Unfortunately the last few months have been fairly low output in terms of blog posts. This can be credited to resettling after returning from Samoa, getting back to work with the tech community in D.C, and of course getting a dissertation written. I have had the chance to get myself on a few panels this … Continue reading Upcoming events!
Mixed Methods
Rigor Versus Reality: Balancing the field with the lab
I am finally able to respond (add) to a post by Chris Moore about the problem of mathematicization and formalization of political science, and social science more generally, as it relates to how the social sciences inform real policy issues. As I'm finishing a Fulbright fellowship in Samoa, where I worked specifically on research supporting policy … Continue reading Rigor Versus Reality: Balancing the field with the lab
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
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
My TechChange Swan Song
Cross posted from the TechChange blog This past Thursday and Friday (May 8 & 9) I participated in the ICTs and Violence Prevention workshop hosted by the World Bank’s Social Development Office. We had an excellent collection of experts from across academia, NGOs, and government who discussed the complexities of using technology for violence prevention. One … Continue reading My TechChange Swan Song
Book review! “Crafting Peace” by Caroline Hartzell and Matthew Hoddie
Caroline Hartzell and Matthew Hoddie make an argument that the most robust form of negotiated peace involves a well-designed power or institution sharing agreement between the parties involved in a civil war. They make this argument in “Crafting Peace” using a statistical analysis of conflict cessation that includes variables covering duration, external intervention and measures … Continue reading Book review! “Crafting Peace” by Caroline Hartzell and Matthew Hoddie
Kenya Trip! Mixed method research on mobile phones for peace
Since the end of the fall semester of 2011, I have been working on a paper that integrates theories of ethnic cooperation and information asymmetries to understand why mobile phones can have a significant effect on conflict prevention. You can find the working paper here. I presented this paper in Australia at the University of … Continue reading Kenya Trip! Mixed method research on mobile phones for peace
Book Review! Scott Strauss’s “The Order of Genocide”
As time passes and we are able to collect more data on the Rwandan genocide, it is becoming increasingly important that we recognize not only the externalities that created socio-political pressure in Rwanda leading up to the genocide, but also systematically study why the perpetrators of violence made the decision to participate. Generally we see … Continue reading Book Review! Scott Strauss’s “The Order of Genocide”
How ICCM Got Me Thinking About Experimental Design
We have all probably had a time when we thought to ourselves,"I have to tweet hard since most people won't see/remember one particular tweet." I would generally agree, but there was one tweet that stuck in my mind from the International Conference on Crisis Mapping this past weekend at the World Bank. It got some … Continue reading How ICCM Got Me Thinking About Experimental Design
Daniel Posner’s “Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa”
Systematic analysis of ethno-linguistic cleavages and competition in Africa, and the world more broadly, are often chalked up to “ancient ethnic hatred” or over-simplistic cultural analyses of legacy political economics. Daniel Posner’s “Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa” takes the question of ethnicity in African politics and unpacks the cleavages between ethno-linguistic groups in Zambia … Continue reading Daniel Posner’s “Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa”
Charles P. Martin-Shields 