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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Genetically Pre-Disposed to Enjoy Politics?

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A new study finds that our genes may determine how interested we are in politics. Interesting…

"Social scientists are stumped. Why do we bother to go to the polls when we know our individual vote has no chance of determining the result of a national election? Variations in turnout — by age, race, income or whatever — are hard to fit into a theory of human conduct that assumes that people are rational. But with time to spare before the November election, molecular biology is coming to the rescue. In the same way that researchers have teased out a role for genes in determining sexual orientation or the propensity to smoke, they are deploying genetics to understand our political choices."

More after the jump….

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