The Quantitative Peace

Forecasting Political Violence

January 26, 2011 by Julie VanDusky-Allen

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.

The International Relations Implications of Chinese Parenting Practices

January 18, 2011 by Michael Flynn

By now I'm sure most people have come across Amy Chua's recent Wall Street Journal article. After reading David Brooks' response to Chau's article, I've begun to think of some of some of the international relations implications of Chua's Chinese parenting style. Specifically, I'm curious to see what her revelations imply for China's ascendency in … Read more

Citing eBooks

January 4, 2011 by Michael Flynn

I got my Amazon Kindle about a year ago and I really enjoy it, but I am finding myself become increasingly frustrated by the apparent lack of standards when it comes to citing eBooks. On some occassions this isn't really a problem—if you need a particular page number you can often times type a phrase … Read more

Biology and Politics

December 30, 2010 by Julie VanDusky-Allen

A few years ago I wrote a blog post about a study that found a link between certain genes and interest in politics. Two new studies have come out since that go even further, and find a link between brain region size and genes, and political preference. I discuss them below. Brain Region Size and Ideology A … Read more

2000 – 2010: End of Year/End of Decade Lists: Top Five Politically Significant Days of the Decade?

March 16, 2026December 26, 2010 by Ben Farrer

I love lists and I hope you do too. Several lists have occurred to me recently, and I was going to ignore my itch to make them because there are probably lots of good end-of-year lists floating around now. But do any of them take a quantitative approach to list-making? I’m going to try the … Read more

The best and worst of review comments – Microbiology edition

December 15, 2010 by Michael A. Allen

Microbiology posts its best reviewer comments every year; the 2010 edition is out (I beleive the article is ungated). A few highlights include: The writing and data presentation are so bad that I had to leave work and go home early and then spend time to wonder what life is about. It is sad to … Read more

CRACK

December 2, 2010 by Michael Flynn

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

Gift List for Political Scientists, 2010

March 23, 2026November 30, 2010 by Michael A. Allen

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

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

November 28, 2010 by Michael Flynn

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.

A few technical updates

November 16, 2010 by Michael A. Allen

I've changed a few features on the blog to make access and moderation easier. 1) The RSS feed now features the entirety of posts as opposed to just the first sentence. I have been told this will increase the amount of material that is actually read, but will decrease what we know about our readers. … Read more