CfA PhD Program GSSPS Uni Milano

Through APSA Polmeth list:
_____________________________
The Call
for Applications of the Graduate School of Social and Political Studies for the
Academic Year 2012-3 is now OPEN.


13 Ph.D.
Scholarships available
GSSPS – University of Milan

ADMISSION TO Ph.D. PROGRAMS
for Academic year 2012-2013


The University of Milan is pleased
to announce that the Call for application, based on qualifications and
interviews, for admission to the Graduate School
in Social and Political Sciences (GSSPS) for the following Ph.D.
Programs:

Ph.D. in Labour Studies – Coordinator:
Prof. Lorenzo Bordogna
Ph.D. in Political Studies – Acting
Coordinator Prof. Francesco Zucchini
Ph.D. in
Sociology – Coordinator: Prof. Luisa Leonini

is now available in Italian and in
English here http://www.unimi.it/ricerca/dottorati/56986.htm .

Click here to read more about the
GSSPS downloading the 2012 School brochure

For the academic year 2012/2013 the GSSPS will assign a total of 27 places, 14
with scholarship and 13 without scholarship.

14 places with scholarships will be assigned as follows:
Ph.D. in Labour Studies – 4 University of Milan scholarships
Ph.D. in Political Studies – 5 University of Milan scholarships
Ph.D. in Sociology – 4 University of Milan scholarships + 1 "Centre
for Study and Research on Women and Gender Differences"
scholarship funded by "Structural Transformation to Achieve Gender
Equality in Sciences - STAGES" - European FP7

13 places without scholarship will be assigned as follows:
Ph.D. in Labour Studies – 4 places without scholarship
Ph.D. in Political Studies – 5 places without scholarship
Ph.D. in Sociology – 4 places without scholarship
All applications must be submitted online via SIFA Servizi ON LINE http://www.unimi.it/hpsifa/nonProfiledPage_100.html

(Servizi di Ammissione) starting from 18th June 2012.

For further details please write to GSSPS Secretariat, University of Milan,
via Pace 10, 20122 email graduate.school@unimi.it
http://www.graduateschool.unimi.it/call_2012_13.html

Deadline
for application is strictly 31st July 2012.

TEXT OMITTED

**********************************************************

            Political Methodology E-Mail List
  Editors: Diana O'Brien        <dzobrien@wustl.edu>
           Jon C. Rogowski <rogowski.jon@gmail.com>
**********************************************************
       Send messages to polmeth@artsci.wustl.edu
 To join the list, cancel your subscription, or modify
          your subscription settings visit:

         http://polmeth.wustl.edu/polmeth.php

О простоте языка в академическом письме

Я могу быть неправ, поправьте меня, пожалуйста, если это так. Русский язык богат и могуч, но это не означает то, что научный аргумент на этом языке должен быть изложен так сложно и завихристо, что среднему, образованному читателю не понять ничего из той белиберды которую несут некоторые ученые.

Лично меня наставники-корифеи воспитывали по англо-саксонской академической традиции, где приветствуется предельная простота изложения и четкая структура аргумента. Сейчас я много читаю русскоязычную академическую литературу. Русский конечно не мой родной язык, но я считаю что я на нем сносно выражаю свои мысли. И меня бесит когда плохие ученые скрывают свои неинтересные, очевидные и скучные аргементы за фасадом заумной писанины. Не позорьте политологию. Если не можете обьяснить на доступном языке свой аргумент - милости просим из этой сферы.

Между прочим, это не касается словарного запаса - используйте богатый язык и терминологию нашей дисциплины. Но не надо заворачивать аргумент так, что его надо перечитывать раз пять чтобы понять то, что вы просто ничего не излагаете по существу. 

Mini Marshall Plan for Central Asia?

V.Ivanov (Photo by
A.Koryakov/Kommersant)

A leading Russian business daily Kommersant and Rossiyskaya Gazeta report here (in Russian) and here  on a curious document submitted by Russian drug control czar Viktor Ivanov to the Government. The paper calls for the creation of what seems to be a Russian CA development agency. The document was floated by Ivanov's agency probably because Russians want to frame it as part of their comprehensive approach to drug control in Central Asia and new drug policy.

Claiming that 40% of GDP in some Central Asian states comes from drug trade (never clarified which one, hugely improbably number anyways), Ivanov proposed to kill illicit economy by encouraging legal economy. Apparently the way Russians see it is not through micro-credit and encouragement of small entrepreneurship, but through huge Russian state corporations taking over largest projects in the region and creating new ones.

