The Quantitative Peace

Tom Coburn's Grudge, Part II

Via Jennifer Diascro's Twitter feed: The Economist has an article up addressing the specific targeting of Political Science Research by Senator Coburn. The article addresses a point that I've brought up a couple of times in the past (see here for example). Specifically, why only political science?

The Economist:

The real debate seems to be over what is of value. For many Republicans the answer is nothing having to do with political science. Yet it is hard to see how that discipline is any more frivolous than—or even all that different from—economics, sociology or anthropology.Mr Coburn's measure wouldn’t touch NSF funding for other social sciences. But this is the fourth time since 2006 a Republican has singled out political science for cuts.

If we look closer at those efforts, the picture becomes a bit clearer. Mr Coburn, for example, has particularly objected to studies on American attitudes to the filibuster, at a time when Republicans are using the filibuster routinely. Mr Flake had likewise complained about research on climate-change negotiations. When Mr Coburn first proposed cutting off funding in 2009, he complained that NSF money had gone to fund The Human Rights Data Project, which, he noted, had “concluded that the United States has been ‘increasingly willing to torture enemy combatants and imprison suspected terrorists,’ leading to a worldwide increase in ‘human rights violations’ as others followed-suit.” Mr Coburn even groused that Paul Krugman had received NSF grants more than 15 years earlier. Presumably that was because Mr Krugman went on to become a liberal columnist and not because the research won him a Nobel prize.

In all of these cases, the research risked calling into question the wisdom of policies supported by the Republican Party. In none of the cases did Republicans argue that the studies were flawed. They appeared to simply object to financing research that might contradict their point of view.

I would add that my impression is that political science research is probably the one field that is most likely to draw upon and combine insights from all of these other fields. Perhaps I'm mischaracterizing the work of scholars from these other disciplines, but if this view is accurate then it further hurts the credibility of Coburn's claims to be going after wasteful spending. If the idea is to get as much bang for our buck as taxpayers, political science seems like exactly the right field to invest in. But does this matter? Probably not. Most people just don't know or care enough about this to really see the problem, and for these people Coburn's credibility is really a non-issue, so he can still claim to be simply fighting the good fight against bloated government budgets. 

Finally, I'd urge all of my Americanist and comparativist colleagues to start building up the national security implications of their work. After all, we must remain ever vigilant to safeguard our democratic institutions from infiltration by the communist scourge. Maybe ANES can just add a question asking "Are you a communist spy?" or "Are you a terrorist?" and Coburn will be satisfied. 

Chuck Hagel and Bipartisanship in Foreign Policy

The news surrounding Obama's nomination of Chuck Hagel and John Brennan as Secretary of Defense and Director of the CIA (respectively) has primarily been focused on the "controversial" Hagel's previous statements and positions. Republican commentators have been complaining about Hagel's nomination, claiming that his nomination sends a powerful signal that the Obama administration is putting more "daylight" between the US and Israel, among other things. Steve Clemmons at The Atlantic has also reviewed several arguments for and against Hagel's nomination. The turf on that subject has already been covered pretty thoroughly, so I'll leave the issue be for now. What has received less attention, however, is that Hagel's nomination represents a continuation of a fairly long history of Democrats appointing Republicans to positions within the foreign policy bureaucracy. 

In 1940 FDR appointed Henry Stimson and Frank Knox—both Republicans—to be his Secretary of War and Secretary of the Navy (again, respectively). Stimson's appointment in particular is generally regarded as marking the onset of the bipartisan consensus that characterized the early Cold War period. Having previously served as Secretary of State under President Hoover and Secretary of War under Taft, Stimson was already a widely recognized figure in the foreign policymaking community (such as it was back then). Along with Stimson came John McCloy and Robert Lovett, both of whom were also Republicans and both of whom served as Stimson's assistants in the War Department.

