Coffee shop philosophy

Would you like to come up and see my sketchings?

2011-02-18T22:53:00.000-05:00

The RSA has another awesome episode in their animated video series. This time, Steven Pinker talks about the functions of language in human society. We use language to indicate hierarchies and relationship types, and of course this gets covered. But he also touches on an interesting question that I have had a long and unproductive discussion with a couple of friend about: why do we use sexual innuendo during courtship even when the meaning is perfectly clear to both participants? The 10-minute video gives a very interesting answer: indirect speech allows us to avoid "common knowledge", which can make things awkward. In other words, indirect speech allows us to keep up a pretence in the case of rejection. For a closer explanation, have a look:

I have to say, while this explanation is much better than what my friends and I dreamed up during the (possibly drunken) course of our discussion, I am not completely satisfied. Do humans not use innuendo even when the outcome of the come-on is all but certain? It takes a long time for couples to get to the stage of explicit sexual invitations... and even then, innuendo is usually not completely lost from conversation. Are we just so used to indirect speech that we cannot drop it even when the need for it is low to non-existent? Or are we just so risk averse that no matter how minute the chance of rejection, we simply won't go there?

Egypt - different view

2011-02-02T23:47:00.000-05:00

After I posted my thoughts on Egypt last night, I got an e-mail response from my friend Shashank Joshi, and with his permission I am reposting his thoughts here. Shashank has more source credibility than I do (you may have heard him discussing these questions on BBC Radio 4 among other places), and I think he makes some great points. Shashank writes:
---

Regarding your blogpost on Egypt [and the assumption that violence will not escalate], I disagree. Yes, the regular army has said it won't fire, but:

There is the Republican Guard (tens of thousand strong, IIRC).
Your predictions are subject to the protests remaining static. Bets are off if they march to the palace and things escalate.
There may be splits within the army - it only takes a critical mass of tank commanders to suppress an escalation. The split is likely a senior-junior one, as Mubarak has cannily tied up the senior levels via Ahmed Shafiq and Omar Suleiman.

This is my amateur reading. I think Mubarak will be out, but the conduit is going to be American pressure on Egyptian leadership and senior commanders at colonel level.

The protests have so far not directly penetrated institutions of state power, and when they do, that's when the army's (sets of?) preferences will be revealed. Also, escalation by protesters may tarnish their cause and lower US support, if the regime can contain it in a low-intensity way. A mass mobbing is the worst-case for Mubarak, as that cannot be contained - but do they have the stomach for that?

Egypt: after Mubarak, what?

2011-02-01T23:52:00.000-05:00

I chose February 1st as the day to return to blogging because it is the beginning of the month, not because of what is happening in Egypt. However, given what is going on, I can't think of another topic for my first post. What is exciting about Egypt from the standpoint of a political science student who knows very, very little about Egypt but likes thinking about (the emergence of) democracy?

First of all, I am in awe of the suddenness and force with which popular unrest started and has carried on. The emergence of mass protests under authoritarian regimes is a highly unpredictable event, and this is a feature (not a bug) of these protests: unpredictability is close to a definitional feature of them. Some of the reasons for this are covered in Timur Kuran's 1991 article "Now out of never" (gated). If you are a social scientist, you are probably familiar with it; if not, it is a beautiful piece on the need to falsify one's preferences under an authoritarian regime and the consequences of such mass-scale falsification. I am not spoiling the end by saying that one consequence is the unpredictability of mass protests. Even so, with abstract tools for understanding this suddenness at my disposal, it is striking and inspiring to see protest emerge and spread from country to country.

The moment I heard about the Egyptian army's declaration that they would not open fire on the people, my first thought was that Mubarak is out. With no physical coercion at his disposal, how could he stay? Iran taught us last year that it is possible for a regime to beat and arrest their way through protests; what can Mubarak do without such an option? However, the clear weakness of Mubarak now raises the question: who will take over? I lack the detailed knowledge of Egyptian politics that is needed to answer that question with any concrete detail, but this will not stop me from throwing some general questions and concerns around (oh blogging, I really have missed you).

