New Year's Resolution?

I've been thinking about a blog-related New Year's Resolution.

By next week, I'll have been blogging for four months. For about the same period, as you can probably tell from some of my references and links, I've been reading a number of other blogs regularly. Most appear on the right side of this space, though I occasionally read a few others too.

What have I learned from blogging and reading blogs?

It seems to me that too much blogging concerns the latest headline news, and not enough space is devoted to the "big picture."

I'm resolved to "do" more big picture blogging.

This might mean referencing academic articles rather than news stories, in an attempt to provide specialized insight, context, better evidence and theoretically-informed analysis. We'll see, eh?

If you like the news-related commentary, don't worry, I'm sure I'll be doing my share of that. But I will try, at least every week or so, to bring in "big picture" thinking.

I've agreed to write papers or book chapters for a number of projects in 2004. One is on "human security," another is about the failure of academic realists to influence US foreign policy debate, another is on US policy on climate change and a final one focuses on the deliberative viability of the Bush Doctrine.

I'm also teaching a grad seminar on international relations theory and an undergraduate course on US foreign policy.

That gives you some idea of where I'm likely to turn for topics for my "big picture" thinking in 2004.