By bringing these Republicans into his administration, Roosevelt was attempting to build support among opposition Republicans for increasing US activism in World War II. Primarily this encompassed moderate internationalist Republicans from the Northeast. Even prior to his nomination, Stimson and his mentor, Elihu Root, himself previously a Secretary of War and Secretary of State, had petitioned Congressional leadership to introduce some form of draft bill to prepare the US for involvement in the growing conflicts in Europe and East Asia. Stimson and Root had both been devout internationalists in the years leading up to the Second World War, and their appointment marked what many historians have labeled as the beginning of the "Eastern Establishment" in foreign policymaking. The Establishment narrative, broadly speaking, tends to emphasize bipartisanship in the foreign policy bureaucracy specifically, but it also encompasses themes of elite influence, economic interests, and political polarization in foreign policymaking.

This general narrative has been present for several decades in the US foreign policy literature, but it's largely been isolated to the qualitative political science and historical literatures. Quantitative political science research has delved into the more narrow issue of bipartisanship, but these studies have tended to focus on Congress. Accordingly, the central focus of this large body of work has gone unexamined in a systematic sense, and part of my dissertation research has attempted to address this gap. This is really all a long-winded way of saying that the Hagel nomination provides me with a timely opportunity to briefly share some of my work on the subject. Though I don't want to give away the farm here, this seems like a fine time to chime in. 

Despite the recognition that the foreign policy bureaucracy—indeed, the bureaucracy more broadly—plays a fairly prominent role in the policymaking process, we don't really have much in the way of systematic quantitative research on the subject. I've tried to get at some of these issues in my dissertation by collecting some new data on appointees to foreign policymaking positions within the foreign policy bureaucracy. I primarily focus on the State Department and the Defense Department, but I also focus on some other agencies like the CIA. In total, I've collected data on some 1,000+ individuals serving in these posts from 1948 through the present. One of the primary characteristics that I coded for each individual was what, if any, party affiliation that individual had. As a way to get at trends in bipartisanship within the foreign policy bureaucracy, the graph below shows the percentage of appointments included in the data set that are bipartisan in nature.* 

Some interesting points: Perhaps not surprisingly, the Truman administration represents an all-time high in the data. This is partially a function of the fact that Truman inherited many of FDR's appointments, but it's also partially due to the fact that the foreign policy bureaucracy was undergoing some pretty radical changes during this time period. In particular, the size of these agencies grew dramatically during the World War II period. Coding rules are also partially responsible, as I focused on individuals occupying positions at the assistant secretary level and up (where appropriate). By the early to mid-1950s, however, the rate of growth slows a bit and, while still increasing in size, it does so more slowly than in the first few years of the Cold War. The crash at the beginning of the Eisenhower administration might reflect some of the antics of Joseph McCarthy and Secretary Dulles, both of whom were more than a little keen to go after anyone remotely suspected of being communists. It could also be a function of the Republicans having been out of power for about two decades. Also of note, the late 1970s do see a slight slump in the level of bipartisanship, which is potentially in line with arguments concerning the impact of Vietnam on bipartisanship more generally. The Clinton administration sees a fairly sharp spike near the end, and the Bush administration also sees a dip in its later years, while the incoming Obama administration sees a slight increase.

More broadly, the work that I've done so far suggests a few general trends. First, I find some evidence that, all else equal, Democrats tend to be more likely than Republicans to make bipartisan appointments to the foreign policy bureaucracy—Even controlling for the Truman administration. Other models suggest this difference is more acute in the early Cold War period (again, also while controlling for Truman). Additionally, I also find some evidence to support the conventional wisdom concerning the use of bipartisan appointments as a means of building moderate coalitions and as a response to domestic political conditions. In particular Congressional support matters, but is perhaps a little more nuanced than the historical accounts often suggest, as the availability of moderates in Congress also seems to condition this relationship. It also appears as though Presidents make these appointments with an eye towards governing more broadly, as the composition of the Senate alone appears to have little impact.