Russian Corporation for Cooperation with Central Asian Countries, as the proposed agency is officially called, will be founded as a joint stock company with 51% of shares going to the Russian Government and 49 to Russian companies, mostly Russian state corps like RosNeft, VTB, GazProm, VEB, RosAtom, RJD and Inter RAO EES, Rostehnologii and Sberbank. From the private sector only Sistema and Alfa Group are mentioned.

List of proposed projects is very entertaining. Russians are proposing to take over hydroenergy constructions at Kambarata and Rogun, re-create Soviet energy distribution systems and add a new water pipe from Siberia to Fergana Valley. Also envisioned is construction of atomic energy plant in the region and of a big poultry production plant. Beside such big projects, creation of a university specializing in development education does not seem that fantastic (no one seems to have been interested whether development oriented schools already exist in the region).

The whole initiative is based on a number of very shaky assumptions.
First, it is somehow assumed that Central Asians will meet the alarmingly ambitious development initiative with joy and open embrace. This is not going to happen, regional elites are very wary of Russians' real motives.

Second, it is assumed that drug trafficking in Central Asia is done by impoverished individuals, much like the image of a poor and desperate Afghan farmer who plants poppy because there is nothing else to plant. To me at least it seems that a typical Central Asian drug trafficker is not that destitute and has ample income opportunities were he/she willing to take them up.

Moreover, it is assumed that the way to lure traffickers out of the drug game is not by giving 'em cheap credit to open up firms, but by building huge plants where they most probably be employed.

Third, Russians pretend they have extra cash to spend. The initial project cost is Rbl 2 billion (about USD 64 mln) and annual salary expenses will amount to USD 6 mln, and all expenses will surely be higher than that. Where is the money coming from, is the question to the Government of D.Medvedev that has yet to pay off the promised pension increases.

Russian drug agency planners also have very curious notions of public-private partnership. Given the list of proposed participants, public-private for Russian drug people means partnership of the state and state-run corporations. very odd...as is odd the promise that local firms will be allowed in the future.

Journalists claim this is all not more than a 'retirement project' for Ivanov that has very little chances of success, at least in the form declared. I agree. 

Tweet
Follow @rahmetoff

Barroso speaking behind US President Seal - Awkward...

http://ec.europa.eu/avservices/video/index.cfm

New brief on Kazakhstan

ISPI just published my brief on recent violence in Zhanaozen, Kazakhstan and its implications for political stability and Nazarbayev succession. It can be seen at http://www.ispionline.it/it/documents/PB_217_2012.pdf

Fun Stats: Dictator Tenure and Kick-out

Milan Svolik of University of Illinois studied 316 dictators who held power for at least one day between 1945 and 2002. Out of those 316, 13 stepped down in an unclear way, so he ignored them. The resulting is a pretty cool table which ascertains:
1. that 22% of them don't even make it till a year
2. coups d'etat hve been the most widespread way a dictator was taken down unconstitutionally, foreign intervention - least widespread

It would be interesting to see how the share of each path is changing from decade to decade...

Here is a gated link to the paper

Arab Spring - liberation technology?

Those of us who are ardent supporters of 'liberation technology,' Lisa Anderson, currently President of American University in Cairo, seems to counter with this curious example:

In Tunisia, protesters escalated calls for
the restoration of the country's suspended
constitution. Meanwhile, Egyptians rose
in revolt as strikes across the country
brought daily life to a halt and toppled the
government. In Libya, provincial leaders
worked feverishly to strengthen their
newly independent republic.
It was 1919.
That year's events demonstrate that
the global diffusion of information and
expectations-so vividly on display in Tahrir
Square this past winter-is not a result of
the Internet and social media. The inspirational
rhetoric of U.S. President Woodrow
Wilson's Fourteen Points speech, which
helped spark the 1919 upheavals, made its
way around the world by telegraph. The
uprisings of 1919 also suggest that the calculated
spread of popular movements, seen
across the Arab world last winter, is not a
new phenomenon.

Source: Foreign Affairs, May/June 2011
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67693/lisa-anderson/demystifying-the-arab-spring

The debate is much wider though, with cute cats theory by Ethan Zuckerman and scepticism of Malcolm Gladwell and Evgeny Morozov. And surely, it is not settled in any sense.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/09/so-was-facebook-responsible-for-the-arab-spring-after-all/244314/