Month: November 2010

Gift List for Political Scientists, 2010

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Mind Your Decisions has done an annual gift list for economists for the last few years, and Presh just put together his 2010 list.  Using his list as inspiration, I have compiled my own list of possible gifts for Political Scientists. Given my proclivity for strategic leisure, I believe I can construct this with some authority on the matter.   Board Games – We attempt to host a fortnightly game night, sometimes the evening is started with an appropriate movie, but often the board game will be the center of it all.  As political scientists, we have tried a few Continue reading Gift List for Political Scientists, 2010→

The Korean Conflict Is/Could/Would Be A Bad Thing

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Entries have been a bit sparse lately, but as the semester is winding down hopefully things will pick back up again on this front.  Aside from that, I had a few quick thoughts on some of the implications of the current conflict that is brewing between North and South Korea.

A few technical updates

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I've changed a few features on the blog to make access and moderation easier. 1) The RSS feed now features the entirety of posts as opposed to just the first sentence.  I have been told this will increase the amount of material that is actually read, but will decrease what we know about our readers.  As such, commenting is highly encouraged (though that has always been the case). This may cause the RSS feed in your reader to refresh and display all the old posts again. 2)Commenting now requires an active account.  Most blog readers will have something they can Continue reading A few technical updates→

Redistricting and Representation 101

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The 2010 decennial census is nearly complete and within the next couple of months US states will once again be redefining congressional district lines. For practical reasons, redistricting is a necessary process in the US political system. US House of Representative districts must be relatively equal in population size and from time to time district lines must be redrawn to account for population shifts. Although there are practical reasons for redistricting, the actual practice is subject to partisan bias. There has been a great deal of debate over how to provide safeguards against this bias and “fairly” draw district lines. Continue reading Redistricting and Representation 101→