Follow our students as they explore the politics and culture of Bolivia.
Students! Please consider entering this contest. I will give you a personal prize if you win—or even if you become a finalist. (Offer valid only to my current and/or former students.)
From foreignaffairsmagazine:
Q: How can I get published on ForeignAffairs.com?
A: Enter the 2012 Student Essay Contest!
We’re now accepting submissions for the 2012 Student Essay contest — Sponsored by The Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs (APSIA)
This year’s topic: How much did U.S. foreign policy change after the last election and how much will it change after this one?
Full rules here: http://fam.ag/Md53Yt
Understanding the US budget, in one simple graph. Notice that “International Affairs” is only 1.2% of the 2011 budget. We care about the world just more than a penny on every dollar. What does this say about the quality and/or effectiveness of our foreign policy?
From planetmoney:
Of each dollar the federal government spends, how much goes to defense? How much goes to Social Security? How much goes to interest on the debt? And how has this sort of thing changed over time?
This graphic answers these questions. It shows the major components of federal spending 50 years ago, 25 years ago, and last year.
Read more here.
Salt rocks: a tour of highland Bolivia
New eco-lodges in little-visited Bolivia are making the most of wonders from salt flats to multicoloured lakes – all at well over 3,000m. Photographs: Anna Batchelor
[video]
![A very interesting piece comparing police forces in the US and Germany. We don’t often think about these kinds of comparisons, but how governments use their security apparatus says a lot about the state and its relationship to society.
From theatlantic:
German Police Used Only 85 Bullets Against People in 2011
According to Germany’s Der Spiegel, German police shot only 85 bullets in all of 2011, a stark reminder that not every country is as gun-crazy as the U.S. of A. As Boing Boing translates, most of those shots weren’t even aimed anyone: “49 warning shots, 36 shots on suspects. 15 persons were injured, 6 were killed.” […]
Meanwhile, in the U.S., where the population is little less than four times the size of Germany’s, well, we can get to 85 in just one sitting, thank you very much. 84 shots fired at one murder suspect in Harlem, another 90 shot at one fleeing unarmed man in Los Angeles. And that was just April.
Read more. [Image: Reuters]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3uzwx6Fue1qcokc4o1_500.jpg)
A very interesting piece comparing police forces in the US and Germany. We don’t often think about these kinds of comparisons, but how governments use their security apparatus says a lot about the state and its relationship to society.
From theatlantic:
German Police Used Only 85 Bullets Against People in 2011
According to Germany’s Der Spiegel, German police shot only 85 bullets in all of 2011, a stark reminder that not every country is as gun-crazy as the U.S. of A. As Boing Boing translates, most of those shots weren’t even aimed anyone: “49 warning shots, 36 shots on suspects. 15 persons were injured, 6 were killed.” […]
Meanwhile, in the U.S., where the population is little less than four times the size of Germany’s, well, we can get to 85 in just one sitting, thank you very much. 84 shots fired at one murder suspect in Harlem, another 90 shot at one fleeing unarmed man in Los Angeles. And that was just April.
Read more. [Image: Reuters]
This may seem overly partisan, but I wanted to share this post from The Duck of Minerva, an IR blog:
Fresh from their defeat of longtime Senator Richard Lugar, the Know-Nothing Party yesterday voted to end NSF funding of political science research and the useful parts of the Census.
I addressed the threat to political science from the Know-Nothing Party last year. I am sorry that I was right.
It is difficult to overstate the degree to which the contemporary Republican Party is organized as a right-wing Leninist front. It is ideologically militant (if not, for a political theorist, ideologically coherent), anti-democratic, consistently opposed to compromise, and resolutely disciplined. Perhaps most important, given that their goals are revolutionary their only interest in preserving already-existing institutions is tactical. As a consequence, all of the old norms are now no longer operative.
That’s the environment in which it makes sense for the GOP to kill the $9 million / year the NSF spends on political science. Austerity is their excuse for promoting the ignorance they desire.
The paranoia and hostility to the federal government that permeates the conservative movement beggars belief. I would go so far as to allege that it has outstripped the quantitative tools that Americanists use to study them. After all, what explains this level of hostility to the federal government knowing things about America?
The real problem is not for political science or any other narrow issue. The real problem is that soon these people will be meaningfully in charge of America. And I believe that they will have vastly more latitude to act irresponsibly than structural theories of IR would soothingly reassure us.
One of the great blessings of Cold War America was that the greatly irresponsible members of the GOP (those who supported the Bricker Amendment, for instance) were usually kept out of positions of power. We are about to find out what happens when the Capeharts and the McCarthyists run the show. And soon we may find out what happens when a hegemon is run by an extremist minority.
In the long run, this may all work out. But in the long run, we are all dead.
At times the post may slip into exaggeration. But not by much. One thing I’ve noticed in my teaching career is the growing apprehension—both in the broader culture as well as among my students—to learning. Sure, everyone values an “education,” but they really just mean “credentials” that are then supposed to translate automatically into some job. Essentially, there’s a growing view of higher education as an assembly line for middle class careers.
