The Quantitative Peace

Stuff is still happening in (the sequel)...

I really don't know how many times I'll be able to use that title, but given that the American audience has become so distracted by the Washington debt ceiling battle, I decided to check on some old favorites and post a quick update on goings on elsewhere.  

Libya:  Apparently Libyan rebels have made "significant" gains in the past week, taking control of some key cities on the way to Tripoli.  NATO planes have damaged or destroyed over 150 targets in the past week alone.  However, who really knows what qualifies as a "military target" for these purposes.  Sources in the article also indicate that some of Ghadaffi's forces have begun consolidating in Tripoli and have begun removing their uniforms, apparently gearing up for a transition in tactics.  It will be interesting to see what the next month brings.  

Syria:  It sounds like the body count in Syria is continuing to rise steadily.  Syrian security forces are apparently combating "armed gangs" in an effort to protect the people.  This includes firing into Palestinian refugee camps as well it seems.  The article also mentions a Youtube video that has surfaced, purportedly showing some pretty graphic scenes from the crackdown.  I've not seen it, but it sounds pretty unsettling.  

Bahrain:  It sounds as though things have quieted down for the time being, but Bahrain is still dealing with the fallout from the previous protests and crackdowns.  Quiet doesn't necessarily mean good, however, as the BBC is reporting that hundreds of people are still in jail and there are reports of widespread torture.  Not terribly surprising, but it's important to keep in mind the fact that the violence carries on even once the streets have cleared.    

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.

War Songs

Blogging has been lite lately, but in response to Phil's subtle nudges, I've decided to offer up my own list of war songs.  I'm approaching this from a more general angle of "war songs" as opposed to songs that are strictly anti-war.  These songs are not necessarily supposed to reflect any particular personal views of war--they just happen to be drawn from the general body of music that I grew up listening to.  That said, there are most certainly some common themes.  

As a general rule I will list songs by song title and then artist.  Some of these will probably be songs/bands that many people are familiar with, but others less so (as an aside, it was almost a sport in high school to seek out rare and obscure records--not because the music was particularly good, but that's how you win, duh).

1. The Trooper -- Iron Maiden: (Song link)  Everything about this song is amazing--the narrative, the guitar work--everything.  The guitar riffs in particular are simply classic.  But aside from the musical component, the lyrics are especially good, as they tell a graphic and coherent story.  Furthermore, this story takes us back a ways to a time when we're talking about fighting with muskets and cavalry charges.  I mean just look at the imagery!
2. Aces High -- Iron Maiden: (Song link)  Yes, another Maiden joint.  They're fantastic.  Anywho, unlike the Trooper, Aces High is all about dog fights.  The guitar work is again phenomenal, having this sort of frantic quality to it that matches up with the song's lyrics quite well.  The chorus serves as a nice foil to the rest of the song and gives the listener a sense that they are almost soaring through the air.  
3. World War II -- English Dogs: (Song link)  The English Dogs made a transition shortly after this song toward more of a punk-metal style, some of which is available on the iTunes.  Nowhere near the more poetic and technical styling of an Iron Maiden tune, this song has nevertheless always stuck with me.  I think what's always fascinated me about this song is the context in which it was written.  During the early to mid 1980s many other English punk bands were (as the song suggests) singing about the perils of nuclear war and the impending nuclear apocalypse.  This seems sort of obvious given the backdrop of the Cold War at the time.  Alternatively, this song points out that World War II was a pretty hellish experience, and in so doing, sort of asks the question, "what more do you want?"  
4. War Ensemble -- Slayer: (Song link)  This is probably one of their more aggressive/famous songs, and the connection is pretty obvious.  Their lyrics are also incredibly graphic, which I think is appropriate given that war is a pretty miserable thing.  We don't need to experience it directly to know that it's not something that we should seek out for enjoyment.  That said, we're surrounded by music, movies, video games, etc., that try to find the poetry or excitement in an otherwise hellish experience, and I think this song speaks to the far darker aspects of war.  Like Iron Maiden, but in a totally different way, old-school Slayer has a way about them when it comes to evoking a particular type of imagery.  Honorable mention should also go to "Hallowed Point" (Song link) which is also on the Seasons in the Abyss album.  While this song is not directly about war, I think it definitely relates quite closely.  
5. Generals -- GBH: (Song link)  Another song that has stuck with me for a long time.  This song speaks to a few different points, but I think the most important of them are these ideas of the exploitation and manipulation of the common foot soldier, and asking these questions about why/how an individual is told to fight.  The song ends by raising these questions of the human costs that are incurred, and combined with the chorus, I think does a successful job at linking these themes of serving some abstract and higher cause with the aforementioned micro-level themes of the human suffering and costs (of those on the winning side, might I add).  
6. Let's Start a War -- The Exploited: (Song link)  This speaks to some of the same themes as the previous song, but I think it more directly speaks to the different costs that are incurred by members of different classes in society.  I've never been a huge fan of the Exploited, but this is another song that I've always remembered.
7. Viva la Revolution -- The Adicts: (Song link)  Not so much about war in an interstate sense, but more about social upheaval and civil conflict.  Still, a great song and perhaps appropriate given the current state of things around the world.  This band was a great one in large part because of their style--they drew heavily on clockwork orange imagery for the band's (and especially the lead singer's) look.  While not as graphic as the other songs, this was just a really fun one. 

