The Quantitative Peace

On the Utility of IR Research

At the Duck of Minerva, Josh Busby has a post on the gap between political science research/IR and the policymaking community. I don't have a whole lot to say about the specific content of Busby's post, aside from the fact that I think this is an interesting an important debate to have. (Also, please note that the links in the quotations were provided in Busby's original post).

Math's PR Problem OR Changing our Educational System

I was listening to the BBC's Global News Podast this morning and found an interesting segment on the utility of mathematical modeling. Professor John Adam's book (which can be found here) looks at how one can model various aspects of urban life—pollution, traffic congestion, number of dentists offices, etc. I've not read the book, but Adam's message in his interview was something that I can sympathize with. In particular, Adam talks about the degree to which the educational process divorces math from any kind of applied usage. Learning math in this way, he goes on, is partially responsible for why more children/people are not as interested in mathematics as they might otherwise be. 

Sure, there are the ubiquitous "if a train leaves city A at rate X, and a train leaves city B at rate Z, when will their paths cross," kind of examples. But seriously, is that the best we can do? Now, I recognize that I'm far from being the strongest, or the quickest, when it comes to picking up a lot of the methods that I've been taught over the past few years. I, like many people I suppose, was not the biggest fan of math class in high school. Some of this was laziness on my part, but some of it was also the framework in which the subject matter was taught. Even in college it was far from clear that any kind of math beyond balancing a checkbook would play as big a part in my life as it currently does. I did well enough in these classes, but it was not until graduate school that I really had to seriously engage math and statistics.  

As it turns out, I've really enjoyed the quantitative side of my training here at Binghamton, and I'm far more willing to work at developing my understanding and skills now than I was when I was 16. Had I known in high school that I this stuff could be used to study things like war, human rights, etc., I might have cared a bit more. These are things that I've always been interested in. And this is perfectly rational behavior, right? If the expected utility of learning this material is zero, or even negative, then why expend the effort? Where is the payoff? If this is the case, then a major part of the reason that the expected utility of learning this material is so low is because the people that should be able to provide you with the relevant information to update your expectations simply do not do a very good job of that. In fact, I'd say that I didn't really get that at all until grad school. And being able to make that initial connection between math and statistics, and the substantive topics that I care about, has subsequently led me to develop a greater appreciation for the math itself that underlies the models I often use. 

I don't have any answers for how the educational system could be modified to address this issue. I also realize that you would have to find a way to incorporate applied mathematics into most subject fields, as not everyone has the particular set of interests that would make more math in history or government class a sufficient solution to the problem. Still, there must be a better way. With folks like Neil deGrasse Tyson going around trying to promote greater scientific literacy, and the recent attacks on NSF funding for political science, it seems like there is a space for us to modify how we educate our younglings and how science, math, history, etc., can be better integrated in this process. Maybe if people developed a better understanding of science as a process, or math as something with real world and substantive applications, rather than something that existed strictly from 1pm to 1:45pm during 8th period, people would be better able to develop a more robust appreciation for how mathematics and science fit into, and matter for, our daily lives. This is fairly obvious when phrased like that, but the fact is that it's not really what we do currently, is it?

Am I missing something?

Also—and this is a total aside—Brian Rathbun at the Duck of Minerva has a discussion of how Iron Maiden material can be used to teach political science. This is perhaps a good example of what I was talking about above, so perhaps this is not a total aside, but what we have here is essentially "applied awesomeness."

NSF Funding Amendment, Part II

Erik Voeten at the Monkey Cage with an update on the amendment that cuts NSF funding for political science programs. A version of the amendment passed the House with a vote of 218-208. You can see the breakdown of the votes here (thanks for Erik for so conveniently providing the link to the votes). Erik also notes a couple of important points: 1) This is not the end of the issue, and 2) No other discipline was singled out in the same way as political science. 

