Democracy Arsenal

Democracy Arsenal, the blog of the Security and Peace Institute, looks to become a valuable source of center-left commentary on international affairs. What’s even more interesting is that the blog precedeth the Institute. That is, there isn’t any SPI presence on the WWW yet, and the links from the Democracy Arsenal blog that should lead to the Institute don’t have a URL. The blog page does tell us that the Institute “supports fellows, sponsors research and convenes foreign policy conferences and meetings.” Now, obviously, it’s a lot easier and faster to set up a blog than it is to create a new institution – this could just be an issue of timing. But I can’t help wondering if this is a new, and rather interesting hybrid organization- a blog with associated institutional trappings (speaker series etc), rather than a traditional think tank which perhaps has a blog as an afterthought (if it has a blog at all). Certainly, the fact that they went to press with the blog before the Institute itself was ready for primetime suggests that the blog is going to play a central role in the final arrangement.