It is uplifting to see crowds congregate, pray together, chant together and wave flags. The people want the government out, and they have every right to want the government out. But, in a country of 80 million people, "the people" cannot rule in any direct sense of the word. Furthermore, leaders (even 'new' ones) tend to emerge from groups that already have some level of organisation. They tend to have followers, and some experience of administration. Leaders rarely emerge simply and charismatically from an impromptu protest to become a benevolent (let alone democratic) leader of a new order. The question in Egypt, then, is where these leaders will come from. Which organisations (hitherto repressed?) may be strong enough to actually lead the euphoria of the crowds, negotiate with the leaving government and the staying army, and turn this democratic opportunity into actual outcomes? If such leaders are not available, then popular protest alone will not create democracy... and may peter out, as popular sentiment cannot run high indefinitely. (A similar point is made over at The Monkey Cage by Lucan Way who suggests that Mubarak may yet be able to sit out the protests and also makes some great comparisons to 1989.)

Hello again, world

2011-02-01T23:10:00.000-05:00

After a two-month hiatus from blogging, I am back behind the keyboard. Hello!

The break from blogging was much needed and refreshing. I'll readily admit that I enjoyed the silence of "the blogging voice" in the back of my head, the one that's always counting the number of posts I've produced in the last week or so. But an affliction like blogging, once acquired, cannot be shed easily. So, with a new term starting, new courses to be taught and new research to be produced, I am also coming back to new blog posts waiting to be written.

To anyone out there still reading, thanks for your patience while I was away.

In which I learn that I am not invincible

2010-12-02T00:48:00.000-05:00

"Some people learn by reading books, some people learn by observing others, and some people need to piss on an electric fence themselves." I don't remember where I heard this gem of wisdom, but now I know that when it comes to burning myself out, I belong to the third category.

I blogged earlier in the autumn about having taken on too much work, so much so that it was interfering not only with my blogging but also nearly eliminated my social life. The result was that in mid-November, I cracked under the pressure and had to get off the wheel. In other words, I hit a wall full-speed, had a minor breakdown, and it was a very unpleasant experience. Why am I blogging about it? There are several reasons, but the primary reason is that I didn't think this would happen to me. And there are things I learned by doing this to myself that I now wish someone had told me about earlier.

So if you are, like me, (a grad student) convinced of your own invincibility, read on. I wrote this to increase your chances of learning by reading, rather than... you know.

1. Why do I think a stress-induced breakdown will not happen to me?

Because people tend to not talk about it. I have talked to four people in my cohort about this - and two of them have had the same experience, one of them while in this programme. I had no idea. I have also been less than forthcoming about this (until this blog post, I guess). In short, having stress-induced breakdowns is not something that is shouted from the rooftops when it happens. When you don't see people around you having breakdowns it is easy to presume they don't happen, but this is not true. The larger issue here is how to get people to be more open about it when it happens, but the more immediate issue for you is: it happens, and you are not immune.

For those who have had something like this happen, the silence means it is easy to beat yourself up about it: "Why am I the only one who can't handle it?" You're not the only one - relax. Also, remember the oh-so-cheesy but true Baz Luhrmann lyric: "Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long, and in the end it is only with yourself."

2. Why might it happen to me even though I don't think it will?

Grad schools (and many other places) are, by a near-inerrant self-selection mechanism, full of people who are really good at pushing themselves to work hard and give their projects everything they can. People who push themselves hard but have never hit the limit are likely to keep pushing until they hit that limit.

This is exactly what happened to me - I kept taking on more commitments because I always felt that if I just worked a little bit harder, were a little bit more focused, used my time more efficiently, I would get more done. Also, those stories about people working too hard? Clearly, they must be crazy. I'm not crazy, I'm just hardworking. And I can push myself a little bit harder this term.

This line of thought didn't work out very well. If you are an over-achiever at heart (no matter what you're working to achieve), the obvious tendency will be to keep trying until you find your limits. I would suggest being mindful of the limits before you cross them.

