The professional world of political science — the job market, research methodology, peer review, academic writing, the role of formal theory in the discipline, and occasional dispatches from the trenches.
[This is an installment in my irregular series of articles on the minutiae of what I do, “Inside Baseball.”] Lately I have been working on a couple of models with various signaling aspects. It has led me to think a lot more about both “testing models” and common knowledge of beliefs. Specifically, a central question … Read more
Note: This is the first of what might be an irregular “column” of sorts, “Inside Baseball,” focusing on the minutiae of my research, as opposed to current events. The heart of game theory is “what would everyone else think if I do what I am about to do differently?” This is slightly different than … Read more
So, dispensing with technicalities, the efforts to curtail NSF funding of political science research have apparently succeeded, at least for now. I think this is a good opportunity to post something that has bothered me over the past few years. In a nutshell, I am unsure that the “Coburn amendment” is a bad thing for … Read more
There is a simmering debate about the science of politics. For example, here’s a recent uninformed and deliciously uninformative anger-fueled argument that political science does not “serve the public”—a notion that any good political scientist knows is the warm bed of those too lazy to consider the vacuity of the notion of “serving the public.” … Read more
I’ve been reading several papers lately that examine the effects of various government policies on various social and economic outcomes. Increasingly, I find myself wondering what these studies actually conclude with “null” results. (By the way, I am sure that this issue has been raised before, but I’ve been thinking a lot about it lately, … Read more
On the eve of the most universal of American family holidays, I am thinking of the question of names. In particular, the interaction of surnames and marriage. In the interest of both “setting the stage” and providing at least the appearance of a disclaimer, I should acknowledge, that (1) I am married and (2) my … Read more
At least among social scientists and their supporters/detractors, there was a fairly active discussion of the House of Representatives version of the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, passed back in May. For example, Christopher Zorn wrote this, Ezra Klein presented a well-intentioned take on the issue, Brendan Nyhan presented this defense, and … Read more
This weekend, the Olympics drew our attention to those who leave everyone behind, leading us to question the nature of time itself (and I started thinking about algebra). So, I naturally began to think about measurement and education… Recently, increased attention has been paid to the Obama Administration’s granting of waivers (or, “flexibility”) to states from the … Read more
Putting real politics aside for a moment, I have a few comments on Andrew Hacker‘s op-ed in today’s New York Times, entitled “Is Algebra Necessary?” I will first answer his question. Then I will discuss a few logical weaknesses of Hacker’s argument. (In the interest of full disclosure, I am very proud to be a Unicorn, … Read more