So what? Well, with respect to current news my work would suggest that Obama's retention of Bob Gates and his appointment of Chuck Hagel are actually very much in line with broader trends in Democratic foreign policy appointments since World War II. Robert Lovett—formerly Stimson's assistant at the War Department—went on to serve as Truman's Secretary of Defense. Kennedy subsequently offered Lovett his choice of State, Defense, and Treasury. Though Lovett turned him down, Kennedy did end up appointing Robert McNamara and McGeorge Bundy—both Republicans—to important posts. While there are certainly other lesser-known bipartisan appointees, these folks are some of the more prominent. Furthermore, these trends emerged well before the Republicans had fully taken on the identity of the party of national security. Still, even in the early Cold War period the Republicans did attack Democrats for being soft on Communism, so this vulnerability was present in some incarnation. Accordingly, Democratic administrations perhaps had more to gain from trying to draw in Republicans than vice versa, as such appointments could confer some measure of credibility. 

Moving forward it will be interesting to see how these trends continue to develop. Despite the much publicized opposition to Hagel's appointment it is entirely possible that this is just media hype and Republican chest-thumping. David Karol at the Monkey Cage recently wrote about the House Republicans' position-taking when voting on the recent Fiscal Cliff deal. So it's easy to imagine that the Republican outcry over Hagel's nomination is really going to wither when it comes time for the Senate to vote. Though these situations are not completely comparable, giving Obama a hard time seems to be a means of gaining currency in the Republican Party these days. Beyond the current confirmation battle, much of this will depend on how the current debate over the GOP's foreign policy positions pans out (see Drezner's latest Foreign Affairs piece, for example). If the Democrats manage to become the party of national security moving forward, perhaps we might see a reversal of these trends. Given the current Republican field, however, I wouldn't hold my breath.**

 * Given that none of this work/data is published (yet?) please don't cite this post or data. I'm still very much hoping to update and improve this material as I go. I guess this is kind of the norm, right?

** In the off chance that anyone comments, please be aware that I have had trouble leaving comments in the recent past. On the rare occasion that we do get feedback, I feel rude not replying, so apologies in advance if this should happen.

Changing the Rules to Get the Outcome You Want

For the last 15 years, more Americans have opted to take advantage of early voting opportunities (either through early in-person voting or mail ballots). By 2008, early voting compromised one third of the vote. Early voting seemed to help Democrats more than Republicans in 2008, as Democrats were more likely to vote early than Republicans. 

Since early voting tended to help Democrats more than Republicans in the last presidential election, it is not surprising that Republican lawmakers in several key states have tried to reduce early in-person voting in their states this year. Limiting this type of early voting could reduce the number of votes for Obama. If the new voting rules are too restrictive, some of Obama's supporters may be unable or unwilling to pay a higher cost to vote.

In the last few weeks, the media has given a great deal of attention to the changes in Ohio's early in-person voting rules. Obama is challenging the new rules because they appear to favor Republican voters and hurt Democratic voters (see here and here). Below is a summary of some efforts by Republicans to reduce early in person voting in two other states, Florida and North Carolina.

Florida 

Obama easily carried Florida in 2008, by about 3% of the vote. But Florida is a swing state, so small changes in voting rules and procedures could theoretically affect the election outcome (like in the 2000 election). Unsurprisingly, Republican lawmakers in Florida changed the voting rules again in this upcoming election, and these changes could negatively affect Obama's vote share this fall.

One of the reasons Obama won Florida so easily in 2008 was early voting. 3.3 million Florida Democrats voted early in 2008, while only 810,666 Florida Republicans voted early. Obama may not have this advantage again this year. Last May, Florida lawmakers reduced the number of early in-person voting days from 14 to 8. This could limit the number of early votes Obama receives in November.

