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This article uses new survey data to examine student preferences and experiences with active learning among a graduate student cohort across two key identity markers: international student status a...

Globally, infection and death rates from COVID-19 vary dramatically. While states had broadly the same information about the virus at the start of the crisis, responses were very different. What caused such disparity in policy actions and outcomes? While various factors may account for divergent responses, we highlight the importance of narratives employed by key policy actors. First, we review the literature on policy narratives. We suggest it can be usefully augmented with consideration of localisation and public justification. We apply this augmented framework using case studies of Germany and the United Kingdom. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s narrative was more successful at persuading German citizens to embrace government policies to counter COVID-19 than was Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s in the United Kingdom. This difference held important implications for policy outcomes in each country. We conclude by discussing the benefits of this augmented approach to analysis of policy narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of European Public Policy is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Unlike in the broader field of international relations, relatively little research on gender representation and gendered experiences exists within the subfield of security studies. This article begins to fill that gap by sharing the results of a 2019 survey of members of the International Security Studies Section (ISSS) of the International Studies Association (ISA). The survey results show striking gender differences in members’ experiences, with women more likely than men to describe ISSS as “insular,” “clubby,” and an “Old Boys’ Network”; more likely to report experiences of hostility and exclusion; and more likely to believe that diversity initiatives are needed. Our analysis reveals that women in the ISSS report (1) harassment, (2) negative experiences participating in various section activities, (3) more significant barriers to attending and being selected for the section's ISA program, and (4) a sense of feeling unwelcome at ISSS meetings, all at higher rates than male respondents.

This article details a role-playing “citizenship simulation” used in a large graduate seminar offered by the Masters of International Relations (IR) faculty at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. While recognizing the need for a more systematic analysis of the relationship between class size and active learning strategies, this article offers an anecdotal reflection on the challenges faced when employing active learning in an IR course with growing enrollment numbers. We describe and analyze a simulation used in the graduate course to evaluate the feasibility and desirability of structuring large IR classrooms to include participatory group activities such as simulations. We also hope the simulation provides instructors with an effective sample design for simulations in their own larger courses.

We argue that the framework of norms has generated a progressive research agenda in the field of global nuclear politics, providing important insights that traditional realist and materialist analy...

In his new book, India-Pakistan nuclear diplomacy, long-time scholar of South Asian nuclear issues Mario Carranza throws down the gauntlet to realist scholars of South Asian nuclear weapons, arguin...

The suggestion that Ukraine should have kept its Soviet-era nuclear weapons is a counterfactual fantasy that groans under the weight of its technical, political and strategic assumptions.

Conventional wisdom about nuclear weapons decision-making argues that nuclear policy is based on material cost-benefit calculations, with systemic forces propelling states into a narrow range of ch...

Although professors may be aware that rubrics shorten grading time and improve grading consistency, many are not aware that rubrics offer a powerful analytical punch. Given the demands for active learning in today's college classroom, rubrics allow instructors to focus on analytical quality while engaging students in a variety of assignments. Rubrics are useful not only in more traditional applications—for example, papers and oral presentations—but also for more creative purposes. Using rubrics in both self and peer assessment engages students more in assignments, allowing them to reflect on their own performance and their peers. Going one step further, instructors can engage students in the construction of rubrics that will be used to grade their own work. Finally, rubrics force instructors to be clear about their own purposes for an assignment, and over time, instructors can become more attuned to the analytical possibilities in even traditional “busywork” assignments.

‘‘Nuclear threshold states’’*those that have chosen nuclear restraint despite having significant nuclear capabilities*seem like the perfect partners for the reinvigorated drive toward global nuclear disarmament. Having chosen nuclear restraint, threshold states may embrace disarmament as a way to guarantee the viability of their choice (which may be impossible in a proliferating world). Supporting disarmament efforts affirms their restraint, both self-congratulating and self-fulfilling. Additionally, the commitment to their non-nuclear status springs at least in part from a moral stance against nuclear weapons that lends itself to energetic support of global disarmament. However, threshold states also offer significant challenges to the movement for nuclear weapons elimination, in particular in relation to acquisition of enrichment and reprocessing facilities. This article analyzes both the challenges and opportunities posed by threshold states by examining the cases of Brazil and Japan.