Other interesting facts:

1. Jeff Flake has a BA in International Relations (see his official House bio page).
2. Jeff Flake has an MA in Political Science (see his official House bio page).
3. As described above, political science appears to have been singled out. In 2011 political science programs were awarded approximately $21 million dollars. Keep in mind these are awarded amounts, and do not reflect the actual amount spent in a given year. The Duck of Minerva makes reference to actual annual expenditures being something closer to $9 million. 
4. Economics programs were awarded $55 million in 2011. If we assume a similar pattern applies, that means econ programs are getting somewhere around $23 million per year in actual appropriations.
5. Sociology programs were awarded approximately $15.5 million, working out to be about $6.7million per year.

Political science awards do not even come close to what economics programs are awarded each year. Consequently, I'm not entirely sure what the fiscal justification for this cut can be. To single out only political science in this way would seem to indicate the gripe is more substantive than fiscal. If not, then why not make a flat cut of 10%-20% across all BSES programs? Spread the cuts evenly? You could cut the annual econ awards by half and that would be the equivalent of cutting all of the annual political science awards AND some of the sociology program. So, what gives?

There is probably a better/more efficient source for summary information than what I used, but you can search NSF records of programs and awards here. My estimates of yearly expenditures are extremely rough. Again, it's important to note that these are awarded amounts, not what is actually spent each year. There is going to be overlap from one year to the next as programs are often funded over the course of a couple of years. There is also some degree of overlap between programs as well. Accordingly, the figures provided should be taken as rough guidelines/comparisons, as well as with a healthy grain of salt. If anyone has a link to actual annual expenditure statistics by program, as opposed to awards, please share. I did a quick search this morning but didn't find anything more helpful than this particular source. 

Two Comics for Friday

If you are not subscribed to these two comics, then this will be new to you.  If you already have them on your RSS feed, well, you get to suffer their propagation.* 

The ever-linkable XKCD offers the rational incentives on leaving reviews for hotels (and other places). Poor reviews may drive demand down, which should lower the price of your consumption.

SMBC, often delving into philosophy, science, and economics, has offered two economics-related comics in the past two days. Yesterday's comic posits the economists value of humans versus other objects and today's comic offers a, perhaps obvious, comic on the incentives of self-cat-napping (the bad kind). 

 

*I'm directly linking to the comics so they will get the benefits of future readers, advertisment impressions, and the proper amount of web-traffic they deserve.

Bipartisanship and foreign policy

Kindred Winecoff has a post up regarding a post by Matt Yglesias on the level of partisanship in American politics.  I've some thoughts on the issue.  I should also stipulate that I'm coming at this from a strictly foreign policy-oriented perspective.  Some of this bleeds over into domestic politics, but I'm sure there's a lot that I'm not covering by approaching the topic from this point of view.

Jonathan's Card Has Ended

Penny Arcade, a comic that usually discusses video games and the video game industry, weighs in on Jonathan's Card--apparently, homo economicus can gain utility by not only defecting and receiving the largest share possible, but also gains utility purely by gaming the experiment. Unfortunately, it appears the test has come to an end (Starbucks deactivated the card) due to abuse and apparent fraud in the experiment (perhaps Tycho-types have won).  The premise of the project was to have a publicly available Starbuck's card that anyone could use. The card started with a balance and anyone with a smart phone could use it to pay for coffee at Starbuck's.  Likewise, anyone could add money to the card to buy coffee for strangers they would likely never meet.  The data of transactions was made publicly available, published on twitter, and some graphing has occurred.

It was suggested that this might have been a viral marketing campaign by Starbuck's, but it appears that this was not the case after all.  

A few sites have posted more detailed analysis on the card:

• Huffington Post's coverage
• Social Commerce
• Odio and theft from the experiment (original tweet)
• The official Facebook page where people share their stories of how the card impacted them.