Reducing the number of early voting days may have some impact on Obama's vote share, but what may be even more damaging to Democrats in Florida this fall is the fact that voters will no longer be able to vote the Sunday before the election. Sunday voting before the election was an important day to several African American church goers in the 2008 election. Several African American church congregations went from church to the polls in en masse as part of the "souls to the polls" drive. Limiting Sunday voting obviously would have an impact on these types of vote drives and inadvertently affect the ability of African Americans to vote in Florida. This would clearly reduce Obama's vote share in November, as he has done well amongst the black American community.

North Carolina

Barack Obama did something in 2008 no Democratic presidential candidate has done since 1976: he won North Carolina. The election was quite close- Obama won 49.7% of the vote, while McCain received 49.38%. Early voting really seemed to help Obama, while the Election Day vote hurt him. Obama won the early vote by 178,000 votes and lost the Election Day vote by 165,000 votes.

It is not surprising that Obama won the early vote in North Carolina. More than half of black voters in North Carolina voted early in 2008, and Obama did well amongst that particular group. According to exit polls, 100% of black women voted for Obama while 87% of black men voted for him. In contrast, it is also not surprising that Obama lost the Election Day vote. About 60% of white voters voted on election day, and Obama only won 37% of the white vote.

Given Obama's razor thin victory in 2008, it would be relatively easy for North Carolina Republican lawmakers to prevent Obama from winning the state in 2012 simply by making it harder for black voters to vote. Since a large number of black voters voted early, if lawmakers reduced early voting in the state, that could reduce the number of black voters who could vote. North Carolina Republicans did attempt to reduce early voting back in May 2011, but the bill only passed the state House. They promised to revisit the measure this year, but there has been no movement on the bill since last May. (It is important to note that since the governor of North Carolina is a Democrat, the bill probably will not be passed this year).

Gotham City as the Paris Commune

A spoiler warning before I get to the heart of the discussion: This blog entry is being posted the Monday after the release of The Dark Knight Rises.  The blog post deals with material presented in the film, plot elements, as well as some dialogue, so consider this a warning.  While I am not going to go out of my way to spoil parts of the plot intentionally, some revelations about the film is inevitable.  So, if you still have not seen the movie, you probably do not want to read this discussion.

The Batman trilogy has concluded. The trilogy satisfied both my preference for solid comic book films as well as engaging some interesting academic topics through film; some of the material in the series is ready-made for the classroom. The previous movies have delved into topics including economics, politics, and game theory and the conclusion to the series is not an exception.  When I wrote about the Dark Knight, I focused on the game theoretic outcomes of the ferry situation produced by the Joker.  Other bloggers noted that scene as well as a few others that contained game theoretic elements; there is some debate about whether or not the characters within the movies behaved how we would expect them to in the real world or if their cost-benefit calculus was altered due to the presence of under-explored elements such as living in a world that contains both the Joker and Batman. For this movie, I was struck by how the film seemed to be recreating a modern day Paris Commune in Gotham.  Given that I have not seen any other mentions of this parallel thus far, I figured it was appropriate for me to illuminate the historical precedent for the Dark Knight Rises' Gotham City.  

The story as we know it from the film. Bane, the main villain for the Dark Knight Rises gains possession of a nuclear weapon and provides an ultimatum to the United States as well as the citizens of Gotham: no one can leave or enter the city and if anyone does either of these things, the bomb will detonate and destroy Gotham.  This effectively adopts a strategy of disproportionate response; given that Bane does not have too many bargaining chips, he does not want to allow the existing government any inroads that could ultimately thwart his plan.  After trapping the vast majority of Gotham's police beneath the city, he functionally separates Gotham from the rest of the country's political and economic structures and returns the rule of Gotham "to the people."  This turning over of Gotham to the people is a mix of mob mentality combined with disproportionate control of force in the hands of criminals in the city. Jonathan Crane (the villain known as the Scarecrow from previous films) establishes a court to try the remaining elite within the city.  

