For those who have been wondering what I've been doing with my writing, and why I haven't been as active on Espresso Politics the last few days, here's the excuse. My colleague Gerard McCarthy and I had a blog post on tech for diplomacy in the Asia/Pacific region published on the Lowy Institute's blog The … Continue reading Post on the Lowy Interpreter!
Politics
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’
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”
Daniel Posner’s “Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa”
Systematic analysis of ethno-linguistic cleavages and competition in Africa, and the world more broadly, are often chalked up to “ancient ethnic hatred” or over-simplistic cultural analyses of legacy political economics. Daniel Posner’s “Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa” takes the question of ethnicity in African politics and unpacks the cleavages between ethno-linguistic groups in Zambia … Continue reading Daniel Posner’s “Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa”
Thinking about my academic tribe…what’s yours?
During the semester I good fortune to take Dr. Mara Schoeny’s course on qualitative research for the social sciences at George Mason University's School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution. We kept logs about the experience and we dealt with questions pertaining to ethics and interpersonal aspects of conflict analysis and resolution. While these were important, what … Continue reading Thinking about my academic tribe…what’s yours?
A video describing my new course at TechChange: Technology for Conflict Management and Prevention
For those who don't like reading, but want to learn a little about my new course TC-109: Technology for Conflict Management and Prevention! TC:109 from TechChange on Vimeo.
Charles P. Martin-Shields 