Beyond that, though, there’s a growing skepticism of knowledge—especially scientific knowledge. In short, at times it seems there’s a direct assault on the underlying intellectual core of the Enlightenment: that reason (not emotion) should guide our understanding of the world and that conclusions should be made on the basis of empirical evidence (not belief). This is dangerous.
Because while it may seem a stretch to call today’s Tea Party Republicans “right-wing Leninists” (as the above post does), it’s not far off. Leninism, as a political strategy (not as a Marxist ideology) is exactly as the author above portrays. In fact, the fascist and Nazi parties in Europe were precisely Leninist in their organization (as were a number of national-revolutionary parties in the postcolonial world). And as others have emphasized, fascism is at its core a rejection of reason and the Enlightenment.
When I see Senators sneer at the “uselessness” of political science, I am flabbergasted. Sure, we political scientists may not know everything, but we spend most of our adult lives systematically studying how governments function, which policies work and why, how to understand the foreign policy of other countries, and many more similar questions. That this is deemed “useless” by those who would pretend to govern is … just … unconscionable. And the simple reality that such knowledge is not even worth $9 million to the world’s only (current) superpower … is depressing.
Politicalprof: Student Follies -
Seriously. If you spent the last 15 weeks showing little interesting in my course, frantically making up for it now—when I’m stressed by my own end-of-semester deadlines—is not the best time. In fact, it’s probably the worst time.
From politicalprof:
It’s exam time around these parts, and indeed around much of America. Consequently, lots and lots of students are stressed, worn out and worried. It’s predictable and perfectly understandable.
As a consequence, while most students manage to handle the stress with dignity and decency, a few, umm, don’t. And as is the case in all human management situations, faculty inevitably spend 90% of their time dealing with 10% of the people. With that as prologue, to the 10%!
1. No, dear student: you cannot come in after the final exam to discuss your concerns with the course. There are at least two reasons: 1) you’ve had 16 weeks to ask for help, and didn’t; and 2) I’m not sure your concerns should be with “the course” so much as with “your performance in the class.” As context, as you are an athlete, I do wonder just how such an exchange might go if the addressee was “Coach” instead of “Dr.”
2. No, dear student: you do not need to take the final —which is optional — if you have not taken a required test earlier in the semester. (Did I mention the student also missed the optional final and was asking for a makeup?) Really: it says the final doesn’t substitute for a missed test on the syllabus and multiple times on Blackboard. I repeated this point numerous times in class. It’s 20 strikes and you’re out with me.
3. No, dear student: you cannot miss every exam in the regular semester and just take the optional final. Even if you passed it, it would be insufficient. See post #2.
4. Finally, dear student(s): no email that begins with “I know you asked us not to email you with grade questions, but … ” ever works. Ever.
Good luck during exams everyone, no matter which side of the desk you are on!
I think any employer would be lucky to have you if they need stuff looked up on Wikipedia.
Via someecards
Strive to be more valuable than Wikipedia.
![I’ve started trying to incorporate “metropolitan” politics into my intro to comparative (POL 102) courses. The FP Global Cities Index is a great resource. Glad to see there’s a new (updated) option.
From theatlantic:
What Is the World’s Most Economically Powerful City?
Cities matter.
Just the world’s top 100 metros generate roughly half of the globe’s total economic output, according to Martin Prosperity Institute estimates. The top twenty produce nearly 30 percent and the top ten accounts for more than a fifth of global economic production. More than 80 percent of U.S. economic output comes from its cities and metros areas, compared to roughly two-thirds in Europe. Even in China, which has urbanized much more recently and where many remain in rural areas, 78 percent of GDP comes from cities and metros, according to recent estimates from the McKinsey Global Institute.
But in contest for one metro to rule them all, New York takes the crown as the most economically powerful metropolitan, according to Richard Florida’s assessment of five recent comprehensive rankings of global cities.
Read more. [Images: Wikimedia]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3pzkoMwb21qcokc4o1_500.jpg)
I’ve started trying to incorporate “metropolitan” politics into my intro to comparative (POL 102) courses. The FP Global Cities Index is a great resource. Glad to see there’s a new (updated) option.
From theatlantic:
What Is the World’s Most Economically Powerful City?
Cities matter.
Just the world’s top 100 metros generate roughly half of the globe’s total economic output, according to Martin Prosperity Institute estimates. The top twenty produce nearly 30 percent and the top ten accounts for more than a fifth of global economic production. More than 80 percent of U.S. economic output comes from its cities and metros areas, compared to roughly two-thirds in Europe. Even in China, which has urbanized much more recently and where many remain in rural areas, 78 percent of GDP comes from cities and metros, according to recent estimates from the McKinsey Global Institute.
But in contest for one metro to rule them all, New York takes the crown as the most economically powerful metropolitan, according to Richard Florida’s assessment of five recent comprehensive rankings of global cities.
Read more. [Images: Wikimedia]