3. How do I know I am approaching my limit?

This is where I feel the need to attach an "I am not a doctor" disclaimer. There are many people out there who are qualified to tell you what a burnout looks like, and whether you may be headed for one, and I am not one of them. What I can do, however, is tell you what I should have paid attention to. (Don't we all love hindsight?)

The symptoms were the usual suspects: high levels of stress were followed by occasional insomnia, high irritability, then emotionality and tearing up at minor annoyances. I gradually became more engulfed in work and stress and started cutting out weekends off, time out with friends and other keep-me-sane mechanisms that I had usually been very good at keeping in place. When my irritability and emotionality got so severe that I couldn't finish a homework without crying and felt as though my personality was actually changing (for the worse), I knew I had to stop. However, at this point I already needed a week in bed (with fever) followed by a much-needed Thanksgiving break in order to just patch myself together again. I probably won't be back on full speed until after Christmas. (I do know that in the grand scheme of things this is a relatively small burnout, but it is an unpleasant experience nonetheless.) Next time, I will know to keep an eye on myself for any sleep problems, snapping at friends, being emotional for no reason and feeling like I can't afford to take time off.

For you, the signs may be different - but if you get the feeling that you can't keep your current pace up, you're probably right. Go talk to someone. I had a great experience - everyone I spoke to in order to drop a course, renegotiate deadlines and figure out where to go next was incredibly understanding and supportive. (Given everyone's non-shock at my having overloaded myself, this clearly happens much more than I thought - back to point 1.) Even if the experience hadn't been this supportive, however, it would have been worth it. Your mental health comes first.

And if you really can't shake the compulsion to work even more, think of it this way: you'll need that brain to finish the dissertation. So take care of it - even when taking care of it involves regular nights in with hot chocolate and anything but work.

Sunday links

2010-11-28T23:55:00.000-05:00

Sheila Fitzpatrick recalls Moscow adventures in "A Spy in the Archives"

A stubborn secret in CIA's backyard.

A must-read for all grad students: A guide to the "Snake Fight" portion of your thesis defense.

Journal of Personality Special Issue: Personality and Politics

Recipe: White Cranberry Spritzers

YouTube pick: Pink Martini - Shchedryk (Happy 1st of Advent!)

Sunday links

2010-11-21T21:17:00.000-05:00

Harry Potter stars attempt American accents.

How do you know what time it is? Cool post on your inner clock.

Did your student really write that essay? Confessions of a shadow scholar.

You may have read about a new study regarding gender bias in academic recommendation letters. The Monkey Cage takes a closer look.

Can you distinguish fake smiles from real ones? Find out. (I was no better than chance.)

YouTube pick: Robyn - Hang With Me

Sunday links

2010-11-14T13:35:00.000-05:00

How to avoid bad moods inducing "the hell with it" behaviour: psychology research to the rescue.

Zadie Smith contemplates Facebook and generational change.

The future of libraries is coming.

20 untranslatable words.

The crash of the Irish economy: did corporate tax rates matter?

Chris Blattman: advice for students on how to e-mail advisors, TA's, peers.

YouTube pick: Passion Pit - Sleepyhead

Sunday links

2010-11-07T12:19:00.000-05:00

On the awesomeness of good data: What 311 calls tell us about New York.

More NYC: stereotyping on the subway.

Dan Ariely: new economists worth knowing.

Settling the score: why do McDonald's burgers not rot?

What will happen if you refuse to go through the see-beneath-your-clothes machine at the airport? Jeffrey Goldberg's hilarious account of pat-downs to come.

Normblog: should prisoners be allowed to vote?

YouTube pick: The Naked and Famous - Punching in a Dream

Happy Halloween!

2010-10-31T23:52:00.000-04:00

From Cambridge, MA.

Pumpkin pi!

Sunday links

2010-10-31T07:44:00.023-04:00

Some university courses are deemed 'too Western' for Iran.

Is looking for the command for a LaTeX symbol tedious? Not anymore.

Muslims Wearing Things.

The I Heart Taxes project, and the motivation behind it.

Hyperbole and a Half: Why I'll never be an adult.

