The APSA and AAAS Take Action to Free Jailed Political Scientist

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The American Political Science Association is taking official action on behalf of Dr. Matrouk al-Faleh, a political scientist detained by the Saudi government.  You may have heard about this, especially if you’re a member of the Human Rights section of APSA; if you haven’t, here are some basic facts about Faleh and the consequences of … Read more

Prisoner’s Dilemma Answers

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I posted previously that Freakonomics was hosting a Prisoner’s Dilemma contest.  About a week ago they selected the top five answers and had a quick voting contest (comment democracy with 48 hours to decide the winner).  Since I am both currently attending one of the EITM summer programs and exercising my current mathematical knowledge by attempting to run a maximum likelihood estimation of a generalized Prisoner’s Dilemma model with a normally distributed cost function to the players for cooperation; it seemed like a good time to return to the post and evaluate the answers provided.

Adding a pre-game to the Prisoner’s Dilemma ought not to change the strategy of either player.  In theory, if you are asking your potential opponent/partner a question, you want to select someone who is going to play sub-optimally by either their own ignorance or your ability to convey to them that you are willing to cooperate (but will not anyways).  A rational interviewee will see this, and will either defect no matter what to dissuade you from picking them or attempt to coax the main player into cooperation only willing to defect later.  When evaluating any question you are asking another person a question in a non-cooperative framework, you must ascribe the same level of rationality that they will have in playing the game.  That is, if you believe people to remain rational actors, then talk prior to the game can remain cheap as a single question may not return an honest answer.

After the jump I discuss the five questions and the usefulness of each:

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Strategic Behavior? It’s all in the Eye of the Beholder

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Michael referred me to this Blog Entry, at Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science, that deals with the choices of US political parties. It links the idea of what the optimal behavior in business cycles should be to what the optimal behavior in electoral cycles should be. The blogger argues that it is in … Read more

Does “Political Science” Need Saving?

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Normally, I tend to ignore how popular media outlets and general popular culture deals with and treats the concept of "political science" as such characterizations often appear to come from indifference, misunderstanding, or ignorant hostility.  However, as we are in the full swing of a political season, it appears that the term of political science, as some of us are practicing it, is being drug through the mud once again and is becoming increasingly confused with "politics".

More of a discussion follows the jump…

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Interviewing Theorists

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While browsing for more distractions in the world of blogging that would add to my understanding of political science, I happily came across Theory Talks, a website devoted to promoting discussion about political science by interviewing prominent writers in our discipline.  For example, the latest post includes a lengthy question and answer with Robert Keohane.  … Read more

Heroin Chic, the Second Wave

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NPR reported a very interesting story this morning on the attempt to steer Afghanistan’s thriving poppy crops away from the opium industry and toward the cosmetic industry. 

For the past several years, a group of Afghan and foreign businessmen
has been trying to offer an alternative, by urging farmers to grow
flowers for perfume instead of for drugs. But it has been a frustrating
and costly project.

See you after the jump.

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When War and Academia Collide

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Academics in all subfields of political science often lament that policy and military failures arise from the lack of communication between policy-makers and the academic community.  The recent tragic death of Michael Bhatia highlights some of the issues involved with the tenuous collaboration between those who analyze data and those who generate them, and the sometimes unfortunate consequences.  Bhatia was killed on May 7 in an explosion that targeted the American soldiers with whom he had been embedded in Afghanistan.

Bhatia had been teaching at Brown University’s Watson Institute for
International Studies as well as working on a doctoral degree from
Oxford University when he decided to enroll with the military’s Human
Terrain System. The program, run by the U.S. Army’s Training and
Doctrine Command, hires social scientists to collect and share
information abut Afghani culture with U.S. troops. Bhatia is the first
civilian in the program to die.

More after the jump. . .

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Stealing Restaurant Grease for a Living

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The increased prevalence of do-it-yourself energy kits for individuals to convert diesel engines to a bio-diesel source has been hailed by advocates as a clean, cheap, and green-friendly alternative to gasoline.  Conversion Kits, how-to guides, and promotion videos can be found all over youtube.com and similar sites.  One of the promoted benefits is that the consumer can either get used grease oil free from restaurants or even get paid to haul away what was considered a waste product. 

The New York Times is reporting a new trend in which individuals are stealing this former waste product from restaurants:

Outside Seattle, cooking oil rustling has become such a problem that the owners of the Olympia Pizza and Pasta Restaurant in Arlington, Wash., are considering using a surveillance camera to keep watch on its 50-gallon grease barrel. Nick Damianidis, an owner, said the barrel had been hit seven or eight times since last summer by siphoners who strike in the night.

“Fryer grease has become gold,” Mr. Damianidis said. “And just over a year ago, I had to pay someone to take it away.”

…More after the jump.

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