I'm sure there are probably some songs that I'm leaving out, so this list may be revised if I think of anything.  My thanks to Phil for the idea--I had a lot of fun thinking about this idea and sifting through my music collection.  And as I mentioned before, some of these songs don't necessarily have a particular message about war itself, but when you comb through this stuff it just reminds you how influential warfare has been in shaping the musical world.

Linear Time and Games

I am glad to see someone has taken the opening episode of Deep Space 9 and created a clip of one of the more theoretically interesting segments of the episode.  Granted, this was uploaded 4 years ago, but I had not come across a short version of the clip until now. 

I watched the show when I was in middle/high school and had the opportunity to rewatch it all the way through when we picked up the complete series a few years ago.  While the longer story arcs are compelling and the show gains some decent steam in the 4 and 5th season, much of it is not digestable for a class (unless I am teaching "The Politics of Star Trek"). Unlike traditional Star Trek series (Original, ST:TNG), much of the better stories are not episodic.

The clip features Commander (not quite a Captain yet) Sisko explaining to wormhole aliens the utility of living in linear time - the aliens experience time simultaneously.

 

 

With the proper context, this can make it into a game theory lecture.

 

Sci-Fi Poli Sci, Episode I: Regime Types Across Sci-Fi Universes

Assuming that one is looking for them, it is fairly easy to find internet arguments that stem from comparisons among and between science fiction universes, and a great many of these arguments center on comparing governments within those universes. Which government is more democratic: Star Wars' Galactic Republic or Star Trek's United Federation? Who is more repressive: Firefly's Alliance or Star Wars' Galactic Empire? How do the military assets of the Stargate universe stack up against those found in all of the other sci-fi universes? Indeed, given that nerd culture is now nearly synonymous with pop culture, these conversations seem to be quite common, particularly if one regularly eats lunch with the bloggers at The Quantitative Peace.  However, while some political scientists and economists have tried to answer questions that have clearly spawned from science fiction, I am unaware of any that have attempted to apply some of the more commonly used quantitative measurements in political science to the governments seen in such universes. Therefore, this post represents a first attempt to apply quantititative measures from political science to the polities envisioned in some of the most beloved science fiction franchises, in an attempt to answer the question: Which sci-fi governments are the most democratic, and which are the most autocratic? In the paragraphs below, I take a close look at a few sci-fi governments and use a couple of the more popular measures of regime type to compare them.

While this is mostly an attempt to have some Friday fun with political science measurement, I do not think it is an entirely frivolous exercise.  If our measurement schemes are valid, then they should apply quite nicely across regimes, even imagined ones.  Furthermore, as someone who regularly teaches classes about quantitative research in political science, I think there may be instructional advantages to using fictional regimes to introduce students to the methodological challenges associated with developing valid quantitative measures of such things as human rights, regime type, military capabilities, etc.  In fact, the use of fictional governments may allow the instructor to escape the various normative hang-ups and national attachments that can often impede undergraduates' willingness to pursue strict coding guidelines in quantitative data collection.  Thus, to quote Paul Krugman (1978, 2), "while the subject of this [post] is silly," the content should make sense, and as such, the post should be viewed as a "serious analysis of a ridiculous subject."

Facts and Stuff on the Distributions of Income and Race in America

Via Andrew Gelman at the Monkey Cage, an article on this recent Gallup poll regarding people's income and their perceptions of income distributions, tax burdens, etc. 

The thrust of the article is that there are some disparities between where people fall in the overall income distribution and their perceptions of how the tax burden should be distributed---Not my normal thing, but interesting nevertheless.

More below...

Sounds About Right

courtesy: www.smbc-comics.com

The Domestic Side of Things

Clearly I'm trying to make up for a post drought from the past couple of months.  I'll leave the more in-depth commentary to someone who has been following this situation more closely, but it looks like the Wisconsin State Government is experiencing a wheeeeee-bit of a principal-agent problem (via Boing Boing).

Wisconsin Police Have Joined Protest Inside State Capitol

I will say that it's not immediately clear to me whether we're talking about off-duty cops only, or if we're talking about both on and off-duty police officers.  If the latter are protesting that would seem to be less of a problem, but the article seems to indicate that on-duty officers are the ones refusing to remove protestors from the capitol.  On the other hand, the man in the video looks more to be an off-duty officer expressing support (if his jacket is any indication).   

