Quantitative Research

Maps Maps Maps

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Back in December I had a brief post about CRACK, a mapmaking software package for Macs.  The downside was that CRACK only worked for making maps of the United States.  As the need has arisen, Michael Allen and I began looking for something similar that could handle world maps.  This brings me to OpenHeatMap, an … Read more

The Domestic Side of Things

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Clearly I'm trying to make up for a post drought from the past couple of months.  I'll leave the more in-depth commentary to someone who has been following this situation more closely, but it looks like the Wisconsin State Government is experiencing a wheeeeee-bit of a principal-agent problem (via Boing Boing). Wisconsin Police Have Joined … Read more

Rumsfeld Interview

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Given this piece from the other day, I thought this was an appropriate followup.  Daily Show fans have probably already seen his interview from last night with former Defense Secretary Donald Rumseld, but for those who have not I would recommend it.  Rumsfeld was unquestionably one of the most important architects of the Iraq war, … Read more

Quick Post

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So it's been a little while since I've posted here (very busy times these are).  Anyway, I wanted to link to this post by Phil Arena over at his blog.  Phil discusses how his views on various topics related to IR have changed over the past few years.  I agree with a lot of what he has to say on these issues–I think a lot of what IR scholars focus on, to the extent that we're interested in the domestic forces generating foreign policy outcomes, tend to place too much stock in the qualities we typically assume to characterize democracies and autocracies.  I also agree that economic forces play a huge role in shaping the incentives of political actors–particularly the elites that Arena mentions. 

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Forecasting Political Violence

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Political scientists from Binghamton University and Kansas State University have created a forecasting model to predict political violence. Here is a link to an article summarizing their research. Julie VanDusky-AllenJulie VanDusky-Allen is at Boise State University and received her PhD in Political Science from Binghamton University in 2011. Her research focuses on institutional choice and development, … Read more

CRACK

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I found this link via Andrew Gelman's blog the other day: CRACK Mapmaking software for Mac I haven't had much of a chance to play with it, but it looks like it could be useful.  I've had a few instances in class this semester where I've wanted to make some maps of the US to … Read more

The Korean Conflict Is/Could/Would Be A Bad Thing

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Entries have been a bit sparse lately, but as the semester is winding down hopefully things will pick back up again on this front.  Aside from that, I had a few quick thoughts on some of the implications of the current conflict that is brewing between North and South Korea.

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Losses Less than Expected?

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As the 2010 election draws near, many political pundits have predicted that the Democrats will face significant losses in House elections (for a nice summary of election forecasts see here and here). Some have even suggested that the losses will be enough for Democrats to lose majority control over the House. Commentators on CNN have even began discussing how Republicans and Democrats will share power in Washington after the election.  

Although it seems highly likely that Democrats will face losses in both chambers in the midterm election (as this is usually the case in midterm elections for members of the President's party), the extent of the losses may be slightly less than expected. A new study by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press suggests that polls that do not call cell phones may be misrepresenting how well Republicans will do in this year's upcoming election. While most national polls do call cell phones, the state and local polls generally do not. Given the study's results, predictions that use state and local polls in predicting this year's election results may be overestimating how well the Republicans will do.

More after the jump…

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A Couple of Things…

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Just a quick post on a couple of things:

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