The Quantitative Peace

How Bruce Bueno de Mesquita buys a car

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita explains how to buy a car cheaply--something he mentioned on the Colbert Report this week:

 

 

The Colbert interview can be found here.

Ron Paul Foreign Policy Ad

I haven't seen this until this morning, but this is a video put out by a PAC supporting Ron Paul's campaign. I don't suspect the content of the video will sit well with many conservatives who like to think of the presence of US military forces as at best largely beneficial to the host state, and at worst, mostly benign. In spite of the pressures to cut budgets and downsize government, I think the Republican party is still largely composed of people that take a very militaristic view of American foreign policy and how we should conduct ourselves on the world stage. That said, I would imagine that this sort of thing is largely baked in as this policy position is not new for Ron Paul and probably doesn't matter too much in terms of swaying voters one way or the other. Nevertheless, the video is pretty impressive insofar as its bluntness is concerned.  

(Video via Steve Clemmons at the Washington Note) 

Big Week

So it's been a busy semester with all of the dissertating, job applicating, researchitating, and paper writing. As I've mentioned before, blogging has (unfortunately) taken a bit of a back seat to all of this. I can't say that it hasn't been worth it, though, as this has been a rewarding semester insofar as the work that I've been focusing on is concerned. However, some big events have occurred over the past week and I feel compelled to at least say a little something about them. More after the jump...

2010 CIRI Human Rights Data Project Report

The CIRI Human Rights Data Project, of which I am a part, released its 2010 data last weekend.  A report pointing out interesting patterns can be viewed over at the CIRI Blog.  One interesting bit:

The CIRI Index of Physical Integrity Rights measures a government's overall level of respect for four rights: torture, extrajudicial killing, political imprisonment, disappearance. The index ranges from 0 (no respect for any of these four rights) to 8 (full respect for all four of these rights). In 2008-2009, the world saw an overall average increase in these rights of .047. However, a reversal of this improvement was seen from 2009-2010, with it's overall average decline in respect of -.031...An important part of this overall decline in respect for physical integrity rights comes from a continuing degradation, globally, of respect for the right not to be tortured. For example, 2009-2010 saw 17 countries engage in more torture, while only 8 engaged in less torture...This trend in the greater use of torture is not a post-9/11 phenomenon, however. The chart below shows the increased use of torture beginning in the early 1980s. The extent of the drop in respect for this right differed by region and is seen to be particularly acute in Africa.

This is particularly interesting when combined with the fact that, according to CIRI, political imprisonment has become less common over the same time period.  Off the top of my head, I would probably attribute these changes to substitution of one form of repression for the other.  It seems likely that, as information on human rights abuses has become more widespread, governments have engaged less in the physical integrity rights violation that is the hardest to publicly deny (political imprisonment) and more in a form of repression that is much more clandestine (torture).  This seems especially plausible to me since one of the world's greatest publicizers of human rights abuses, Amnesty International, began its life as an organization primarily committed to supporting and publicizing the plight of "prisoners of conscience" worldwide.  Over time, the cost of engaging in political imprisonment may very well have become high enough to make other, less visible forms of repression more attractive.

Of course, there are many alternative explanations for these changes, and there is a lot of work that remains to be done in terms of developing theories of state repression.  This simply stands out as one of the many empirical puzzles that remain to be solved for those of us interested in studying government respect for human rights.  In the meantime, check out the CIRI Human Rights Data at http://www.humanrightsdata.org and the CIRI blog at http://humanrightsdata.blogspot.com/.

 

Links from the Weekend

• Peer Review of the Internet - "It will enable sentence-level critique of written words combined with a sophisticated yet easy-to-use model of community peer-review. It will work as an overlay on top of any stable content, including news, blogs, scientific articles, books, terms of service, ballot initiatives, legislation and regulations, software code and more-without requiring participation of the underlying site." h/t - orgtheory
  
  
• South Korea launches an online "Unification Channel" to educate younger generations about the dangers of reunification. 


• What 7 billion people look like
  
  
• Graphic Dispatches from a Recent College Grad Still Living in a College Town - Gift prices for the holidays v. education v. the real world.
  
  
• 3QD prize voting is now open - Several of the nominated posts are by political scientists and the winner will receive a $1,000 prize.