YouTube pick: Shakira - Did It Again (how awesome is that choreography?)

So you want to go to graduate school?

2010-10-30T17:10:00.000-04:00

If you are currenlty in (or near a) graduate school, you have most likely already seen the videos that went viral among academics this week. I am referring, of course, to the short sarcastic animations that feature young hopeful applicants talking to professors about what really happens in grad school. Now, even if many of you have seen them, I figured that this would not really be a political science grad student blog if I didn't post the videos here too. In addition, there's hope that people outside 'the bubble' might not have seen them yet.

I personally prefer the humanities version:

There is also one for political science, which to me is not as funny (too close to home perhaps). It's a matter of taste I am sure (several friends have assured me that this one is in fact hilarious too):

And just for good measure, law school:

Moving to Beamer

2010-10-30T16:44:00.000-04:00

If you, like me, have developed an instinctive aversion to the colour "PowerPoint Blue" then it may be time to move on to Beamer. I made the move this week, I did so under time pressure, and it was one of the least painful software transitions I have experienced (caveat: I was already familiar with LaTeX). So here I am, encouraging you to try it out for your next presentation.

Beamer is a LaTeX document class that allows the easy production of professional-looking and well-organised slides. I had known about it for some time, but for unknown reasons I was always under the impression that making the move would require a time investment and a steep learning curve. Well... turns out that, given that I know rudimentary TeX, this is not the case at all. In fact, I think that even if you don't know TeX, you can pick up the very basics of Beamer in a day or so (start with a very basic look at what LaTeX is). For me, all I needed was this quick guide to Beamer and this somewhat more thorough guide to Beamer and I was on my way. You can get through these two documents in a matter of hours (I was writing my presentation as I went through the introductions) and the results are beautiful.

If you haven't seen anyone give a Beamer presentation before, the most obvious advantage is that it looks very good (in Beamer it is hard to make anything ugly, as opposed to PowerPoint which can produce beautiful presentations but only if you really, really work at it). My own favourite feature, however, is that some of the themes (for example Berkeley, PaloAlto) in Beamer automatically include a table of contents in the sidebar of every one of your slides. Not only that, the sidebar highlights the part of the presentation you are currently giving. So, when one of your audience members doses off (as they are want to do), all they need to do when they wake up is to have a look at the sidebar and they will know exactly where you are in your presentation. It is so simple and yet so powerful.

The main point of this post, then, is that Beamer is much easier to learn than you might think. If you know TeX, it is just another document class (and I use TeXmaker, which meant I didn't have to download or install anything at all to get going). So give it a try - your audience will thank you.

Films: How to Train Your Dragon

2010-10-29T21:54:00.000-04:00

Is it Friday night, you're too tired to go out (and besides, it's cold outside anyway)? I have just the thing for you: How to Train Your Dragon. This animated adventure about a boy who learns to - you guessed it - train dragons, is the most heartwarming tale I have seen in a while.

The story itself is relatively straight-forward: the setting is a Viking village that is at war with dragons, the protagonist is a skinny sensitive teenage boy who cannot kill dragons, and well... add in the film's title and you've got the basics. That you now think you know the storyline really doesn't matter: the beauty here is in the production. I loved the main character, who is immensely easy to relate to and charming in the most awkward geeky way. Of course, the dragons are amazing creatures: without using any spoken language, they communicate the same range of emotions as the human characters. The animation is brilliantly done for special effects as well as facial expressions. I must also mention that I loved the female character as much as the male ones - there may be only one female of significance (and two total), which means How to Train doesn't pass the Bechdel Test - but she is a spark of brilliance (and the voice by America Ferrera is spot on).

Above all, this heartwarming, gripping, funny tale tells a great story with a wonderful political message. Understand your enemy, and you may all just become better off for it. This is definitely something I would show my children if I had them. I would show it to you too, if you were in my living room on a cold autumn Friday. Or any Friday for that matter - it was that enjoyable.

Also, where can I get my own Toothless?