To clarify, before going further, Bane's liberation of the people from the economic and political shackles of daily life is a false promise to the citizens of the city.  Bane tells the protagonist, Batman, that he is merely giving Gotham some hope before destroying the city, and, after 5 months, the device will detonate automatically due to nuclear core's instability. This torture of false hope is the same punishment he plans to inflict upon Batman. As such, Bane's attempt at local control and advocacy for anarchism is merely a ruse, a faux-anarchism. However, the 5-month time frame where he enacts his social and political project is still of interest.  Consequently, the rest of this discussion is taking his advocacy at face value.  Also, as a side note, I will be describing Bane's public advocacy as either anarchism or as libertarian-socialism, a decentralized, workers' or peoples' control over the economic and political institutions.  This type of anarchism, one with limited, local government should not be confused with the abolition of all hierarchy or an advocacy of pure political chaos; the latter of which is best exemplified by the Joker in the previous film.  Instead, the intent in these philosophies is to disestablish the nation-state and return to local governance by local actors in non-authoritarian manners.

The historical analogue to this fictional drama is the Paris commune.  The Paris commune was a 2-month project in 1871.  France, embroiled and losing the Franco-Prussian war started in 1870, lost control over the capital to its citizens.  Radical, pro-democratic insurgents grew in numbers and threatened the existing regime. The political and civil elite evacuated the capital, including the police, with hopes of retaking the city later.  The commune held hostages initially and attempted to use them as bargaining chips with the existing government as well as adopted several policies to help the common people of the city.  The increasing disparity between the rich and the poor gave way to several reforms such as (directly taken from the Wikipedia article):

• the separation of church and state;
• the remission of rents owed for the entire period of the siege (during which, payment had been suspended);
• the abolition of night work in the hundreds of Paris bakeries;
• the granting of pensions to the unmarried companions and children of National Guards killed on active service;
• the free return, by the city pawnshops, of all workmen's tools and household items valued up to 20 francs, pledged during the siege; the Commune was concerned that skilled workers had been forced to pawn their tools during the war;
• the postponement of commercial debt obligations, and the abolition of interest on the debts; and
• the right of employees to take over and run an enterprise if it were deserted by its owner; the Commune, nonetheless, recognized the previous owner's right to compensation.

In essence, Bane's criminal take over of Gotham is not too ideologically distant from Paris in 1871.  The gap between the rich and the poor in both cities had become noticeably problematic for those on the wrong side of the distribution.  Bane, nominally, attempted to put "the people" in charge and used force to redistribute wealth.  The trials of the rich and their subsequent execution (through exile by the order of Crane), is more like the French Revolution than the Paris Commune, but other aspects of the revolutions are similar.  As mentioned, the police are not present in either city and traditional political institutions are not present within Gotham or Paris.  The nation-state has every interest in retaking the city and putting an end to the city's secession. 

 

There are differences as well.  Bane's separation was much more violent than those in Paris.  The majority of the violence resulting in death from the Paris commune comes from the government's reacquisition of the capitol (between 20,000 and 50,000 people died when the state reasserted its authority over Paris). Peter Kropotkin, writing in 1880, describes the creation of the Paris commune as relatively benign; "the government evaporated like a pond of stagnant water in a spring breeze, and on the nineteenth the great city of Paris found herself free from the impurity which had defiled her, with the loss of scarcely a drop of her children's blood."   However, while the Paris commune served as a positive example for anarchists and communists alike (with some critique by Marx and Engels), not all observers saw the rebels as freedom fighters, but as criminal thugs who had taken control over the city.  Bane's liberation of Gotham was quite bloody as was the reacquisition of Gotham by the state. Additionally, Gotham city lasted longer as an experiment, doubling the lifespan of the Paris commune.  This may have been purely for the plot device of allow Bruce Wayne's spine to heal in a more believable time frame (though that is not an overly compelling recovery time for a spinal injury). Finally, the commune of Paris had a more functioning decision-making body that was intended to offer long-term democratic decision-making, while there does not appear to be much of a functioning governmental body in Gotham. 

