APSA 2019: Annoyingly Happy

A friend called me annoyingly happy at this year's American Political Science Association meeting, and I have to admit she is right.  I realized shortly before the conference that I have been off the job market for eight years, the longest span of my career by a good bit.  That is both cause and effect: effect because being happy means not going on the market and cause because being on the market is a source of misery.  APSA used to come through DC every other year when I got started, so this place is full of memories of me being anxious about getting a tenure track job.  This time, I was far more relaxed--I mean, what are the odds of another fire?  So, what happened at this year's APSA?

I handed out CDSN swag and got to talk about what we have done so far--hiring great stuff, starting the podcast, and preparing for the next seven years of interesting and hopefully relevant research.

I asked folks who do civil-military relations to meet up in the conference hotel bar, and we got a very good crowd.  There are a lot of younger scholars doing excellent work, so it was fun to spend some time with them and learn what they are doing and corrupt a minor:

I have been so busy getting the CDSN started and traveling this summer that I forgot that I was the chair and organizer of the panel---Some Assembly Required.  I found the other work on this panel super-interesting:

• Jessica Blankshain presented a paper she is working on with Derek Reveron (both of CDSN partner US Naval War College) that considered who testifies before the House Armed Services Committee, seeking to identify trends. As the Dave/Phil/Steve project focuses on such committees, it was especially interesting to learn about a dimension that we had not been studying
• Carla Martinez Machain (Kansas State) presented a paper on US military training programs, testing whether those who the US trained elsewhere committed more or less human rights violations.  I had some deja vu since vetting trainees due to Congressional legislation was something we did in the Balkans branch of the Joint Staff.
• Michael Colaresi (Pittsburgh) presented a really cool paper basically looking at the info we have on rendition flights to determine which countries might have more oversight and more info about secret programs--the intuition is that the CIA would take less direct routes to avoid countries that have more oversight.  Super graphics and super interesting.  

I followed my recent pattern of going to few panels and meeting more people who I have met via twitter.  These conversations were most interesting.  One of them involved organizers of Out in National Security, an organization seeking to provide support to LGBTQ in the US national security community.   As one of the goals of the CDSN is to facilitate a more diverse and inclusive community of defence and security experts, I was seeking advice on how to help underrepresented folks.

And, yes, I hung out with old friends.  While I was most stressed long ago, trying to get my first job and then moving on from there, I have few regrets since I made lifelong friendships with fantastic people:

My last full day at APSA included meeting with my very first PhD student who is now recovering from his term as department chair and then meeting with my dissertation adviser--Miles Kahler--unbreakable vows and all that.  We met at the Phillips Collection, an art museum I have never visited before.  They had an amazing exhibit on immigration-related art.

It was very moving.  And it reminded me that the stuff we study has real human costs.  While I don't study ethnic conflict anymore, I will always apply the stuff I learned to contemporary events.

The only things left to do are to meet up with my sister-in-law and then fly home to start a new semester.  It was a great summer of travel and networking and organizing and podcasting.  Time to do that teaching thing: