On Hiatus

IRCPPS will be on hiatus this week (10/16-10/22), although some posting may continue at a lighter schedule.

IRCPPS in the Links: Do We Need Smart Presidents? Revisited

Andrew Gelmman responds to the earlier John Sides piece in the Monkey Cage:

...I was bothered by some of the discussion of John’s recent post, “Do We Need Smart Presidents?” John and the discussants use the terms “smart,” “intellectual brilliance,” “IQ,” “intelligence,” and “candlepower.” Commenter Jordan Phillips mentions “emotional intelligence,” which seems more on the right track. Not that emotional intelligence is the only thing that matters, but politics in general (not just for presidents) involves a lot of negotiation. IQ-test skills presumably help with negotiation, coalition-formation, etc., but there are a lot of other important skills here...

Research Notes: How to Pick a Research Project

Chris Blattman passes on some advice on picking topics from Don Davis, a Columbia Economic Professor.

Research Notes: Don't Forget the General Social Survey

Andrew Gelman writes in the Monkey Cage to remind us of its usefulness.

IRCPPs in the Links: Partisan Shifts After Financial Crises

Erik Voeten considers a paper by Lawrence Broz in the Monkey Cage:

...The general claim that we should expect people to shift leftwards during crises is well-supported by logic and evidence; and not just in this paper. In this sense, Occupy Wall Street is not unexpected but the Tea Party is. Now, there is an obvious way the current US case is different: the shift to the left occurred as the crisis was unfolding. Indeed, in Germany, France, and the UK right-wing coalitions are all facing plummeting approval ratings and difficult reelection prospects (although not immediate in all countries). Perhaps the US is different in other ways too. Scholars have been debating for years why working-class radicalism is so weak in the US?. Nonetheless, the comparative perspective provides some useful context to a movement whose salience appears to surprise a lot of people...

Call for Papers: 3rd Global Conference on Revenge

via inter-disciplinary.net:

Revenge, so we are told, is a dish best served cold: a ‘sweet’ wreaking of vengeance on those who have – either in reality or in our minds – slighted, wronged or in some way ‘injured’ us and who are now ‘enjoying’ their just deserts by an avenging angel (or angels) on the great day of reckoning.

This inter- and multi-disciplinary research and publications project seeks to explore the multi-layered ideas, actions, and cultural traditions of vengeance or revenge. The project aims to explore the nature of revenge, its relationship with issues of justice, and its manifestation in the actions of individuals, cultures, communities and nations. The project will also consider the history of revenge, its ‘legitimacy’, the ‘scale’ of vengeful actions and whether revenge has (or should have) ‘limits’. Representations of revenge in film, literature, television, theatre and radio will be analysed; cultural ‘traditions’ of retaliation and revenge will be considered. And the role of mercy, forgiveness and pardon will be assessed.

Call for Applicants: Grant for Study of Transnational Crime and Corruption in Eastern Europe and Eurasia

via PSRT-L:

*Grant Opportunity for Graduate/PhD Students Pre-Tenure Faculty,
Scholars, and Professionals*

2012 IREX/WWC Regional Policy Symposium:
TRANSNATIONAL CRIME AND CORRUPTION IN EASTERN EUROPE AND EURASIA

Application Deadline: *December 9, 2011*

IRCPPS in the Links: Are Smarter Presidents Better Presidents?

Johns Sides considers this question in the Monkey Cage:

...Simonton measured various qualities of presidents by noting about 300 adjectives used to describe them in their biographies.  He then used a method of data reduction (factor-analysis) to reduce this long list of adjectives to 14 personality traits.  He demonstrates correlations between various of these traits and previous efforts at rating presidents on similar dimensions. Of course, no such effort is beyond reproach.  But Simonton’s is, on its face, a credible effort.  One of the dimensions he identifies is “intellectual brilliance”—precisely what we are discussing regarding Rick Perry.  He finds that a president’s intellectual brilliance is associated with a higher ranking by historians and others, controlling for other factors (years in office, the number of years the president presided over a war, whether the president was assassinated, beset by a scandal, or a war hero)...

IRCPPs in the Links: Did the European conquest of the Americas contribute to the "Little Ice Age"?

Abandoned Footnotes looks at the possibility of unintended environmental consequences following mass social change (in 1492!):

...Most native peoples in the Americas, lacking iron tools, practised forms of agriculture that made much use of fire. These were not "primitive" forms of agriculture, but complex land-management practices that made possible great population densities, even in places that are today only lightly inhabited (like the Amazon). Low-level burning kept grasslands from turning into forests, helped create forests that looked to Europeans like great parks, and produced charcoal that was used to make thin soils fertile through terra preta. And these practices effectively kept enormous amounts of carbon dioxide constantly in the atmosphere rather than locked into trees and other vegetation. When  native populations collapsed, however, the burning stopped or was greatly reduced, and the carbon dioxide was quickly locked up into forests again. Now, what follows is quite controversial. Mann cites some recent research that argues that this must have made a big contribution to the so-called Little Ice Age: the sudden drop in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, perhaps in combination with natural variations in solar radiation, generated global cooling from around 1550 to around 1660. And this global cooling in turn appears to have produced a great "general crisis" in Europe: famine, war, and pestilence....