Since the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) came into force almost 40 years ago, only four states have acquired nuclear weapons. What accounts for such near-universal compliance? This paper argues that social psychology can help us understand the puzzle of nuclear restraint in two ways. First, nuclear forbearance should be unpacked into three outcomes: persuasion (behavior resulting from genuine transformation of preferences), social conformity (behavior resulting from the desire to maximize social benefits and/or minimize social costs, without a change in underlying preferences), and identification (behavior resulting from the desire or habit of following the actions of an important other). Second, through social psychology, we can specify the mechanisms by which the norm of nonproliferation has influenced policymakers. Indeed, the case of Japan shows that both these contributions help us better understand nuclear decision-making and offer larger insights into regime compliance more generally.

The Egyptian nuclear weapons program—started in 1960 and closed by 1973—can lend insights into today's potential proliferators. First, a number of signs indicating that Cairo was pursing a nuclear option were present, giving us insight into what type of signs we might see from countries seeking nuclear weapons today. While indicators do not necessarily connote intent, my research shows that in the Egyptian case, these signs were indeed warnings that Cairo was seeking a military nuclear capability. Second, a number of external and internal factors combined to shut down the nuclear program, and fortunately, some of these external factors are still applicable today, giving us potential tools to use in persuading other states to forgo nuclear weapons.

Security Assurances and Nuclear Nonproliferation, Jeffrey W. Knopf (ed.). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012, pp. 304, $50 (hardback) http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2013.776794 In th...

Review(s) of: Civil society and nuclear non-proliferation: How do states respond?, by Claudia Kissling. Burlington, VT: Ashgate; 2008, xiii + 207 pp.

This article compares the relative importance of political capital (in the form of membership in the Chinese Communist Party) and human capital (in the form of higher education) in urban China. Survey data from urban China strongly support two key elements of the intellectual New Class theory: intellectuals will have privileged access into the party, and the importance of education relative to political reliability will increase over time. The data also show how political capital and human capital are converted into high paying and prestigious jobs. There is also evidence of a separate path of career mobility: for the most socially prestigious jobs, a college degree—not a party card—is the key. Economic reforms of the post-Mao era are creating a gap between political power, on one hand, and social prestige and economic power, on the other. This gap can be expected to grow as the reforms continue.

Egypt's nuclear decision making can be divided into five different periods: initiation of the nuclear programme (1954–59), pursuit of nuclear weapons (1960–67), programme stagnation (1968–73), Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty diplomacy (1974–2005) and nuclear power expansion (2006–11). The popular uprising in early 2011, leading to the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak, may or not usher in a new era. The chapter discusses future prospects for Egyptian nuclear politics and also discusses the historical background of Egypt's nuclear programme. During the new era when Egypt was most focused on acquiring a military nuclear capability, the main internal debate about nuclear weapons took shape in the Nasser–Amer rivalry. Egypt's new nuclear power plans received the blessing of the USA and the International Atomic Energy Agency. With the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in February 2011 Egypt's nuclear policy will most likely remain stable in the short term, but could undergo dramatic change in the medium-to-long term.

Scott D. Sagan and Kenneth N. Waltz. 2002. The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed . (2nd ed.) New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN: 0393977471. From Osama bin Laden's assertion that he has a religi...

At the first APSA Teaching and Learning Conference (TLC) in 2004, 11 professors and graduate students gathered to discuss and evaluate the role of assessment in political science. Excited by the impact of assessment in their classrooms and departments, the working group concluded their session with a declaration of the positive role assessment could have in the discipline and an articulated concern that APSA needs to “play a greater role in assessment.” At the 2005 conference, 32 faculty and graduate students again gathered to discuss “Student Assessment and Learning Outcomes.” Six of us bridged both years' experiences. While the 2005 participants were less unified, the discussion and debates that emerged built upon the discoveries of year one and attempted to expand the conversation from among the converted to the wider discipline.