So, the question is whether Gotham is an accurate representation of what would have to happen for a major city in the US to be allowed to be a Paris commune.  The result of Gotham was not something to be modeled, unlike the vision adopted by leftists from Paris.  Bane's rhetoric was hollow, but did contain the components of redistribution usually attributed to leftist movements.  While Batman is fighting to save his city from destruction, it is not hard to see the juxtaposition between the espoused radical politics of Bane (and Catwoman) versus what Bruce Wayne epitomizes as a member of Gotham's elite.  The conclusion of the film results in Bane being thwarted, Gotham re-annexed by the nation-state, and the voluntary redistribution of Wayne's assets to the people outside the coercive politics of the villains. 

A separate message is that a commune enacted through evil criminals is not a desirable commune---perhaps a too obvious lesson.  Given that Bane has no long-term incentive in institution building, he does not appear to do much of it at all.  He acts as a warlord and not really a leader of the people.  As opposed to a libertarian-socialist commune, he creates a anarcho-totalitarian commune. 

Of course, this anti-leftist message in the movie is the opposite of what has been proposed recently due to Bane having a name similar to Bain Capital.  

(Mis)Understanding Political Science and Some Other Stuff

Let me preface this by saying that I started writing this post a little while ago, so some of the content is a bit dated at this point. That said, over at the Duck, Steve Saideman has a post up that continues the ongoing discussion on political science, its utility, and its relationship with the broader public. Steve* also links to some research on the subject done by fellow Binghamton University PhD, Conor Dowling. 

You can check out either post for more details on the content/findings of the research. For now, I wanted to focus on a couple of points. Overall, I agree with the vast majority of what Steve says. I've commented previously on the idea of making political science research more readily accessible to outsiders—policymakers in particular. Though I'm a bit skeptical as to just how much of this gap is attributable to political scientists, I do think that we have a lot to add to the public debate on a wide range of issues. And as my fellow blogger Chad Clay has expressed in discussions we've had on the topic, some of this probably does not even imply a complete overhaul of how we go about our work. Maybe we just need to do a better job of publicizing slightly more condensed and less formal versions of the research that we're currently engaged in. 

But I would take Steve's point one step furhter—I think part of the problem is a generally poor understanding of science among the broader public. While I completely agree that most people have no idea what we do, and that the mere sound of what we do probably turns many people off, I'm not sure they really have any idea what most of the hard sciences actually do either. Things like Cancer research excepted, that is. Still, I'm guessing support for funding research in physics, chemistry, biology, etc., is much higher than support for funding political science research, but most people probably have very little idea as to what these disciplines do with their time, or how they do it. And as I've pointed out before, the hard sciences deal with many of the same problems of classification, measurement, etc. The medical field, for all of its developments over the past century or so, still treats a range of mental health issues as though they are somehow not related to an organ in your body. This a simplification, but I don't think it's much of a stretch. Call me crazy, but ECT does not seem like a terribly sophisticated treatment—and yes, this is still used today. 

Overall, my point is that there is somehow a popular distinction as to what qualifies as science and what does not. Science is not viewed as a process of understanding, learning, and evaluation that can be applied to a range of subjects, but it is popularly identified with the subjects themselves. Even though we have the word "science" in the name of our discipline, I don't think most people see it as such. Even if you tell them that we use some of the same methodologies that are used in the hard sciences, I don't think this will change their views either (As Steve notes, this is pretty tough). The widespread use of the term "scientist" to describe someone that does research in any field of the hard sciences is both irksome and somewhat representative of this problem—most people have no idea as to the distinctions that exist between the numerous fields of research within the "scientist" label/category, but they are far more comfortable telling you who is not a scientist. Where this misplaced sense of authority over just what constitutes science—one that many people seem to hold—comes from is not clear, but I blame the ubiquitous question, "what do you want to be when you grow up?" 