Kurzban has a blog

2010-10-26T22:02:00.000-04:00

I've just discovered, via Cognition and Culture, that Robert Kurzban has started blogging. Kurzban is an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, and his blog will be interesting to anyone who likes reading about evolutionary psychology (for any reason).

I was particularly intrigued to see that after spending just a little while on this blog I am getting a sense for the layers of disagreements about evolutionary psychology. Kurzban is one of the co-authors of one my my favourite academic articles ever, so I jumped on the opportunity to read what he writes in a non-peer-reviewed setting. I found him criticising some work that I quite enjoy reading (Wood and Eagly on the weaknesses of evolutionary psychology), which unsettles me in the best sense of the word. Further, he has a cool post that criticises the resource theory of willpower, which I had until now taken for granted, but his post seems rather spot on. Great stuff.

Also, if all of the above seems like too much shop-talk to you, I think that is the fault of my writing rather than Kurzban's - his posts really are accessible and good so go check it out.

Sunday links

2010-10-24T22:21:00.000-04:00

What places do economists study?

The UK is tightening its belt by a few notches: overview of where it will squeeze.

Food you can buy for a dollar.

TED talk by Laurie Santos: are monkeys as irrational as we are?

Don't know wtf to do with your life? Here's the service for you!

YouTube pick: Little Miss Sunshine SDT - The Winner Is

Migrant identity and politicization

2010-10-19T16:19:00.000-04:00

What is the relationship between national identity and politicization? In an era of widespread concerns over terrorism and the integration of minorities in Western societies, this is a relevant question. If one's identification with the new home country increases, what is the consequence for levels and types of political activity? Bernd Simon and Olga Grabow have published some interesting new research on the topic.

Looking at Russian migrants in Germany (replicating a design that has previously been used with Turkish migrants in Germany), they show that dual identity (identifying both with one's origins and the new home country) predicts increased politicization. In other words, political activity is more likely for those migrants who exhibit a dual identity, and less likely among those who retain a primary identity to their country of origin. Further, this politicization depends on the perception of shared grievances by the migrant group: feeling disadvantaged as a group predicts higher political activity.

But the most interesting finding is this: increased politicization applies to peaceful participation in politics only. Support of political violence does not increase with dual identification, even when shared grievances are perceived within the migrant group. What to conclude? That on the surface of it, it may look like politicized migrant groups who exhibit dual identities and yet make ethnicity-related demands are a sign that integration politics is not working, but that these demands are in fact unlikely to "spill over" into violent radicalization. If anything, the promotion of dual identities may decrease the potential for politically motivated violence even as it increases the political mobilization of immigrant groups.

Simon, B., & Grabow, O. (2010). The Politicization of Migrants: Further Evidence that Politicized Collective Identity is a Dual Identity Political Psychology, 31 (5), 717-738 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9221.2010.00782.x

Time to admit...

2010-10-17T21:55:00.000-04:00

It is becoming increasingly clear that this term, I just don't find the time to blog during the week. Worse yet, when the weekend comes I find that I have spent so much time behind the computer that I don't have much motivation to sit down and blog. (Or, like this week, I might just be grading over the weekend. I read 11 essays straight on whether history ended in 1989. But I digress...)

So, I just wanted to acknowledge this publicly. I am teaching, taking courses, attending workshops and trying to put together a prospectus, all of which makes me wish that there were 36 hours to a day. In the absence of those extra hours, something in my blogging will have to change (at least until Christmas), but I am still trying to figure out what. Perhaps I will start integrating my blogging and my research more, killing two birds with one stone. If I succeed in doing this, expect to see more pieces on economic inequality and political psychology in the near future. We will see exactly what happens though. I have no intention to give up blogging, but until I have this term figured out, your patience, dear audience, is appreciated.

Sunday links

2010-10-17T21:43:00.000-04:00

The New Yorker article on procrastination that I have almost made it through...

Social psychology challenges evolutionary pscyhology on gendered behaviour.

The true size of Africa.

So you think you know your religion?

YouTube pick: Sara Bareilles - Love Song

Sunday links

2010-10-10T15:32:00.000-04:00

French women protest the burqa ban by wearing a niqab and hotpants.

