Daniel Solomon recently posted a piece on how we conceptualize (and often misconceptualize) the role of big data in conflict event prediction. His post got me thinking about what role big data plays in conflict analysis. This comes on the heels of Chris Neu's post on the TechChange blog about the limits of using crowdsourcing to … Continue reading Finding Big Data’s Place in Conflict Analysis
Statistics
Causes of Effects…and Effects of Causes
Andrew Gelman and Guido Imbens recently posted a paper entitled "Why Ask Why? Forward Causal Inference and Reverse Causal Questions." It completely made my day, primarily because it succinctly deals with the way people naturally arrive at research questions with the help of some statistical logic. While I liked the models and the logic, what I … Continue reading Causes of Effects…and Effects of Causes
Social Network Analysis: A cool analysis of how SNA worked during the American Revolution
Lots of people saw Kieran Healy's humorous and thought proviking post about how some very basic matrix algebra and centrality analysis can be used to identify people within social networks using basic metadata. This article by Shin Kap Han goes into more depth about centrality and the power of weak bonds; I found the analysis of the … Continue reading Social Network Analysis: A cool analysis of how SNA worked during the American Revolution
Samoa update: A little informed consent, a lot of economics
I'm embracing my status as a political scientist working in the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MCIT). While a lot of my experience in the tech space tends to be tool-centric, I'm finding more and more that the challenges on the user end (in this case Samoa) are related to policy and economics. The … Continue reading Samoa update: A little informed consent, a lot of economics
Matrix Math and Paul Revere
This week has been a rather stat oriented week of posts. I blame this on the fact that political economy and peacekeeping has been dominating my official academic life in the form of a comprehensive exam. The silver lining is that I will soon have political economy and peacekeeping content galore. To keep everyone entertained this … Continue reading Matrix Math and Paul Revere
Unpacking P-values: Turning statistical significance into practical significance
I often get questions about the veracity of using statistics to understand conflict and political behavior, especially when using predictive or confirmatory analytic methods. The questions are well founded, since a recent article found that potentially up to 54% of statistical results in the medical field are spurious. This should give social scientists pause, since … Continue reading Unpacking P-values: Turning statistical significance into practical significance
“Crowdsharing” and Violence Prevention
One thing I'm working on in my doctoral research is understanding why crowdsourcing works in conflict management and resolution...or should at least logically work based on the various theories of conflict management and resolution developed and refined over the last 40 or so years. In this post, I'm going to use Kenyan election violence as … Continue reading “Crowdsharing” and Violence Prevention
New look, new content
Greetings readers! You'll notice that the site looks quite different, and indeed has a new title. This is because my coursework in my Ph.D. program has ended, and I've moved into a new phase of my research and professional life: preparing to write a dissertation. Calvin sums this process up perfectly: With all this in … Continue reading New look, new content
Charles P. Martin-Shields 