Political Science

The Future of Political Science (summary, short discussion)

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I have mentioned, in a previous post, all of the books that fill up my summer reading list. As of now, I have at least one book completed and several more have been added to my list.  I have recently finished The Future of Political Science: 100 Perspectives, a collection of 100 short articles aimed at discussing what … Read more

Evolutionary Path Dependency

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A few colleagues and I have started to delve into Richard Dawkins The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution.  Apparently, our leisure reading involves reading science based books.  For those of you who are still reading the book, this blog post goes into detail about Chapter 11 and this introduction will serve as my official spoiler alert (in case you do not want your science spoiled); for others, we can venture on.

 

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Gift List for Political Scientists, 2010

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Mind Your Decisions has done an annual gift list for economists for the last few years, and Presh just put together his 2010 list.  Using his list as inspiration, I have compiled my own list of possible gifts for Political Scientists. Given my proclivity for strategic leisure, I believe I can construct this with some … Read more

Scribtex: online collaboration for LaTeX

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Michael Flynn and I have been discussing a new project based on recent data we have discovered and our mutual academic interests.  Given that we both have become LaTeX savvy, I was hoping to find a convenient way for us to collaborate without using the archaic system of emailing each other back and forth.  My … Read more

Lessons From the Past? Or Justifying an Idiosyncratic Research Agenda?

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I remember reading Michael Tomz's book Reputation and International Cooperation: Sovereign Debt Across Three Centuries for a seminar a couple of years ago, and someone having made a remark about how Tomz was probably just really interested in the time period or the subject matter, but had to frame the research in such a way as to justify its relevance beyond what might be the author's more narrow interests.  Since then I've had a few discussions with some of my advisers on the topic of how we frame our research–essentially how we sell a line of research as relevant to our field.  Overall though, I've found that this is a topic that seems to have stayed out of in-class discussions for the most part.

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Political Science Entertainment Night

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Tonight, a few of us are going to gather to participate in a movie and game night.  The goal of which is to be entertained by both while also having it relate to what we study in political science. Tonight's Agenda: The movie for tonight is the classic The Princess Bride. The inspiration for having … Read more

An Additional Benefit of Rapid Delivery

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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

700 Fresh Posts to read…

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Traveling for Thanksgiving gave me the opportunity to abandon my daily reading schedule and come back to a stockpile of new posts to read.  The highlights thus far from the last 5 days: – Flowing Data has a chart contest. The winner receives two Tufte books.  Entries are due on Friday. – Andrew Gelman has … Read more