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.
Data
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.
On Rex Tillerson’s Tenure as Secretary of State
On Tuesday, President Trump issued a tweet announcing that Rex Tillerson would be replaced as Secretary of State by current CIA Director Mike Pompeo. That Tillerson would be replaced as Secretary was not exactly news—reports of the tense relationship between Tillerson and the President date back several months at this point. What was surprising was the … Read more
The Trump Administration’s Ban on Transgender Soldiers
⚠️ This post was written in July 2017 and reflects the political situation at that time. Some details may be outdated. On Wednesday, July 26, the President Trump issued the following series of tweets announcing a ban on transgender individuals from serving in the military: After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be … Read more
The 2018 Budget Proposal: Less State, More Defense
News outlets have been reviewing the Trump administration’s proposed budget for FY 2018. The proposal makes deep cuts to several federal agencies and spending categories, while also increasing funding to a select few agencies. The article linked above discusses the budget breakdown in greater depth, comparing different programs and agencies to see where the cuts fall. … Read more
How the US military’s overseas troop deployments affect global defense spending
This post is based on the article “Regions of Hierarchy and Security: US Troop Deployments, Spatial Relations, and Defense Burdens”, by Michael Allen (Boise State University), Michael Flynn (Kansas State University), and Julie VanDusky–Allen (Boise State University), which is forthcoming in International Interactions. Since the end of World War II, the United States has deployed … Read more
How Legislator Professionalization Constrains Executive Decree Issuance in Latin America
This is a guest post by Alissandra T. Stoyan (Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Kansas State University) and Sarah Shair-Rosenfield (Assistant Professor, School of Politics and Global Studies, Arizona State University). This post is based on their article, “Constraining Executive Action: The Role of Legislator Professionalization in Latin America,” forthcoming at Governance and now … Read more
Terrorism vs. Terror Organizations: Violence Is Not The Only Tool
The following is a guest post by Seden Akcinaroglu and Efe Tokdemir. Seden is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Binghamton University. Efe is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science at Binghamton University. This post is based on research from their recent article, “Reputation of Terror Groups Dataset: Measuring popularity … Read more
Teaching (and learning) Quantitative Analysis
I’ve spent the last few years teaching quantitative methods to undergraduate majors at Boise State. Ours is one of the few Political Science departments to require a two-course statistics sequence for our majors and we’re always seeking ways to improve the experience. As you might imagine, very few students become political science majors because they’re … Read more
The 2014 Election by the Numbers
Note: I acquired the data for this post on November 5th, 2014 at 1:00 pm. A handful of election results were still not fully updated. In this post, I briefly describe the outcome of the House of Representatives elections. I only analyze elections where there was one Democrat on the ballot and one Republican on the ballot. … Read more