Social Science Bloggers, You Can Win Money

3 Quarks Daily is hosting its 3rd Annual 3QD Politics & Social Science Prize for "best blog writing in politics & social science:"

As usual, this is the way it will work: the nominating period is now open, and will end at 11:59 pm EST on December 3, 2011. There will then be a round of voting by our readers which will narrow down the entries to the top twenty semi-finalists. After this, we will take these top twenty voted-for nominees, and the four main editors of 3 Quarks Daily (Abbas Raza, Robin Varghese, Morgan Meis, and Azra Raza) will select six finalists from these, plus they may also add up to three wildcard entries of their own choosing. The three winners will be chosen from these by Professor Walt.

The first place award, called the "Top Quark," will include a cash prize of one thousand dollars; the second place prize, the "Strange Quark," will include a cash prize of three hundred dollars; and the third place winner will get the honor of winning the "Charm Quark," along with a two hundred dollar prize.

Stephen Walt is judging:

We are very honored and pleased to announce that Professor Stephen M. Walt, who was also the winner of the 3QD politics prize last year, has agreed to be the final judge for our 3rd annual prize for the best blog writing in politics & social science

 

Hat tip: Henry at Crooked Timber

The Danger of Online Articles

I listen to several podcasts each work during my daily commute to and from the office.  One podcast, the Skeptics Guide to the Universe (SGU), has several segments each week, with a few discussing scientific findings.  My favorite is a game for the panel where three scientific research findings are offered and the panelists guess which one is false. That is, a finding is made up by the host; often, it is in the opposite direction of a recent study. The other two findings are "science;" a result that has been published in a recent journal.

Two episodes ago (#330, 11/12/2011), the podcasters were sent an email from a listener that linked to a peer-reviewed study that offered the following result:

Remote, retroactive intercessory prayer said for a group is associated with a shorter stay in hospital and shorter duration of fever in patients with a bloodstream infection and should be considered for use in clinical practice.

That is, the BMJ study had people, in the year 2000, pray for patients with bloodstream infections during the years 1990-1996.  The study shows a statistically significant reduction in both the duration and level of the fevers the patients had. Naturally, this confounded both the guests and the panelists, which lead to a lengthy discussion about the obvious flaws of the study.  

Within a week of that podcast airing, a listener informed the hosts that the BMJ's December issue tends to contain whimsical studies for the sake of humor.  That is, the study should not be taken seriously or touted as coming from a peer-reviewed source.  In the printed version of the journal, these articles would be grouped together and the farcical nature of the study would be obvious.  For example, the 2010 issue contains the following studies:

• Effect on gastric function and symptoms of drinking wine, black tea, or schnapps with a Swiss cheese fondue: randomised controlled crossover trial
• Testing the validity of the Danish urban myth that alcohol can be absorbed through feet: open labelled self experimental study
• Beauty sleep: experimental study on the perceived health and attractiveness of sleep deprived people
• Can he fix it? Yes, he can!-- A case of a woman wearing Bob the Builder goggles to correct her idiopathic ocular neuromyotonia. 

The lesson learned, of course, is that the context of an article can mean everything.  Taking any of the above articles as serious, peer-reviewed work would be erroneous. While we in political science have special issues that can contextualize studies, I have not come across anything that demanded the context of the journal for an article to be interpretted correctly.  I am amused by the prospect of having our own fake studies.  This, perhaps, could be the proper forum for an article on the daily temperature high in Washington D.C. and Senate votes on force (with forecasting for global warming).

The Men and Women Behind the Men and Women

In preparation for the upcoming GOP national security debate tomorrow evening this article from CNN may be an interesting read. It discusses the foreign policy advisory teams of each of the candidates. There is more information on some of the candidates (Romney) than others (Bachmann, Paul), but it's still an interesting read. Some of this information has come out in a scattered fashion already, but it's nice to have a quick piece that draws this information together.

The Role of the Internet in the Mexican Drug War

The President of Mexico, Felipe Calderon, has been trying to crack down on drug cartels in Mexico for the last five years. The drug cartels have fiercely fought back and about 40,000 people have been killed. Because of all these deaths, and because of the ever increasing presence of cartels throughout the country, many people in Mexico believe that the drug war has been unsuccessful thus far.  Nevertheless, although the government has had a hard time cracking down on the cartels, today it appears that at least one Internet activist (or “hacktivist”) group, Anonymous, has won a small battle with a drug cartel.

