One of the highlights of this week’s International Studies Association’s (ISA) annual conference in Baltimore – assuming you weren’t boycotting the whole affair – was the annual Duckies Awards, which recognize public-facing work in the field.
In a reception Thursday night sponsored by SAGE (the parent of Social Science Space), Progress in Political Economy was named the best group blog in international studies. Based out of the community associated with the Department of Political Economy at the University of Sydney, PPE describes itself as “a venue for thought about political economy in and beyond the academy. … At Sydney, ‘political economy’ means studying the economic within its social and political context, and therefore treating economics as a social science.” Political Violence at a Glance was runner-up for the group blog award.
In the best blog by an individual, Peter Trumbore’s Observations/Research/Diversions was declared the winner. Trumbore is an associate professor of political science and coordinator of the International Relations Program at Oakland University in Michigan. Runner-up was Raul Pacheco-Vega, an assistant professor in public administration Division of the Centre for Economic Research and Teaching in Aguascalientes, Mexico.
Among individual blog posts, Elizabeth Saunders, an associate professor of political science at George Washington University, won for her Monkey Cage post, “What a President Trump means for foreign policy. ” Runner-up was Gareth Bryant’s 10 Talking Points from Jason W. Moore’s ‘Capitalism in the Web of Life’, which appeared at PPE.
The award for best Twitter account went to @Whinecough, the nom de tweet of William Kindred Winecoff at Indiana University Bloomington. Runner-up was @StacyDVanDeveer, the account of the chair of the Department of Political Science and at the University of New Hampshire.
An award for Special Achievement in International Studies Online Media went to Steve Saideman, the Paterson Chair in International Affairs at Carleton University and blogger at his own Saideman’s Semi-Spew.
The ISA’s Online Media Caucus awards trace to 2013 and the Duck of Minerva world politics blog, hence the names ‘Duckies.’ A year after the ISA recognized the Online Media Caucus in 2015, that organization took over the awards (starting with this year’s content). More change is afoot: “As we move from Duck of Minerva to the Online Media,” reads a description of the awards on the Duck website, “we are likely to develop new categories (best tweet of the year?) and revisit old ones as our remit is beyond blogging.”
