A recent paper by Joshua Kalla & David Broockman has attracted some attention (for example, in this Washington Post story, Monkey Cage post, and this excellent, reflective post on Mischiefs of Faction by Jennifer Victor). In a nutshell, the paper reports the results of a well-designed field experiment that provides evidence that donations to a Member of Congress “open doors” in the … Read more
I’ve joked before with people that I liken social science models to rock songs. My actual mapping is horribly incomplete. So I’ll set that chatter to the side. That said, the practice of modeling, in my experience, is a lot like rock ‘n roll. You give me a topic, and I’ll think for a minute, … Read more
This post by Michael Moynihan, responding in part to this post by Thane Rosenbaum, asks how “free” free speech should be. The question of discriminating between different forms of speech—based on questions such as “is it knowingly false,” “how likely is it to incite violence,” and “is it political”—is an instantiation of an aggregation problem, exactly the … Read more
The debt ceiling drama is inexorably drawing to its next installment, and the question remains: when and, more importantly, how will a deal get done? To keep matters simple, President Obama and Congressional Democrats have stood by the long-standing pledge to not negotiate on the debt ceiling, but some Congressional Republicans have been pushing for … Read more
All is not well in Thaliand, where the opposition Democrat Party is calling for its supporters (some of whom have been actively protesting for months now) to boycott today’s parliamentary elections. Boycotting elections is not uncommon: indeed, opposition parties have recently boycotted elections in Bangladesh and the main Islamist opposition party is calling for a boycott … Read more
President Obama’s SOTU speech has revived interest in Presidential power. Erik Voeten (here) and Andrew Rudalevige (here) argue that Presidential unilateral action has declined in recent years, while Eric Posner argues here that “executive power has increased dramatically since World War II.” The question of presidential power is a classic one in political science. The recent debates illustrate three important … Read more
This Op-Ed in Forbes, “Almost Everything You Have Been Told About The Minimum Wage Is False,” by Jeffrey Dorfman, argues that increasing the federal minimum wage (1) would not affect as many people as you might think and (2) would not help the working poor as much as (say) teenagers. The first half of Dorfman’s Op-Ed … Read more
Tonight, President Obama will deliver the State of the Union speech, or SOTU. The SOTU is an odd creature. It is an annual opportunity for the President to directly address Congress on whatever he wishes—a time to “show his hand” for the upcoming year. From a “math of politics” perspective, there are at least three … Read more
So, the Federal Government is once again approaching the debt ceiling. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has said that he thinks that “…for the president to ask for a clean debt ceiling, when we have a debt the size of our economy is irresponsible. So, we ought to discuss adding something to his request to … Read more
I just came off sabbatical. It’s nice to be teaching again. It’s also the cause for a moment of reflection. This post isn’t about the strategic calculus of real-world politics. Rather, it’s (sort of) about the strategic career calculus of political science. There are several milestones in the typical academic career. A key question at … Read more