The Future of Political Science (summary, short discussion)

I have mentioned, in a previous post, all of the books that fill up my summer reading list. As of now, I have at least one book completed and several more have been added to my list.  I have recently finished The Future of Political Science: 100 Perspectives, a collection of 100 short articles aimed at discussing what has not been properly analyzed or should be analyzed in political science.  The book ended up being more oriented towards the fields of American and Comparative than I had originally anticipated (mostly by the title); however, this is more my own fault than anything else. Quickly browsing the titles of the 100 articles and the authors or knowing that the book is a festshcrift for Sidney Verba easily conveys that information.

The book is not homogeneous.  For example, the two initial sections take opposing views with Arend Lijphart arguing that the United States is more unique than comparative scholars give it credit for and Russell Dalton taking the opposed position that US institutions have far more in common with other states than what has been examined previously. There are clusters of articles that deal with similar topics (e.g. elite behavior, institutions, voting, parties), but not all topics have a set of opposing viewpoints (nor should they necessarily). The introductory chapter offers a few rubrics for organization of the book that were ultimately rejected and provides some glimpse of the diversity of the subjects that are covered.

Beyond several substantive propositions, the book also has some focus on methodology. None of the articles that discuss political methodology were overly technical or beyond an average political scientist's comprehension of what is being discussed. The range of approaches vary form those who question the utility of quantitative political science in research to those who articulate more inclusion of qualitative methods or theoretical understandings of applying econometric techniques to political science.  For example, David Butler has a very short piece that argues "Everything happens in a historical context. It is wise to be sceptical about articles on politics that never mention individual politicians. Specific leaders do make a difference. What if Gore not Bush had been adjudged the winner in 2000? What if Blair had yielded precedence to Brown in 1994? No numerical approach will explain the impact of Churchill in 1940 or of Kennedy in the early 1960s The run of history is not inevitable."

The collection is diverse.  For Comparative and American scholars looking for potential dissertation topics or a new topic to work on, this might be an ideal book to thumb through and read. I will have to recommend some of the short pieces on elite behavior and third party representation to two different friends.

Good for the Money: International Finance, State Capacity, and Internal Armed Conflict

Things are pretty crazy around here with the impending school year and upcoming conference season.  However, since the country is currently swept up in credit rating mania, I figured I would take the time to pass along some new research that is immediately relevant and serves as a nice complement to the Pontichelli and Voth paper being discussed over at the Monkey Cage.  From my fellow Binghamton graduate students Matthew Digiuseppe and Colin Barry, as well as former Binghamton graduate student and current UNO faculty member Richard Frank:

Previous research indicates that a lack of state capacity is a key determinant of internal armed conflict.  Scholars identify several internal dimensions of state capacity, but have yet to explore how international finance influences state resources.  This is surprising because sovereign lending has increased dramatically in recent decades and plays an increasing role in the functioning of developed and developing governments. In this article, we explore this relationship between a state’s integration into global credit markets and its subsequent capacity to promote domestic stability.  We argue that international capital increases a state’s ability to respond to internal opposition because states with favorable credit terms can expand their resource base beyond domestic constraints to deter, accommodate, or repress opposition while maintaining a level provision of resources to their political base.  We examine the influence that both capital access and credit terms have on the risk of civil conflict in 141 countries from 1981-2007. Our empirical results indicate that states with affordable credit access are indeed less likely to experience civil conflict.

The paper can be found here.  It is forthcoming at the Journal of Peace Research.

Debt Ceiling

This information comes from the Office of Management and Budget's Historical Tables of the US Government's budget.  Just some basic information on the debt ceiling that might put the current political wrangling into greater context.  I will add the usual disclaimer that this is not my usual playground, so if anyone catches any mistakes please let me know.

Below is a quick graphic illustrating the points at which the debt ceiling has been raised since 1940.  These figures have not been adjusted for inflation.  The dots show the point at which the debt ceiling was raised, or a point at which a previous raise in the debt ceiling was reaffirmed/extended, while the line is intended to give the viewer a better ability to connect the dots (so to speak).  

This second graph adjusted the previous figures for inflation (billions of 2009 dollars).

