By Harold “Harry” Young of Austin Peay State University At this year’s MPSA conference, I was on a mission to uncover what participants were so serious about as they hovered over laptops and chatted in small groups. My personal interactions revealed groups generally mystified and frightened by the current political environment with some tinged with … Continue reading Finger on the Pulse: Alive and Kicking at MPSA 2018
By Harold Young of Austin Peay State University “Expectations should not always be taken as reality; because you never know when you will be disappointed.” ― Samuel P. Huntington I must admit I am sometimes coy in responding to the question, “So, what do you do?” When I say I am a professor of political science … Continue reading The 2018 MPSA Conference Is Here: What Have You Done for Me Lately?
By Harold Young of Austin Peay State University “An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. As always, my first full day in Belize starts in my barber’s chair. The “trim” (haircut) … Continue reading When the elite abandon democracy – A Warning from Belize?
There is no doubt that 2017 was a memorable year in political science. As the year comes to a close, it’s time to take a look back at our the most-read blog posts from the past twelve months. #10 Alone and Working: Making the Transition to ABD Harold Young and Adnan Rasool share lessons from their … Continue reading MPSA’s Top 10 Blog Posts from 2017
By Harold A. Young The burden and devastation of intrastate conflicts are disproportionally borne by people of color in the developing world. While many people of color in the United States may view these conflicts as distant, they are not. Some may have relatives and friends in these conflict areas; however, it is worth noting … Continue reading Intrastate Conflicts: Refocus on the Intractable
By Harold Young, Ph.D. The sun blazed, cooled only by sporadic showers, during my recent visit to the Central American and Caribbean nation of Belize where I spent my formative years. The size of Massachusetts, Belize is racially and ethnically diverse population of 332,000 that depends heavily on U.S. for trade, investment, and tourism. A … Continue reading Politics and Sunburn: Snapshot of the U.S. from Belize
“There’s not any sort of option where a political solution is going to happen with Assad at the head of the regime…. regime change is something that we think is going to happen because all of the parties are going to see that Assad is not the leader that needs to be taking place for … Continue reading Humanitarian Missile Attack? Responsibility to Protect (Redux)
The change from being a PhD Student to a PhD Candidate is a big one. The moment we cross that threshold of becoming ABD, we fall in to a kind of purgatory where we are no longer students and not yet peers of our professors. This purgatory, or as it is better known as ABD, … Continue reading Alone and Working: Making the Transition to ABD
Since it is impossible to discuss the issue of racism from the beginning, I will just start where I find myself. As an Assistant professor, it is probably safe for me to say that the multi-directional pressures and demands from administrations, departments, students, and parents are universal in academic life. What is different for faculty … Continue reading Race and “Ism”: Incoming Fire from All Directions
In October 2016, South Africa followed Burundi in withdrawing from the International Criminal Court (ICC) asserting bias by the United Nation’s Security Council in its case referrals (Duggard, 2013; Strydom, 2015; The East African, 2016). They point out that the United Nations Security Council has referred cases from Sudan and Libya with only black Africans … Continue reading Supranational Courts: Are they the New Legal Titans?
