QP LIVE! Where to Find Us at MPSA 2014

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 of our presentations with a brief description of each.  Check it out after the jump.

Read more

Troop Deployment Research and Poland

Interstate conflict is a rare phenomenon. Since 1816, the Correlates of War project only counts 96 different wars occurring over an almost 200 year period.  Given Russia’s incursion into the Crimean peninsula, it is of little surprise that IR scholar blogging activity has been rampant the past week; we may just have conflict 97 just … Read more

Monkey Cage APSA Survey

Given that there is a hurricane that is currently headed for the city of New Orleans—a city which also happens to be hosting the 2012 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association—this poll at the Monkey Cage may be of some interest to many of you out there. There currently seems to be a … Read more

Human Rights and NGOs

I've been working recently on quite a few projects that deal with human rights and NGOs, and today's BBC podcast has quite a bit of material that is relevant to these topics.  First, there's a story regarding a new law that is being debated in Russia that would require NGOs receiving funding from external sources … Read more

MPSA Paper, Deadly Triangles

For the Midwest Political Science Association annual convention this year, I have only one paper.  I will present a paper co-authored with Sam Bell and Chad Clay looking at the impact rivalry has on dispute escalation in asymmetric dyads.  Friday (4/13) at 4:35 pm, on the panel 18-22 Rivalry and Conflict, we will present the paper … Read more

ISA panels

While I am not attending ISA physically this year, I have two different papers being presented by co-authors.  As such, a bit of shameless self-promotion.   The first paper is being presented by Matt DiGiuseppe on Tuesday (4/3) at 8:15 AM in Hospitality Suite 2201 on the Economics in International Processes panel. Our paper, "Austere Alliances: Sovereign … Read more

Music and Academia: The Role of Colons in Titles

This post is written by Ben Farrer whose account is currently down. I’m starting to strongly dislike academic titles that take the form: “Metaphor For x: Actual Description Of x”, or similar, and am venting my frustration with a game. As an example of the type I dislike, one of my own undergraduate essays was … Read more

MWPSA Paper

I will be flying for Chicago early Wednesday morning for the Midwest Political Science Association Conference.  This is my first co-authored paper with Julie (another contributor to his blog) and we will present the following paper Thursday morning: The contemporary rise to infamy of Blackwater Worldwide and the private corporation's misdeeds in the Iraq War … Read more

An Additional Benefit of Rapid Delivery

My teaching style, as well as my presentation style, is marked by a relatively rapid delivery.  I had favored such a style quite awhile ago for many public speaking formats as the general perception of the speaker by the audience is favorable (generally heighten perceptions of intelligence and mastery of the material).  However, now I … Read more