Gifts for Political Scientists, 2020

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Cyber Monday Purchase Online - JoshuaWoroniecki / Pixabay

It is Cyber Monday and the gift-purchasing season started sometime last week; it is now even more unclear to me when Black Friday actually starts. It has been a few years since my previous entries in this series and the circumstances of 2020 warrant a new list as the demands of our profession have changed. Even with the hopeful resumption of normal in-person classes by Fall 2020, the ability and demand for remote teaching is going to be higher in 2022 than it was in 2019. To see the previous entries in this series, see years 2010 and 2013. Home Continue reading Gifts for Political Scientists, 2020→

Presidential Election 2020: Where things stand with one week to go

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Back in early June I wrote that Donald Trump was in big trouble. Trump trailed Biden by close to double digits nationally. State level polls were equally grim. Nearly four months later, almost nothing has changed. Trump is down nearly double digits in the national polls and state-level polls show him trailing in every swing state, and at best running even some red states like Texas, Georgia, and Arizona. As Cook Political Report elections analyst (and Twitter must follow) Dave Wasserman has noted, district-level polling, which suggested big problems for Clinton in 2016, backs up the national polls. Biden is Continue reading Presidential Election 2020: Where things stand with one week to go→

Trump’s Base Strategy is Unlikely to Work in 2020. He was Warned

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Donald Trump is in big trouble. Polls released last week from Monmouth University, CNBC, the Economist, ABC News/Washington Post, and CBS News have Trump trailing Biden by 4 to 11 points nationally. On average, Trump is down by 7.8 points. State-level polling is equally grim. Biden is consistently polling ahead of Trump in the swing states. Perhaps even more concerning for Trump, Biden is statistically tied with Trump in a number of traditionally red states, including electoral vote rich Arizona and Texas. Trump’s Base is not Big Enough Trump’s struggles are unsurprising. To be sure, his largely white, Christian, and Continue reading Trump’s Base Strategy is Unlikely to Work in 2020. He was Warned→

Civilian Victimization and Rebel Territorial Control in Sierra Leone

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This is a guest post by Christian Oswald, Melanie Sauter, Sigrid Weber, and Rob Williams. It is based on the article titled Under the Roof of Rebels: Civilian Targeting After Territorial Takeover in Sierra Leone, appearing in International Studies Quarterly. How do rebels treat civilians after they take control of territory in civil wars? The study of rebel governance has gained traction in recent years, but often looks at this phenomenon from a static perspective. Empirically, civil wars are frequently characterized by changes in territorial control. In our research, we combine these two perspectives and look at civilian victimization immediately Continue reading Civilian Victimization and Rebel Territorial Control in Sierra Leone→

An Alternative Explanation of the US-Iran Escalation: A War for Public Approval?

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This is a guest post by Brendan Skip Mark and Efe Tokdemir. This post is based on research from their article When Killers Become Victims: Diversionary War, Human Rights, and Strategic Target Selection, published in International Interactions. Was the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani an attempt to divert attention from President Trump’s unfavorable domestic attention, and if so, will it be successful? The event parallels an earlier historical example. In 1998, a New York Times headline read “Impeachment Vote in the House Delayed As Clinton Launches Iraq Air Strike, Citing Military Need to Move Swiftly.” Then as now, many questioned Continue reading An Alternative Explanation of the US-Iran Escalation: A War for Public Approval?→

Outside the Wire: U.S. Military Deployments and Public Opinion in Host States

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Military Soldier Army War People

Three authors of The Quantitative Peace, along with a fourth collaborator, have published a new article in the American Political Science Review. Michael A. Allen, Michael E. Flynn, Carla Martinez Machain, and Andrew Stravers published the article “Outside the Wire: U.S. Military Deployments and Public Opinion in Host States” based on research we have engaged in over the last few years. The work was an interesting collaborative process and we may create a followup post that discusses writing the article and the strategy of framing and publishing the manuscript. You can find our lengthy appendix, replication data, our original data, Continue reading Outside the Wire: U.S. Military Deployments and Public Opinion in Host States→

Updating my civil war and terrorism syllabus

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Demagogue Populist Autocrat

I am in the process of updating my graduate-level syllabus on civil war and terrorism and the best way to find new readings is to reach out to the academic community. Specifically, if you have read anything in the last few years that should be a standard inclusion for a Master’s course on the topic. If you think I am missing any important works, topics, or people, please also let me know. Of course, there are inevitably errors in the syllabus; if you find a typo, let me know that as well. A word on course design: I designed the Continue reading Updating my civil war and terrorism syllabus→

Medals, Species, and Identity in Star Wars Episode IX

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As you may guess from the title, this contains two or three mild spoilers from Star Wars Episode IX and multiple spoilers from other Star Wars films and books. Do that with what you will.  Episode IX has been out for a week as of this writing and it has encountered mixed receptions from critics and fans alike. On the film critic aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes, it is the lowest-rated film of the five new ones (even lower than Solo), but among the audience score, it is tied for first with The Force Awakens. One of the main criticisms leveled Continue reading Medals, Species, and Identity in Star Wars Episode IX→

The “academics don’t have real world experience!” argument is really, really, dumb

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Some variant of this is line comes up from time to time, and it’s always irritating, but I think it’s something that strikes me as dumber the more time goes by. Whether it’s stated implicitly or explicitly, this remark is almost always uttered in the context of dismissing academic expertise or research. The logic here is never clearly stated, but presumably it has something to do with academics not being able to understand the things they study because they haven’t “lived it”. Insert appropriate hand-waving here. First, it’s just descriptively wrong. There are a lot of academics who get into Continue reading The “academics don’t have real world experience!” argument is really, really, dumb→

US-ROK Burden Sharing: You Want Us to Pay What Now?

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Since the beginning of the Trump Administration US allies have been walking something of a tightrope. Given the President’s Trumps strange relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, South Korea in particular has been in an especially strange place over the past three years. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump threatened to pull US forces out of South Korea if that country did not increase its funding for the US presence. More recently, the Trump Administration announced the cancellation of a series of large-scale military exercises with South Korea. The most recent dust-up involves demands by president Trump that Continue reading US-ROK Burden Sharing: You Want Us to Pay What Now?→