Rumsfeld Interview

Given this piece from the other day, I thought this was an appropriate followup.  Daily Show fans have probably already seen his interview from last night with former Defense Secretary Donald Rumseld, but for those who have not I would recommend it.  Rumsfeld was unquestionably one of the most important architects of the Iraq war, and I think this interview fits in nicely with the discussion from the other day regarding the influence of unelected actors in the policymaking process.  I found it particularly interesting how Rumsfeld acknowledges the important role played by presidential advisors in this process, but really seems to shift accountability away from the Defense Department and onto the State Department and the non-descript "intelligence community" (of which the DOD is an incredibly important member).  

It's worth noting Rumseld's comments regarding his previous remarks on "going to war with the military you have, not the one you wish you had."  I think it's easy to dismiss this comment as another of Rumsfeld's  witticisms, but I think the question it poses is important and worth exploring.  How much do we really know about how the decisions of an administration's predecessor constrain the ability of the current administration to act in certain ways?  If we are to take Rumsfeld at his word--not much.  He seems to be implying that the capabilities of the state don't factor into decisions related to the use of force, or at least that they only matter to a certain extent.  Policy objectives come first--capabilities matter second. 

Some of his remarks also suggest some interesting things insofar as the learning process of the miltiary/DOD is concerned.  Is it preferable to invest significant amounts of money and resources up front to address possible shortfalls?  Or is it better to go to war, knowing that capabilities are less than optimal, but that investments in updating or upgrading capabilities will be more efficiently and effectively applied after more information is gained through battlefield encounters?  Rather, that it is impossible to know what the optimal allocation of funds is until more information is gained? 

Thoughts?  

The International Relations Implications of Chinese Parenting Practices

By now I'm sure most people have come across Amy Chua's recent Wall Street Journal article.  After reading David Brooks' response to Chau's article, I've begun to think of some of some of the international relations implications of Chua's Chinese parenting style.  Specifically, I'm curious to see what her revelations imply for China's ascendency in the global community.  In spite of  her in-text caveats, I will assume that her described style indeed applies to all Chinese mothers and in no way, shape, or form is a blanket generalization that might not apply quite so broadly.

1. Espionage -- Historically espionage and subterfuge have been incredibly important in advancing national objectives.  Well--placed operatives can provide decision-makers with valuable information on the intentions and capabilities of rival powers.  And a relatively simple act of misinformation or sabotage can achieve what might take millions of dollars and thousands of military personnel to achieve.  But it appears that we have very little to fear from China in terms of espionage.  Chua claims that a ban on playdates was one of the imporant steps in creating a driven, high-achieving child.  And let's not even talk about participating in a school play.  Do we really expect the Chinese government to field skilled intelligence operatives if they don't even allow their children to partake in afterschool drama activities?  Where are they supposed to learn the  skills necessary to fool other highly trained intelligence operatives?  Denying a child from an early age the basic opportunities that contribute to shaping their social skills and ability to feign interest in the stories of self-involved peers doesn't seem like a very effective means of imbuing budding spies with spy-type skills. 
2. Military -- One of the two categories that Chua lists as being acceptable for her children to under achieve in is gym class.  I've watched enough movies featuring basic training programs to know that big wall and the rope climb are omni-present features of military life.  Furthermore, a basic neglect of physically demanding activities does not seem like a particularly effective way of building up a strong military.  Granted this ignores the emphasis on more technologically advanced means of warfighting, but as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have emphasized the importance of boots on the ground, I'd say physical prowess is still important.
3. Strategy -- Chua doesn't allow her children to watch TV or play video games.  I assume this ban also extends to surfing the internet as well.  We all know newspapers are dying out, so how will Chinese children keep up on current global affairs?  I predict there will be a severe expertise deficit in China as a consequence of this neglect.  It will take several additional years of education before young Chinese adults will have caught up on all that back reading.  This might also cause the Chinese leadership of the next generation to pursue moot strategies---had they watched TV in the here and now they'd know that the Jersey Shore was already destroying America from the inside out and that there was no need for a more heated contest.  China could preserve valuable military and financial resources had they only watched a little MTV and gave it another 5 years.
4. Soft Power -- At first glance it would seem that China has an advantage in this department.  So many gifted, classically trained musicians and an emphasis high academic excellence should make China an attractive place.  A well educated population provides the country with an enormous pool of expertise and talent which can then provide a boost to China's academic institutions, perhaps making them more attractive to foreign students.  Through attending China's universities, foreign students will experience Chinese culture and develop a greater affinity for the country.  However, the standards by which Chinese parents apparently raise their children has likely had a perverse effect in this area.  Admissions standards to Chinese universities must be incredibly high.  If the lower and upper bounds of the typical grade distribution in China are A+ and A+, where do the A students go?  University admissions standards are likely so high that strategic-thinking foreign students realize they can't hope to compete and apply to universities in other countries, thus depriving China of the opportunity to difuse its values and culture to the rest of the world.  And, really, what do you as a country do with an enormous surplus of high-quality pianists?  China may soon come to have an enormous population of struggling artists to support, placing enormous demands on its economic system as funds are syphoned off to support the glut of unemployed virtuosos.       

I'm sure that there are furhter areas in which parenting will matter when it comes to international affairs.  If anyone can think of anything in particular that I've missed, please feel free to contribute.