As I said, I started this post a little while ago, and I came across some interesting stories this morning as I prepped this for posting. In other news, Financial Times reports that Saudi Arabia and the UAE have "quietly" opened up a pipeline that bypasses the Straight of Hormuz. FT notes that the sanctions have pushed Iranian oil production to its lowest point in 20 years. The new pipelines will also carry a volume of oil that is equivalent to about 40% of the Straight's daily flow. The opening of this pipeline is "news" in some sense, but my guess is that the Iranians have probably known about this for a while now. So my question is, have they yet to react to this development, or is the expectation that this pipeline would open already baked into their behavior?  

Another brief point: Foreign Policy informs me that the Red Cross has classified Syria as a Civil War. Another topic I've talked about before. Keep watching to see if each successive label change comes closer on the heels of the previous. 

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*I should disclose that I've never actually met Professor Saideman (unless seeing his face on my Twitter feed counts, but I don't think he follows me so that probably doesn't count), so I may be a bit presumptuous in using such familiar terms. 

Human Rights and NGOs

I've been working recently on quite a few projects that deal with human rights and NGOs, and today's BBC podcast has quite a bit of material that is relevant to these topics. 

First, there's a story regarding a new law that is being debated in Russia that would require NGOs receiving funding from external sources to label themselves as "foreign agents" in all of their state documentation and internet materials. The law would also increase the amount of bookkeeping required by the Russian government to allow NGOs to operate within Russia. Failure to abide by the new law's requirements would result in fines and a possible two-year jail sentence. This measure comes on the heals of more of Putin's shenanigans (see here and here). The BBC segment has some interesting interviews with Russian MPs, who justify the legislation on the grounds that NGOs are acting at the behest of Western and US interests in an effort to undermine Russian democracy. 

The second segment of interest concerns the disappearance and execution of people during the 1970s by the military government in Argentina. I've just spent a bit of time reading Keck and Sikkink's 1998 book, Activists Beyond Borders. It just so happens that the authors have a nice and concise account of the role played by NGOs in exposing the activities of the military government during this time period—one that I found myself drawing upon only yesterday. The BBC segment expands a bit upon the details concerning disappearances involving young pregnant women, and the details are both interesting and appalling. Essentially, women were kidnapped, but the authorities often waiting until the women gave birth before executing them. The babies were subsequently handled in a variety of ways, but apparently many children were dropped off at hospitals, while many others were adopted by military families. 

Military Capabilities

Phil Arena has a very cool post up wherein he explores a potential alternative to the ubiquitous CINC score for measuring military capabilities. This strikes me as something that is long overdue.  And there are a couple of things that I like about the measure just from taking a quick glance at it. First, given that China just launched its first aircraft carrier, which is actually a refurbished Soviet carrier if I recall correctly, I think the notion that China has already surpassed the US in terms of military capabilities is a big pill to swallow. Second, just glancing at his figures for European powers during the late 19th century, Phil's measure looks more noisy, which in truth is kind of what I'd actually expect to see. The CINC measure makes there appear to be a lot more stability than I would expect to come along with a period where many of these European powers are vying for access to colonial possessions, foreign markets, etc. Furthermore, there were definite differences in terms of how each of these countries allocated their military resources. England certainly had the dominant navy during the late 1800s, but countries like France, Germany, and Russia had advantages in terms of their ability to field ground forces that the British just didn't possess.  

As Phil mentions, the measure may need some further development, but I still think this is really neat. 

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).

The Syrian Civil War

Over at the new Political Violence at a Glance blog, Barbara Walter and Elizabeth Martin address a question that I raised last week regarding the reluctance of policymakers to label the Syrian conflict a civil war. Walter and Martin raise three/four points in particular (I may be lumping something together here) to help explain this behavior, but I have a couple of further questions/comments. 

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."