Quantitative and formal analysis of international relations, comparative politics, and American politics.
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
News broke late last night that President Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor (NSA), retired Lt. General Michael Flynn, resigned his position amidst mounting concerns that he had improper and possibly illegal exchanges with Russia’s ambassador, and concerns that he was possibly compromised and vulnerable to blackmail. I’m not going to wade into these weightier issues. Flynn’s … Read more
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
Editor’s note: The following is a guest post by Mert Moral and Efe Tokdemir for their forthcoming article in the International Political Science Review entitled, “Justices ‘en Garde’: ideological determinants of the dissolution of anti-establishment parties”. Mert is currently a doctoral candidate in political science at Binghamton University. Efe is a doctoral candidate in political science … Read more
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
I am thrilled to share that my co-editor, Justin Vaughn, and I have just published the book, Poli Sci Fi, with Routledge. The collected works feature several different authors, including three other bloggers from the Quantitative Peace. The volume connects central research and themes of political science to science fiction films and TV shows (specific episodes). … Read more
Note: This is essentially a reposting of an earlier post from 2014. I have made a few minor tweaks to the original, but it’s more or less the same post. Anyone with different backgrounds or experience is welcome to share their advice in the comments section (provided it’s constructive). In a previous post I outlined … Read more
Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Carla Martinez Machain. She is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Kansas State University. Can U.S. troops abroad improve respect for human rights? A recent conversation with a U.S. Army lieutenant colonel who had deployed to Guinea as part of a series of U.S. … Read more
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, “To instill fear or love: Terrorist groups … Read more
Between teaching classes and a couple of projects that I’ve been working on lately, I’ve been finding Stata’s spmap command to be a really useful tool for generating maps to display data. One project in particular has involved the collection of some new data for examining various developmental outcomes at the subnational level. To some extent … Read more