Social Media and the Cartels

Drug cartels have had a strong presence in Mexico since the 1980s. However, the Mexican government did not take a serious role in combating the cartels until 2006, when President Calderon was elected. Currently about 50,000 Mexican troops and federal police are deployed throughout Mexico in order to identify and arrest cartel members and their leaders. As of 2010, more than 2,600 cartel members have been arrested as result of these efforts.

Although the Mexican government has devoted a great deal of resources to the drug war, the result of these efforts has been less than promising. One core problem is the corruption that has plagued Mexico for so many years. This makes it quite difficult for Calderon to combat the cartels, as cartel leaders can simply pay off underpaid government employees not to turn them in.

The cartels’ tactics against many of their enemies have also been brutal. Cartel members will kill anyone they suspect of fighting against them, often in gruesome and grotesque manners. Images of their murder victims are often published in Mexican newspapers and on television. These images have struck a nerve amongst Mexicans. In fact, in some cities people have fled en masse to escape the violence. The residents who cannot flee live in constant fear for their lives and often have to pay off cartel leaders for protection.

The Role of Social Media and the Internet

Since the drug war started in 2006, journalists who have reported unfavorable stories about drug cartels have been targeted by the cartels. Over time, many journalists stopped publishing stories in fear for their lives. Recently, however, hacktivists have picked up where the journalists left off. These hacktivists post stories and statistics to social media websites about drug related violence in Mexico. Unfortunately for many of these activists, cartel leaders have been able to identify some of them and kill them.

Although hacktivists have been generally unsuccessful at playing an influence in the drug war in Mexico, it does appear that one hacktivist group, Anonymous, has won at least one battle with a cartel. Anonymous is a loose thread of activists who use the Internet to promote particular social goals by taking down websites, collecting confidential information and threatening to release it, and encouraging its members to take actions against entities (both private and public) it finds to be anti-liberty. As its name suggests, members of Anonymous do this anonymously. They originally only worked online, but they have started to work in the real world for social activism.  One of their early projects targeted Scientology where they would wear Guy Fawkes masks (popularized by V for Vendetta) and played Rick Astley's "Never gonna give you up" outside their meeting places.  The Guy Fawkes mask has doubled as both a way to remain anonymous in the real world as well as give some indication of their anti-authority ideology.  The mask has proliferated to the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Anonymous came directly involved in the Mexican drug war when one of its members in Veracruz, Mexico was kidnapped by the Zetas cartel. In retaliation, Anonymous posted a video to YouTube and threatened to release the names and address of taxi drivers, journalists, and police officers who are working with cartel leaders.

I was very curious about how the interaction between Anonymous and the Zetas would play out. I suspected that, based on past behavior of cartel members, that they would identify and kill suspected members of Anonymous, and attach notes to them, warning other Anonymous members not to release the names. However, quite surprisingly, the situation ended with very little violence. The Zetas let the Anonymous member go free. And in response, at least some Anonymous members have decided not to release the names of individuals working with cartel leaders.

So why did this situation end peacefully? Perhaps for the Zetas drug cartel, it is easier for them to fight an enemy they know than an enemy they do not know. No one really knows who members of Anonymous are, how many of them are out there, and what they are capable of. I imagine that even if the cartel leaders knew they could scare some members of Anonymous into not publishing the names, they could not scare all of them. And knowing this, they decided it was better to give in and release the Anonymous member than to risk the names of people being released to the media. Still, my suspicion is that while Anonymous won this battle, the conflict between the two groups has not been resolved. Members of Anonymous can still post those names, and I imagine that cartel leaders are currently in the process of finding out who these people are. I suspect we shall be hearing about new conflicts between these two groups in the not so distant future.

Updates

Just a quick post. I hadn't read anything on this in a while, but this CNN article seems to have a fairly decent detailing of the events surrounding the murders of several Afghan civilians by an Army sergeant and some of his men. 

Also of interest, this article discussing contact between Saif al-Islam and the ICC over turning himself in. Or maybe he's going to Zimbabwe? My money is on the latter.