Of note---If my count is right, President Reagan increased the debt ceiling 18 times during his administration, from a starting point of $985 billion to $2.8 trillion.  The Clinton administration increased the debt limit 6 times from $4.3 trillion to $5.95 trillion.  The second Bush administration 7 times from $6.4 trillion to $11.3 trillion.  Of the data available (it only runs through 2009 here) the Obama administration increased the debt limit from $11.3 trillion to $12.1 trillion.  

The real point at which the debt ceiling seems to take off is during the Reagan administration.  Prior to this point government seemed to keep closer tabs on the debt limit---although there are several dots on the graphics above prior to the Reagan administration, many of these cases are simply reaffirming or briefly extending previous raises to the debt limit.  Others can probably speak to this in greater detail, but this seems to make sense given that the Reagan administration was characterized by unusually high peacetime military spending.  The second point at which the debt ceiling rises seems to be during the second Bush presidency.  This also seems to make sense given the tremendous levels of spending for the war on terror.  

Republicans have been campaigning on the fiscal irresponsibility of Democrats, but a cursory inspection of these charts suggest that recent Republican presidencies don't have a great track record of keeping the debt ceiling down.  Earlier Republican presidencies (Eisenhower, Nixon, and Ford) seem to have been better at this.  That said, this does not take into account a host of other factors (international crises, which party controls Congress, divided government, etc.) so this is far from conclusive.  Still, if the argument is that the president is accountable for what happens on their watch then the fact remains that Republican presidents have presided over the greatest increases in the debt ceiling.    

Love Triangle

It's been an otherwise quiet week here, but I just came across this article at the BBC.  With all of the dust that the killing of bin Laden stirred up between the US and Pakistan it's easy to forget the bigger picture.  Specifically, what openings (if any) does the increased tension between the US and Pakistan create for other states in the region?  

The article specifically mentions that China may be able to use this opportunity to increase its foreign investment in Pakistan.  First, I guess it's not immediately clear to me why Pakistani--US relations have to fray in order for China to increase its investment.  I suspect the overwhelming majority of US aid to Pakistan is directed at enhancing Pakistan's military and intelligence capabilities.  On the other hand, China's investment seems to be infrastructural as well as military.  Indeed, the BBC article indicates that China is Pakistan's largest supplier of arms, but does the US necessarily see this relationship as a competitive one?  In the context of the last decade or so, Chinese aid to Pakistan could certainly be seen as supplementing US efforts at bolstering the strength of Pakistan's central government.  

The US has a very obvious agenda with respect to Pakistan, and I'm not so naive as to believe that there aren't concerns over rival sources of external influence making it more difficult for the US to acheive its goals.  That said, I'm not so sure that China's goals might not be very similar.  Sure, the Chinese are probably trying to increase their own regional power bloc, and cozying up to Pakistan is a natural way to increase Chinese power vis-a-vis India, but the Chinese government is probably no more eager to see the government in Pakistan collapse than the US government is.  In the short term, such a collapse would potentially create some serious problems for the Chinese in securing their western borders.  Any such collapse could very well devolve into a protracted conflict that could easily spill over into China's territory.  In the long term, this sort of collapse puts a nuclear powered state on China's borders into some potentially very unfriendly hands.   

Is this a place where there is some potential for the US to scale back on its commitments with less cost than we might initially think?  I think the immediate reaction is to view the situation in terms of dyadic relations between the US and Pakistan.  But viewed in the broader regional context, is it possible that the US is (sort of) indirectly helping China shirk what would otherwise be a greater burden to their own government but acting as if the burden is all ours?  I know many pundits, politicians, and policy wonks (just one example here) have warned against cutting aid to Pakistan as it would have disastrous effects, but could it be that cutting aid to Pakistan would not really harm the US' interests in the region that much?  Indeed, could it be possible that US strategic interests are actually enhanced by such a move, as it may prompt the Chinese to take a greater share of the burden for ensuring that Pakistan remains stable, thus occupying more of their resources and attention?

I'm not a regional expert, so it's certainly possible that I'm missing something.  Thoughts?