ISA panels

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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

Hunger Games: Civil Wars, Victory, and Repression

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The movie version of the book The Hunger Games (Paperback, Kindle) is being released this week; the movie is expected to draw a large crowd and is already drawing superb ratings from critics. As such, given that there are both political and economic themes that run in the book that are ripe for political scientists and economists, … Read more

There’s Defense, and then there’s Defense.

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This was posted a couple of days ago by Steve Clemmons. It's a table of US defense expenditures compiled by Winslow Wheeler at the Center for Defense Information. What's cool is that it collects information on expenditures on defense and security-related spending more broadly (Department of Energy, Veterans Affairs, Department of Homeland Security, etc.). The … Read more

Ron Paul Foreign Policy Ad

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I haven't seen this until this morning, but this is a video put out by a PAC supporting Ron Paul's campaign. I don't suspect the content of the video will sit well with many conservatives who like to think of the presence of US military forces as at best largely beneficial to the host state, … Read more

Big Week

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So it's been a busy semester with all of the dissertating, job applicating, researchitating, and paper writing. As I've mentioned before, blogging has (unfortunately) taken a bit of a back seat to all of this. I can't say that it hasn't been worth it, though, as this has been a rewarding semester insofar as the work that I've been focusing on is concerned. However, some big events have occurred over the past week and I feel compelled to at least say a little something about them. More after the jump…

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2010 CIRI Human Rights Data Project Report

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The CIRI Human Rights Data Project, of which I am a part, released its 2010 data last weekend.  A report pointing out interesting patterns can be viewed over at the CIRI Blog.  One interesting bit: The CIRI Index of Physical Integrity Rights measures a government’s overall level of respect for four rights: torture, extrajudicial killing, … Read more