Quantitative and formal analysis of international relations, comparative politics, and American politics.
null0 Power is often the go-to solution for many puzzles in international relations, but it also presents as many questions as it seems to answer, if not more. One of the enduring puzzles in international relations deals with the relationship between powerful actors in the international system and weak actors; for many of our theories, … Read more
Gage Skidmore via Compfight Eric Cantor’s primary loss yesterday to unknown candidate, David Brat, was quite the spectacle. A House majority leader has never lost a primary battle. Almost immediately after his loss, media outlets began reporting that Cantor lost because he had taken a pro-immigration stance on immigration reform (or failed to take a … Read more
In the wake of the 2012 victory by Democratic incumbent Barack Obama, many within the Republican Party were deeply troubled by the election returns. Republican challenger Mitt Romney faired poorly among ethnic and racial minorities, to the point where Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus equated the party’s performance among Latinos (Romney won just 27 percent … Read more
This year marked my third year on the political science/academic job market. In May of 2013 I was offered a post-doc at the University of Alabama, and this year I was fortunate enough to land a tenure track job at Kansas State University, where I’ll be starting in the fall of 2014. Needless to say, … Read more
FutUndBeidl via Compfight 1. Do not take selfies in a voting booth. You could inadvertently photograph your own ballot or someone else’s ballot. You have the right to vote by secret ballot- make sure to keep it that way. 2. Voters who live in states that require voter identification cards- make sure to bring your identification … Read more
Official U.S. Navy Page via Compfight In the most recent update to the Correlates of War (COW) War databases (update to v4.0), the COW project added a new category of war to include wars between non-state actors, bringing us up to a total of four different types of wars: Inter-state, Intra-state, Extra-state, and Non-state wars. For those who are … Read more
Does familiarity with members of out-groups breed contempt or acceptance? The relationship between the geographic distribution of ethnic and racial minorities and white attitudes has been the subject of considerable academic debate since V.O. Key’s 1949 landmark Southern Politics. In Southern Politics, Key advanced the claim that white racial conservatism was the strongest in places … Read more
The deployment of US military forces has received a bump in attention over the past year or two. Most recently, as Michael Allen has discussed, US military forces were deployed to Poland in response to the deteriorating situation in Ukraine. In 2011 President Obama sent 100 US military personnel to Uganda to help track Joseph … Read more
My first post for the Quantitative Peace highlights the pervasive problem registering a business poses for economic development around the world. Entrepreneurs in developing countries often operate in the informal marketplace: transactions occur in a cash economy, taxes are rarely collected and enterprises are not represented in any formal, legal sense. These countries feature vibrant … Read more