Fictional Political Scientists

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Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Carla Martinez Machain. She is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Kansas State University. In having a recent conversation with one of my colleagues in the English department, she noted (with much regret), that the most common characteristic of English professors in fiction is … Read more

Data Collection Project: Songs that Mention Being a Specific Age

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This complicated and strange project began innocently enough when I decided to make a mix CD for my friend’s birthday and went searching for relevant songs. But ‘songs about turning xx years old’ turns out not to be a very straightforward thing to search for. So after burning the CD I was left with a burning question: why had I found so few songs? In this blog post, I look at which ages get sung about and which don’t, and I present a comprehensive list of 189 songs that mention being a specific age. You can download the list here, and below, I go into more detail on three points:

1) How a surprisingly thorny measurement problem was resolved.

2) Some (younger) ages get mentioned in dozens of songs, other (older) ages are barely    referenced. I examine these trends quantitatively and compare them to other trends, like  how political stances change with age.

3) Quite frankly, it’s impossible to assemble a list like this and not notice that a lot of the  lyrics involve older men talking about younger women in a – what seems to me at least –  creepy way.

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Reducing Infant Mortality Rates

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 Infant Mortality Rates in the United States In 2010, the US had an infant mortality rate of 6.1 infant deaths per 1,000 live births. This was the third largest infant mortality rate among OECD countries, only less than Mexico and Turkey. In contrast, Finland had the second lowest infant mortality rate among OECD countries, with … Read more

So You’re on the Job Market, Part II: Expectations

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In a previous post I outlined some of the steps graduate students can take to prepare for their time on the job market. I want to emphasize again that much of this really reflects my own set of experiences and training (i.e. three years applying for tenure track jobs at research universities). Much of what … Read more

Star Wars as Civil War

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Wookieepedia It should come as no surprise that, in addition to gaming (board, video, and card), enjoying comics and comic book movies, and about everything else that is nerdy, I enjoy speculative fiction (and fantasy) and that includes the high fantasy in space that is Star Wars.  The past six months or so have been … Read more

Handicapping the Republican Party’s Odds in the 2016 Presidential Race

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Mitt Romney was a good presidential candidate; he ran a good campaign in the 2012 election.  He had the necessary experience.  He stayed on message, performed well in the debates, and by most accounts, appeared presidential.   Romney also had the benefit of not flying into a strong economic headwind; the state of the economy certainly … Read more

It’s Only Half-Time for Brazil’s Protest Movements

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The story of this World Cup has been the matches – high scoring, surprise exits, unexpected advances and exciting play. Yet, several weeks before the Cup began, most coverage of the tournament fell into two camps. The first emphasized popular outrage at Brazil’s extensive spending on soccer stadiums and other improvements meant to streamline the … Read more

Happy Medium, Happy Citizens: Presidential Power & Democratic Regime Support

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Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Shane P. Singh, Assistant Professor of International Affairs at the University of Georgia, and Ryan E. Carlin, Associate Professor of Political Science at Georgia State University.  Their article, “Happy Medium, Happy Citizens: Presidential Power and Democratic Regime Support,” is forthcoming at Political Research Quarterly. The presidential model of … Read more

Explaining A Party System by Looking at the Alternatives to Parties

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The most recent issue of Party Politics (July 2014) includes my article on why political activists choose to form different types of political organizations (you can find the version of record and abstract here). This work was a core part of my dissertation, and so I’d like to take this opportunity to give an informal overview of it, and particularly some of the more general implications. I think this work is most relevant to people interested in party system size, emerging issues such as environmentalism, and activist behaviour. The basic idea is about how different political organizations can substitute for each other: forming new political parties can give small communities a political voice, but it is not the only way to make your voice heard: indeed, it is not even always the best way. Sometimes it can be better to form a different type of political organization that can have a strong impact but via another path.

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