Quantitative and formal analysis of international relations, comparative politics, and American politics.
Michael A. Allen There is currently a proposal before ISA to prevent blogging by the editorial members of ISA journals. While there are a few posts discussing how this is professionally problematic and limits some real discussion that is happening via blog, there is one other arena such a mandate would also hurt: My classroom. During the 2013-2014 … Read more
In six days, 2014 commences and people across the globe will make resolutions to change their habits in areas concerning health, wealth, family, and work. I do not make such resolutions, but that minor detail will not stop me from providing some boilerplate resolutions for academics. Here are a few ideas to kick off the … Read more
It is a week before the American tradition of "Black Friday" starting on Thursday, and I have not done an updated list on "Gifts for Political Scientists" since 2010, so here is my proposed list for 2013. Trying to find gifts for that special poltiical scientist in your life can be quite difficult. Given the … Read more
I am currently in the process of entirely rewriting and redesigning one of my earliest academic papers that I want to update with the context of better data and methods in evaluating the hypotheses I initially proposed. That is, I am writing the same paper a second time. As part of this process, I am … Read more
The peer review process is an imperfect construction that helps lend credibility to the publication of research. It is not the final arbiter of who is right, as cumulative research should encourage further discussion, but it is an important barrier that offers a check on research and also provides feedback as authors work to make … Read more
Note: We are returning to a weekly blogging schedule. As such, if you still have us on your RSS reader, new content will be regular! ___ I am about to begin my fifth semester teaching introduction to international relations and it will be my third such offering at Boise State. We are elevating the course … Read more
Two new pieces from QP authors. First, Michael Flynn has a solo-authored piece in an upcoming Foreign Policy Analysis that has an early view avaible. Abstract: How does political competition among domestic actors influence foreign policy choice? Studies examining these questions often focus on the role of economic or partisan interests, and how they influence … Read more
Confession time. One of my favorite subreddits on reddit is r/mapporn; a subreddit dedicated to the most visually appealing maps from all historical periods and dealing with a variety of topics. We, at QP, cannot get our fill of maps as we (especially Michael Flynn) have blogged about it a few times (see here, here, and … Read more
Discussing the election is all but inevitable. Given my proclivity for numbers, I gathered opinions from 11 willing "experts," including 5 political scientists, 3 bloggers from the QP, 8 PhDs, and members from other related field (Public Policy, Communication, and Planning). Nine of the members are from Boise State. Of course, to reward those who … Read more
Since tomorrow is national election day in the US, the get out the vote drives are in full swing. So, in celebration of voting, a few relevant articles on academics and voting: The rational voter paradox illustrated by Downs' An Economic Theory of Democracy suggests few should actually vote, but many do. This may be due to voters … Read more