On the Facebook film: "You can't handle the Veritas."

"Hi Sally's" in Inglourious Basterds.

I dare anyone to teach correlation/causation by referring to this article.

How to read an academic article.

YouTube pick: Feist - My Moon My Man

Sunday links

2010-10-03T15:02:00.000-04:00

World War I officially ends today.

And 27 years ago, this man averted World War III.

Esther Duflo's TED talk on the use of experiments in social science.

Donald Duck meets Glenn Beck in a flash of brilliance.

Dan Ariely on online dating.

YouTube pick: Pink Martini - Hang on Little Tomato

What I want for Christmas

2010-10-02T14:45:00.000-04:00

Libel reform in the UK. I can't have that? Well, I'll take this calendar instead: UK Geek Calendar in support of libel reform. The nerds are on the march.

Found at Dr. Petra.

TGIF

2010-10-01T19:57:00.000-04:00

So, it's Friday again, and to celebrate I decided to watch an episode of my new favourite series, 30 Rock. But what do I get? Abuse, that's what. In this scene, the man is about to sleep with someone unattractive in order to get promoted and the woman is about to deceive someone with a head injury. Watch what follows:

Ok, in the interests of full disclosure, I did find this hilarious. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Sunday links

2010-09-26T17:43:00.000-04:00

The Onion's take on "1 in 5 Americans believe that Obama..."

I can't seem to get away from food as a topic: just how calorie rich can one dish get?

Listmania: influential left-wingers (for better and worse).

The categories "my body" and "your business" make for an instructive Venn diagram.

A hilarious and 100% accurate ode to my local supermarket.

YouTube pick: It Gets Better (by the It Gets Better Project)

From Colbert to vegetables

2010-09-26T17:31:00.003-04:00

You may well already know that a couple of days ago Stephen Colbert testified - mostly in character - in Congress (video here). My first reaction was incredulity, but I must admit that I was won over by two things. First, it appears he was invited largely as a way to raise awareness of the issue of migrant workers: clearly this aim (narrowly conceived) was a success. Second, when Colbert did drop character, his answer as to why he cares about this topic was simply beautiful:

"I like talking about people who don't have any power. It seems like some of the least powerful people in the U.S. are those who come to the U.S. and do our work and don't have any rights when they're here. And then we ask them to leave. ... I don't want to take anyone's hardship away from them or diminish [the widespread effects of the recession] ... but migrant workers suffer and have no rights."

Plus, he was really very spot on with his comment about the consumption of vegetables:

"The obvious answer [to the agricultural labor shortage] is for all of us to stop eating fruits and vegetables. And if you look at the recent obesity statistics, you'll see that many Americans have already started."

He was probably referring to a recent report on American dietary habits, covered here in the New York Times. Jawdroppingly:

Only 26 percent of the nation’s adults eat vegetables three or more times a day, [the report] concluded. (And no, that does not include French fries.) /.../ only 23 percent of meals include a vegetable, Mr. Balzer said. (Again, fries don’t count, but lettuce on a hamburger does.) The number of dinners prepared at home that included a salad was 17 percent; in 1994, it was 22 percent.

This seems amazingly low - but I do appreciate the NYT article not going entirely the blame-the-individual route. With vegetable consumption rates like this, it is clearly a systemic question, not just one of individual failures. How do you change the pricing and availability structure of an entire food market? Chew on that one...

Edit: For more on the systemic nature of bad food choices, read this great post on food responsibility at Feministe.

