Mark Crescenzi

Pleased to share that UNC PoliSci is hiring in political methodology! unc.peopleadmin.com/postings/307...

"We accumulated a large amount of dollars so that you can use something other than a dollar to do what a dollar does, and we promise you it’s worth a dollar. Guaranteed."

It’s the Political Economy of Shitcoins!
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Scott Gates receives EU funding for research on warfare - Department of Political Science Scott Gates at the Department of Political Science receives the ERC’s prestigious Advanced Grant of 30 million kroner. He will research the waging of war, and how internal organization affects the str...

Congratulations to Prof. Scott Gates on receiving a prestigious ERC Advanced Grant! The project "Waging of War" (WOW) will examine how the organization of warring parties affects the conduct of war and how the fighting impacts the belligerents' organizational structure.
www.sv.uio.no/isv/english/...

Big question! The recent work on reputation in world politics might be helpful.

On the impact of Iran’s military response (and the relative quiet of its proxies) on Iran’s ability to credibly signal its resolve, I recommend Roseanne McManus’s excellent book: www.cambridge.org/us/universit...

🧵IR scholars, let's start a thread of what we know that's relevant for a US attack on Iran. Won't change any minds, but might help us teach this crisis and learn new angles. Please add (incl. your own work!), forgive/correct omissions. Nobody can cover everything and it's great to find new work. 1/?

UNC faculty concerned over lack of tenure for professors WRAL has obtained a letter from the faculty chair to the dean and chancellor at UNC-Chapel Hill expressing concern about a lack of tenure for certain professors.

I’m one of 20 assistant professors in A&S at UNC who has had their tenure decision deferred.

I was planning to spend my summer editing my third book. Now? 🤷🏻‍♀️

www.wral.com/video/unc-fa...

Thanks!

At Chapel Hill, Only Health-Sciences Professors Have Been Getting Tenure The UNC Chapel Hill board hasn’t tenured a single professor in fields outside the health sciences since January. The inaction has prompted confusion and alarm among faculty.

On Friday, UNC faculty learned--via an email from the chair of the faculty, not from the admin--that the Board of Trustees declined to do their pro forma approval of this year's tenure conferrals (the entire slate, health sciences excepted). We are still waiting for an explanation.

Getting tenure anywhere is hard, especially in this era of hyper-productivity. Getting tenure at UNC is a gauntlet, a sprint and a marathon at the same time. The faculty who have earned this accomplishment deserve to receive it free of the burden of politics.

Congratulations!!!

Some more than others, I suspect! But we accomplished a lot despite some crazy-difficult years

It's hard to find the words. NSF just terminated the grant for Journeys, a mentoring workshop that tried to tackle underrepresentation of women in international relations. Future scholarship will be the worse for it. But this photo from our last gathering will motivate me to keep fighting.

After eight years in the role, today I ran my last faculty meeting. Went a lot like the meetings we’ve had over the years, doing the hard work in pursuit of our values and ambitions. I’m looking forward to sitting with them while Navin Bapat takes his turn leading us. We couldn’t be in better hands.

I am so sorry, and so angry that we are losing this precious resource. The Journeys team has made a huge difference in the quality of our field. This is a structural loss for the whole discipline.

I’m so sorry, Jeff. We lost two grants in the department today as well.

In honor of long COVID awareness day, I wanted to speak about what my experience is like, 25 months in.

I am much better but still only leave the house a couple times a week.

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Roxane Gay Books & The Audacity Submission Manager THE AUDACITY, my newsletter, features an emerging writer twice a month. I define emerging writer as someone with fewer than three article/essay/short story publications and no published books or book ...

I am accepting submissions for my emerging writer series at gay.submittable.com. You should have three publications or fewer and no book contract. Yes, this is a paid opportunity. Guidelines at the link. Plz follow the guidelines.

Pentagon guts national security program that harnessed social science Dozens of U.S. academics lose grants from Minerva program for studies related to terrorism, drug trafficking, and other threats

Gutting the Minerva program means the loss of one of our last funding sources for long-term, risky, ambitious data collection on political violence. Almost impossible to replace with other sources (though we should try). Not even penny-wise, just foolish. This makes us dumber and less safe

I keep reading that Zelensky shouldn't have risen to the bait.

The man is human. He's seen tens of thousands of Ukrainians murdered, their cities blown apart & their children stolen.

He was sitting by a man who's looting his country's minerals & praising Putin.

And for 40 minutes, he held it in.

Very interesting to see the Times weakest on this. Telegraph and Mail have been robust. And yet the alleged paper of record is hedging.

Journalists, please do not describe what happened at the White House today as a "spat", "heated exchange" or as Zelensky-Trump "going at each other". Zelensky was ambushed by Vance while very calmly explaining why Ukraine needs security guarantees and doesn't trust a ceasefire...

Howard University Receives “Research One” Carnegie Classification Indicating Highest Level of Research Production The American Council of Education (ACE) today announced that Howard University has been conferred a Research One (R1) Carnegie Classification, indicating “very high research spending and doctorate pro...

Howard University is now a R1 university, the first HBCU with a research one designation. H-U definitely knows!

What these days are teaching me is that in this life we can't take anything for granted.

What a day to teach about the modern state. Topics to include

- Developmental state
- Rentier state
- Predatory state
- Failed state

Reading assignment is @pavisuri.bsky.social, "Endogenous State Capacity," ARPS 2024

Science and International Studies are the Foundation of American Power The second Donald Trump administration has targeted science and international studies for devastating cuts in financing, coupled with unprecedented levels of ideological screening of scientific and…

Industry leaders in science, international studies, and higher education must speak clearly about their essential role in national security. The U.S. has no peer competitor in this space, and the current administration's policies threaten U.S. power and interests.

tompepinsky.com/2025/02/04/s...

How do autocrats stay in power?

Our new research dives into the strategies of political control—repression, co-optation, and indoctrination—used across 229 autocracies from 1946 to 2010. What we found will change the way you think about authoritarian resilience. 🧵👇

Undergraduates are not doing well right now, and the consequences are tragic. Take care of your community, but especially look after your students.

Political Scientists Reassure Americans That Stripping Minorities Of Citizenship Usually Where Descent Into Fascism Peters Out CHAPEL HILL, NC—Responding to concern about the Trump administration accusing hundreds of Hispanic people living near the U.S.–Mexico border of having fraudulent birth certificates and revoking their ...

Political Scientists Reassure Americans That Stripping Minorities Of Citizenship Usually Where Descent Into Fascism Peters Out