Quantitative and formal analysis of international relations, comparative politics, and American politics.
It's been a while since my last post, so I thought it was time to put up at least a little something: Senate Republicans are, for the moment, blocking Chuck Hagel's nomination as Defense Secretary. Admittedly, my attention to current events has been spotty over the past couple of months, but it seems that every time … Read more
The news surrounding Obama’s nomination of Chuck Hagel and John Brennan as Secretary of Defense and Director of the CIA (respectively) has primarily been focused on the “controversial” Hagel’s previous statements and positions. Republican commentators have been complaining about Hagel’s nomination, claiming that his nomination sends a powerful signal that the Obama administration is putting more … 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
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
The fact that this post follows so closely on the heels of my recent post regarding the sparseness of posts over the next couple of months should in no way be taken as negating my previous point. That said, Steve Saideman at the Duck has linked to this fairly lengthy piece on the role of … Read more
I have posted a list of ice breaker questions below that can be fun to use during the first week of classes. Feel free to comment if you have any more suggestions! 1. If you could meet 3 people, real or fictional, who would they be? 2. Name a political event that has impacted your … Read more
The Badminton World Federation disqualified four female badminton teams today from the London Olympics for unsportsmanlike behavior. These teams purposefully tried to lose their first match in a round robin event in order to be paired against easier teams in subsequent rounds (video recap here). These teams were obviously cheating as purposely losing in this … Read more
In Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey (not to be confused with their most Excellent Adventure), the duo are killed and sent to Hell. On their way to an eternity of punishment, Death gives them the ability to escape their fate if they can best him in a game of their choosing. The wager seems to … Read more
The United States Geologic Survey is having a deep sale on hundreds of maps. To better decorate my office, I am picking up a few. Two that might be of interest to the political science crowd: US Command distribution across the globe: The historical presidential elections map is also good: Michael A. AllenMichael … Read more
The movie version of the book The Hunger Games (Paperback, Kindle) is being released this week; the movie is expected to draw a large crowd and is already drawing superb ratings from critics. As such, given that there are both political and economic themes that run in the book that are ripe for political scientists and economists, … Read more