Around Academia: The de-globalization of American higher education?

Dan Drezner responds to a Boston Globe article on the retrenchment many US universities are going through after greatly expanding their international presences over the last few decades:

...The logic of expanding overseas because of "prestige, planting the flag overseas, a presidential feeling that they needed to be doing adventurous things" is a depressing data point about the ways in the academy can be slaves to intellectual and business trends...

IRCPPS in the Links: Analyzing the Tymoshenko Verdict in Ukraine

the Monkey Cage provides analysis from a variety of experts:

Yesterday in Ukraine, the country’s most prominent opposition leader – and one of the heroes of the Orange Revolution – Yulia Tymoshenko – was sentenced to seven years in jail for harming Ukraine’s interest in gas negotiations with Russia during her time as Prime Minister of Ukraine. However, as the NY Times notes:

European leaders have condemned the case as politically motivated, and hinted that they are unlikely to ratify a free trade and association agreement with Ukraine, a project four years in the making.

Once again we are pleased to welcome a series of brief expert analyses from some of my colleagues at PONARS Eurasia

Summary: International Security Volume 36 - Issue 2 - 2011

In this issue of International Security:

• Brooks finds that Muslim "home grown" terrorism is not a serious threat in the United States.
• Lopez, McDermott, and Petersen offer a model for applying evolutionary psychology to international relations.
• Bennett and Lind examine what military missions to successfully stabilize North Korea would require if it suffered state collapse.
• Kennedy attempts to understand India's long path towards fielding nuclear weapons.
• Hymans discusses the domestic institutional barriers to Japan fielding nuclear weapons.

IRCPPS in the Links: The Unintended Consequences of Campaign Promises

Chris Blattman's blog offers an analysis of the Liberian elections, and an interesting vignette from Rob Blair about the unintended consequences of unfulfilled campaign promises:

In one community I visited, I asked the town chief how he adjudicated among the dozens of candidates on the ballot. He pointed to the village’s dilapidated school. During the previous congressional campaign, the district’s current representative had promised that he would repair the building, but never did. Now an opposition candidate has promised that he’ll do the job instead. That was enough to convince the town chief, who rallied the village in the opposition’s favor.

TeachIRCPPS: Doom and Gloom 101: Making Weak and Failed States Teachable

Duck of Minerva features a post tackling how to teach about weak and failed states with nuance and finesse:

Nothing risks inviting cynicism and despair like teaching and learning about failed states. For the second year I'm teaching an upper level International Relations course titled "Weak and Failed States" in the Poli Sci Department at UMass Amherst. Much to the confusion of my students, I introduce the course by explaining that "weak and failed states" is a highly contested concept, driven more by policy agendas than empirical consistencies, and analytical re-conceptualized so many times over that it's almost entirely useless. In other words, welcome to Political Science! But, as a catch-all concept it does manage to frame different types of governance challenges and threats and introduces students to case studies, like Haiti and DRC, that tend to fall off the radar for issues that matter in traditional IR. And surprisingly, the course went very well last year and so far, so good, this semester.

Conference Announcement: NYU Conference on Labor Studies and Academic Freedom

via PSRT-L:

NYU’s Frederic Ewen Academic Freedom Center Presents:

Labor Education and Academic Freedom

Recent attacks on labor studies programs violate some of the core
principles of academic freedom including the respect for the privacy
of students and faculty members to engage in free and open discussion
of ideas.

This conference will explore the current crisis in labor education and
the ways in which outside pressure groups are attacking labor studies
programs as part of a larger agenda to erode public support for the
labor movement.

IRCPPS in the Links: On Coding Corpse Counts

Michael Spagat writes to Duck of Minerva to clarify how his civilian targeting index was coded:

... UCDP coding of ‘deliberate’ or ‘intentional’ civilian targeting is not a judicial assessment (e.g. of manslaughter or murder), nor is it an attempt to ‘know’ a perpetrator’s motivations. Instead, UCDP coding methodology assesses whether particular conflict-related deaths were likely to be one-sided or battle-related based on a combined review of: the plausible target, the method by which a killing was carried out, presented evidence, and credible statements or attributions of guilt. In each situation of violence the human coders, using what evidence is at hand, first attempt to identify a likely target. Coders also consider what method of attack was used (bombing, shooting, IED, etc.)....