I'm generally not big on entering into the fray when it comes to the politics of the Muslim world, since I'm not an expert on the topic. But I am an expert on political economy and coalition behavior is contested spaces. The news of Pakistan's Railways Minister Ghulam Ahmad Bilour's $100,000 reward to anyone who murders Nakoula … Continue reading The political economy of cynicism: What else could you do with $100,000 in Pakistan?
Peace and Conflict
Peacekeeping, Peace Enforcement, Peacemaking, Non-violence…how is tech affecting these things
Philippe Le Billon: Wars of Plunder (Columbia University Press: 2012)
Philippe Le Billon’s Wars of Plunder takes previous research on the mathematical relationship between natural resources and conflict and combines this with qualitative understandings of power and space to create a nuanced explanation of how different natural resources relate to conflict. Focusing initially on work done by economists such as Paul Collier and Macartan Humphreys, … Continue reading Philippe Le Billon: Wars of Plunder (Columbia University Press: 2012)
ArmsGlobe: Google, PRIO and the Igarape Institute map the arms trade
I was scanning the Huffington Post this morning and came across the headline Global Arms Trade From 1992-2010 Visualized By Google. Tech, arms trading, and maps; sounded interesting since small arms control is something I'm deeply interested in. Using the NISAT database, PRIO, Google and the Igarape Institute got together and created an interactive map of the global … Continue reading ArmsGlobe: Google, PRIO and the Igarape Institute map the arms trade
A Musing on Tech for Peacebuilding: Continued
So I started writing to shake off the rust before the grist mill of academia starts back up later this month, and writing becomes a demand instead of a pastime. Earlier I wrote a piece where I delved into my excitement and skepticism about how technology will lead to peace and stability. This not to that … Continue reading A Musing on Tech for Peacebuilding: Continued
A Musing on Tech for Peacebuilding
It's been ages since I posted, so instead of a targeted piece on some particular topic I thought I'd post something general. Consider it a shakedown post to get the rust off. A bunch of things happened this summer which have shifted my view on technology and peacebuilding. In some ways my belief that these … Continue reading A Musing on Tech for Peacebuilding
The Impact of Tech: Getting Past ‘Good Versus Bad’
The emergent theme from my travels this summer presenting academic papers on tech for social change hasn’t been “is it good or bad,” but instead “why are their good and bad outcomes, and can these be generalizable?” It’s this kind of question that motivates me as a political scientist. Yes, indeed technology can be used … Continue reading The Impact of Tech: Getting Past ‘Good Versus Bad’
Crowdsourcing Done Well: A follow up from yesterday’s post
Yesterday's post may have been a bit of a downer given the critical position on crowdsourcing that I took. While I think a critical eye is necessary to grow the space, I wouldn't want to leave out what's being done well. With that in mind I wanted to point folks to Patrick Meier's recent post … Continue reading Crowdsourcing Done Well: A follow up from yesterday’s post
Political Cartoons from Lake Geneva
So I mentioned earlier that there was a display of political cartoons along Lake Geneva set up as an installation while I was there. This post is just a selection of the cartoons that I photographed while walking along the lake front (there were about 100 total): I would love to hear comments on these, … Continue reading Political Cartoons from Lake Geneva
Wrapping up in Geneva
Greetings all! So I wanted to post something quickly before I head to London tomorrow, and then finally home on Tuesday. I'll have more to write, and some reviews of the papers from the Tech4Dev conference later this week when I can sit with the conference proceedings and give the papers a good review. I … Continue reading Wrapping up in Geneva
Some thoughts on James Mittelman’s “Hyperconflict”
As globalization increasingly impacts the global system of governance and statecraft, traditional analytic frames of sovereignty, power and risk are increasingly unable to account for the emerging challenges of the modern security environment. James Mittelman describes this new brand of risk as “hyperconflict”, driven by “hyperpower” and “hypercompetition”. While he does not use the same … Continue reading Some thoughts on James Mittelman’s “Hyperconflict”
Charles P. Martin-Shields 