Publish or Perish: A Text Adventure of Academic Survival
An interactive text adventure exploring academic publishing pressures, showing how AI tools like Claude Code can extend social science research.
Gifts for Political Scientists, 2020
A curated 2020 holiday gift guide for political scientists and IR scholars—books, games, and tools for academics and policy enthusiasts.
Presidential Election 2020: Where things stand with one week to go
Pre-election quantitative analysis of the 2020 presidential race: polling averages, battleground state forecasts, and electoral college projections with one week to go.
Trump’s Base Strategy is Unlikely to Work in 2020. He was Warned
Statistical analysis showing why Trump’s base mobilization strategy was unlikely to succeed in 2020, using demographic data and historical vote share trends.
Civilian Victimization and Rebel Territorial Control in Sierra Leone
New research on civilian victimization and rebel territorial control in Sierra Leone’s civil war, examining variation in atrocities across conflict zones.
An Alternative Explanation of the US-Iran Escalation: A War for Public Approval?
A public approval theory of the 2020 US-Iran military escalation: did domestic politics drive Trump’s decision to kill Soleimani?
Outside the Wire: U.S. Military Deployments and Public Opinion in Host States
New research on how US overseas military deployments affect public opinion in host states, drawing on cross-national survey data.
Updating my civil war and terrorism syllabus
Syllabus update for a graduate course on civil war and terrorism, featuring new readings on rebel governance, civilian targeting, and counterterrorism.
Medals, Species, and Identity in Star Wars Episode IX
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 … Read more
The “academics don’t have real world experience!” argument is really, really, dumb
A direct rebuttal of the claim that academics lack real-world experience—examining what political science research actually contributes to policy.