Duckies Honor Nod to Nonviolence in Violent World
A post on the nonviolent conflicts that didn’t get noticed due to their lack violence – and which appeared on the Political Violence @ a Glance blog – has received the Best Blog Post award at the annual Online Achievement in International Studies awards during the International Studies Association annual meeting New Orleans last week. In the winning post, Erica Chenoweth, a political scientist at the University of Denver, looked at various protests around the world, from Burkina Faso to Bulgaria, that didn’t involve armed struggle (although some of these protests, such as in Ukraine or Gaza, unfolded amid a violent backdrop.
Runner up in that category went to Laura Seay and Kim Yi Dionne for their piece, “The Long and Ugly Tradition of Treating Africa as a Dirty, Diseased Place,” which appeared at the Washington Post’s The Monkey Cage.
The awards, known as the Duckies thanks to their lineage tracing to the Duck of Minerva world politics blog, are sponsored by SAGE (the parent of Social Science Space). Permanent members of the Duck of Minerva collective may not receive Duckies, although guest bloggers can win for work on their own sites. Recipients serve as judges for subsequent awards.
Four awards are handed out for excellence in blogging, and the prizes for Best Blog by a Group mirrored the best post awards: The winner was The Monkey Cage and runner-up went to Political Violence @ a Glance. The Cage (“Democracy is the art of running the circus from the monkey cage” – H.L. Mencken) is a menagerie of eight routine contributors and a dozen or more contributors, while Glance is a collaboration between Chenoweth and Barbara F. Walter of the University of California, San Diego.
The Best Blog by an Individual went to another political animal, Dart Throwing Chimp, where independent political scientists Jay Ulflder’s tagline is “Thoughtful analysis or bloviation? Your call.” Runner up went to Chris Blattman, an associate professor at Columbia.
The Best New Blogger award was taken by Alison Beth Hodkins, with Brandon Valeriano as runner up.
Dan Nexon, founding editor of Duck of Minerva, received a special achievement award for his outstanding contribution to the blogging profession.
