Author Archives: K. Chad Clay

About K. Chad Clay

K. Chad Clay is an assistant professor in the Department of International Affairs at the University of Georgia and co-director of the CIRI Human Rights Data Project. His research focuses on the impact of international factors on human rights practices, political violence, and economic development. He received his PhD in political science from Binghamton University in 2012.

How Do U.S. Troop Deployments Affect Respect for Human Rights?

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Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Carla Martinez Machain. She is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Kansas State University. Can U.S. troops abroad improve respect for human rights? A recent conversation with a U.S. Army lieutenant colonel who had deployed to Guinea as part of a series of U.S. military training exercises for military personnel in sub-Saharan Africa revealed that much of the training local troops receive involves human rights training, both theoretical and practical.  In a particularly amusing anecdote, he recounted going as far as having long conversations with local soldiers on why Continue reading How Do U.S. Troop Deployments Affect Respect for Human Rights?→

What to Expect in Graduate School: A Primer

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Editor’s Note: This post is co-authored with Andrew P. Owsiak, Assistant Professor of International Affairs at the University of Georgia, and is cross-posted at Relations International.  It also owes a debt to our colleagues in UGA’s Departments of International Affairs and Political Science that participated in the Graduate Student Professionalization seminar on September 12, 2014. Last week, we, along with several of our UGA School of Public and International Affairs colleagues, met with graduate students in our program to talk about graduate school expectations. For first year students, this was an introduction to graduate school. For those past their first Continue reading What to Expect in Graduate School: A Primer→

Happy Medium, Happy Citizens: Presidential Power & Democratic Regime Support

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Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Shane P. Singh, Assistant Professor of International Affairs at the University of Georgia, and Ryan E. Carlin, Associate Professor of Political Science at Georgia State University.  Their article, “Happy Medium, Happy Citizens: Presidential Power and Democratic Regime Support,” is forthcoming at Political Research Quarterly. The presidential model of democracy is famously associated with democratic instability, as presidents are prone to usurping power beyond their mandates and clashing with the legislature, which is elected separately and can also claim to speak for the people. Nevertheless, newly (re-)emerged democracies in Latin America have chosen to Continue reading Happy Medium, Happy Citizens: Presidential Power & Democratic Regime Support→

QP LIVE! Where to Find Us at MPSA 2014

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It's the time of year that I affectionately call "conference season," i.e. the springtime one-two punch of the annual meetings of the International Studies Association and the Midwest Political Science Association.  This week, thousands of political scientists will descend upon Chicago hoping to learn about new research, present some research of their own, and/or connect with old friends and new colleagues.  Your trusty bloggers here at the Quantitative Peace will be among those making the trek, so, in case you are interested in seeing the kind of stuff we work on when we're not blogging, I've put together a schedule Continue reading QP LIVE! Where to Find Us at MPSA 2014→

The Conversation on Political Science & Public Engagement

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As I'm sure most of you are aware, Nicholas Kristof believes that American academics (especially political scientists) don't do enough to engage with the public.  Political scientists have responded: Steve Saideman discusses how Kristof's complaints are oddly out of date, the importance of academic journals, and his role in the ISA blogging dustup; Erik Voeten points out that we're doing a lot of relevant research and more outreach than ever before;  Will Moore reminds us that professors are already getting their ideas out to the public by teaching them to the next generation and sheds some light on the reasoning behind the ISA blogging Continue reading The Conversation on Political Science & Public Engagement→

Mapping Torture Allegations Using ITT

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In conjunction with a project on state capacity and repression, I’ve recently been exploring the specific allegation data from Courtenay Conrad and Will Moore‘s Ill-Treatment & Torture (ITT) Data Collection Project.  ITT’s specific allegation data are interestingly different from existing human rights data sets like the one (full disclosure) I co-direct, the CIRI Human Rights Data Project.  Whereas CIRI provides a yearly country score based on a standards-based ordinal coding of the level of government respect for its citizens’ right to be free from torture and ill-treatment, the ITT data provide information on all allegations of government torture or ill-treatment made Continue reading Mapping Torture Allegations Using ITT→

Political Words & Phrases in Hip Hop

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Recently, my wife discovered the Rap Stats tool at Rap Genius, which plots the relative frequency of words and phrases in rap songs from 1988 to the present.  Of course, when she showed it to me, my immediate thought was to start plotting political words and phrases and see if we could pick up any patterns over time.  The first thing we did was take a look at the relative frequency of the names of U.S. presidents from 1988 to the present. As you can see, the patterns are basically as one would expect. Reagan isn’t mentioned much, possibly because Continue reading Political Words & Phrases in Hip Hop→

Human Rights, Foreign Direct Investment, & INGOs

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Over at IPE@UNC, Lindsay Tello discusses the article on foreign direct investment and human rights shaming that Colin Barry, Michael Flynn, and I have in this month’s International Studies Quarterly.  Here’s the abstract: Non-state actors, such as international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) and multi- national corporations (MNCs), have attained an increasingly prominent role in modern world affairs. While previous research has focused on these actors’ respectiveinteractions with states, little attention has been paid to their interactions with each other. In this paper, we examine the extent to which the decisions of private actors seeking to invest abroad are affected by the reputational costs of doing business in countries Continue reading Human Rights, Foreign Direct Investment, & INGOs→

Human Rights in 2011: The CIRI Report

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The CIRI Human Rights Data Project, which I co-direct with David Cingranelli and David Richards, has released its ratings of government respect for 16 internationally-recognized human rights in almost every country in the world for the year 2011.  The CIRI Project’s data stretch back, annually, to 1981 and can be freely accessed at www.humanrightsdata.org. This data release has also been accompanied by a number of changes at the CIRI Project.  A new country was added to the data for 2011 (South Sudan), and the project’s citation has changed.  Perhaps most importantly, CIRI’s release schedule has changed.  In the future, data Continue reading Human Rights in 2011: The CIRI Report→

Change & Stability in Physical Integrity Rights Abuse

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Over at Political Violence @ a Glance, Reed Wood makes a strong argument that global respect for human rights, measured via the global mean of the Political Terror Scale, has not increased over time.  Amanda Murdie goes on to demonstrate that the same stability over time is present in the Physical Integrity Rights Index from the CIRI Human Rights Data Project, which I co-direct with David Cingranelli and David Richards.  I agree whole-heartedly with Amanda’s and Reed’s assessments.  Like them, I see little reason to believe that large improvements in global human rights practices have taken place over the last 30 years, particularly with regard Continue reading Change & Stability in Physical Integrity Rights Abuse→