Cynthia Van Maanen

Cynthia Van Maanen is a contributor to the Quantitative Peace blog and researcher in political science.

Projectors and Pollsters

by

The methodologists and closeted Americanists among us (everyone is during the election season, it seems–don’t worry, we won’t tell) may be interested to know that WashingtonPost.com is hosting a live chat tomorrow at noon with Nate Silver from FiveThirtyEight.com and Charles Franklin of Pollster.com.  If you are unfamiliar with these websites then first, you should … Read more

The European Treasury

by

Philip Coggan gave an interesting interview this morning to NPR in which he discussed the effect of the of the United States’ bailout failure on the European markets.  The primary purpose of the short interview was to describe the European perspective on the global impact of the U.S.’s financial crisis and the speculation on Congress’s activity surrounding it, though one incidental point caught my attention. 

Coggan mentions that a concern in Europe at the moment is that a large Swiss bank might fail.  This would be quite problematic because, while these types of firms are probably considered "too big to fail" for the European economy, the Swiss government could not afford to bail them out.  Europe has a strong interest in the survival and growth of European financial markets–whether they are located within an EU constituent state or not.  However, the EU does not have a treasury of its own, so it doesn’t have the power to spend taxpayers’ money on economic bailouts–it doesn’t even really taxpayers in the strictest sense.

Read more

Where’s OUR Particle Accelerator?

by

Yesterday, the first particle beam was guided through the $8 billion Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva.  In mid-October, the first particle beam collisions will be made, thus inaugurating the biggest, most expensive playground for particle physicists ever imagined.  I’ve been trying to figure out what political science equivalent would match the LHC in scale.  … Read more

What does Universal Jurisdiction Mean for the Future of the Sovereign State?

by

Earlier this month, Spain’s National Court decided to hear a case arising by a lawsuit from a pro-Tibet group against seven Chinese officials over the pre-Olympics repression of protests in Tibet.  This case draws on that court’s Doctrine of Universal Jurisdiction, as no Spaniards were personally harmed and, of course, the events in question did not occur on Spanish territory.  Perhaps the most notable instance of Spain’s use of Universal Jurisdiction is the charge of genocide against former Chilean dictator, Augusto Pinochet (those interested specifically in this case may want to check out my review of a recent documentary chronicling Chile’s attempts at reconciliation)–though, of course, the initial charges against Pinochet in Spain arose because of his crimes specifically against Spanish citizens in Chile.  Spain isn’t the only country that has begun to use such a legal doctrine more widely in recent years to attempt prosecutions for crimes against humanity.  Belgium and Canada are among the handful of countries that have asserted similar jurisdiction to prosecute crimes against humanity extra-territorially. 

Plenty of law review articles have been written about Universal Jurisdiction and what it means for international law, but what might it mean for international relations more generally?  What does it mean that one state can rule against the actions of another that don’t directly affect citizens or property of the first state?  Is this the death knell for the sovereign state? 

Read more

P.O.V.: Truth and Reconciliation in Chile

by

The PBS series, P.O.V., aired an excellent documentary Tuesday night called The Judge and The General.  This film tells the story of Juan Guzmán, a judge assigned to try criminal cases against members of Augusto Pinochet‘s regime in Chile.  Guzmán had been a supporter of Pinochet, and the film chronicles the information he uncovered while investigating these cases, and how he ultimately came to the realization that Pinochet’s legal immunity from prosecution was a huge hurdle toward Chile’s goal of truth and reconciliation.  From the P.O.V. synopsis:

The Judge and the General follows the twists and turns
of the efforts of Guzmán and others to overcome Pinochet’s immunity and his claims to be too ill, even too senile, to stand trial, and then his final defense — when significant proof had been gathered — that he had known nothing of the crimes. Was Pinochet, who died in 2006 while under
house arrest, brought to justice in the eyes of society? Or did he escape being “touched,” as his supporters jubilantly proclaim? What are the prospects for the cases against Pinochet underlings that are now under way? Most important, what are the prospects for Chile finding both truth and reconciliation through a legal accounting of its recent violent past?

A brief discussion of the film’s finer points follows the jump.

Read more

China, Sudan, and the British Empire

by

As the opening of the Olympics in Beijing nears, NPR is running a few series on the foundations and future of China’s global power within the context of the country’s history and economic position.  Today’s installment, “China and Sudan: A Marriage Sealed in Oil, History,” is the first of stories that will outline China’s influence … Read more

Strategies for Writing: Advice from the UNC Writing Center

by

Ever the connoisseur of writing strategy and style, I have encountered enough advice and discussion that I could probably change my dissertation topic to the analysis of the modi operandi of academic writers.  I’ll stick with my current dissertation topic for now, but some of this advice needs to be shared with as many  interested people as possible, such as that from the Writing Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  The handouts they have created offer valuable advice for academic writers at all levels.  Of the most useful for my purposes has been the handout on writing dissertations, of course.

Receive some enlightening advice after the jump.

Read more

The Unbearable Lightness of Game Theory?

by

OrgTheory.net has a great post today assessing the merits of game theory.  The author makes some excellent points.  In particular, he points out that some of the more interesting outcomes we see in the social sciences are off-equilibrium–inherently, then, these are the ones that we can’t explain with game theory.  Additionally, and more generally as a criticism of rational choice, individuals don’t necessarily make decisions that conform to what we typically think of as the rules that describe rational actors.

Check out the post at OrgTheory.net, and the preceding entry by the same blogger (Michael McBride) about game theory’s potentially misleading name, and meet me back here after the jump.

Read more

Stats Professors and State Lotteries

by

Last month, Washington and Lee professor Scott Hoover announced that he intended to sue the Virginia State Lottery (a threat that became a lawsuit yesterday).  Hoover, a business finance professor, wasn’t upset that he didn’t win the lottery–he was upset that it had become impossible to win the prize.  His complaint is that the Virginia … Read more