Make way for ducklings

2010-09-25T12:44:00.000-04:00

Dear Boston,

I know that you are justifiably proud of being the home of "Make Way for Ducklings", a children's favourite book. So proud, in fact that this here is one of your most famous tourist attractions (photo credit):

I also get that because of the appeal of the duckling image, a lot of things in the Boston area are marketed using this story. However, is this really a smart marketing move? I'm just asking:

Swedish election results

2010-09-21T22:13:00.000-04:00

Sweden held parliamentary election on Sunday, and just now I finally had a moment to look at the results (link in Swedish). And were these ever the results! I am a) absolutely speechless and b) in severe regret that I didn't follow the campaign. So: what happened? Here's a brief rundown even if you don't know much (or anything) about Swedish politics:

The Social Democrats (the first party that most people think of when it comes to Sweden, but who have been out of power for the last four years) made the worst showing in a century and will not be part of the ruling coalition.
The coalition of right-wing parties that ruled for the last four years lost their majority but remains the largest group in parliament. They now need the support of one more party to get a majority in parliament. This support could (theoretically) come from two different sources:
The Greens, who traditionally co-operate with the left-wing coalition, and who made significant gains on Sunday. The Greens have initially rejected suggestions of forming a coalition with the right, but some experts say this opposition is unlikely to last because...
...the other coalition option is the new entrant into parliament: the extreme right, xenophobic Sweden Democrats. Running on a platform of anti-migration measures, cutting foreign aid, reducing taxes for pensioners and increasing support for small businesses got them 5.7% of the vote.

I will say, with some strange mixture of pride and sadness, that I was not surprised at the success of the Sweden Democrats. I did some research on the extreme right in Sweden in the summer of 2007, and predicted already then that at the next parliamentary elections they would "make it in". I am not claiming any genius here - at that point, xeophobic sentiments had been on the rise in Sweden for some time and the Sweden Democrats had a track record of increasing their vote share in local elections for about two decades. Their eventual entry into parliament seemed more likely than not. The only event I can think of that may have averted their success would have been a particularly effective tackling of the integration issue by mainstream parties (but even then, who knows...). Instead of this, what we got was an economic downturn, which must have increased the search for scapegoats during the campaign period and thus played into the hands of the Sweden Democrats. (Someone who did keep an eye on the campaign, please feel free to comment to fill me in on this. Yes Chris, I'm looking at you.)

I am, however, surprised by the lack of a clear majority in parliament. This seesaw situation makes for interesting speculations about what happens next. I predict, based on rather old knowledge of Swedish politics, that there is no way that the Sweden Democrats will make it into a coalition. The Greens face the unpleasant choice of being "the party that moved to the right and left their old coalition partners behind", or being "the party that refused to move and thus enabled the Sweden Democrats to take a place in government". These are two unpleasant options, and the public support consequences of either/both look unclear. However, one of the options involves being in the government and the other one doesn't. In such circumstances, the most reasonable thing for any politician seems to be: enter the coalition. Either way, you are likely to lose heavily in the next election; may as well get some policies in while you can.

In addition to the calculus of the Green Party, there is also the fact that mainstream parties in Sweden will not touch the Sweden Democrats with a pole. On the local level there have been instances of the Social Democrats going into a grand coalition with the right-wing alliance just so that both sides could avoid working with the Sweden Democrats. Of course, on the national level such coalitions are much, much harder to pull off, but the distaste at possible collaboration with an extreme right party remains strong across the various colours of the mainstream parties.

Further, in Stockholm 10 000 people gathered on the streets within 24 hours of the election, expressing their disappointment with the electoral success of the Sweden Democrats in an anti-racism rally and immediately illustrating the possible electoral costs to anyone who dares co-operate with the Sweden Democrats.

The really big question looking forward is this: can ostracism in parliament effectively fight the Sweden Democrats? It is possible that the platform they now have will enable more voters to see that their shadow budget (to take but one example of the many things that are deeply questionable in their agenda) is economically problematic due to vastly overestimating how much can be saved by stopping (well, 'heavily reducing' in their words) migration to Sweden. In other words, there is a scenario in which, given airtime, they will self-destruct. Alternatively, they may learn a lot of politics in parliament, clean up their act and become more realistic but no less xenophobic in their demands... in which case ignoring them will only do limited (if any) good. Up or down in the next election? I am too unsure to make anything more than one simple prediction. I predict that I will be following the next campaign. Closely.

Sunday links

2010-09-19T22:33:00.002-04:00

This has been one of the busiest weeks I can remember! Sunday links is still alive though, and here's hoping that next week I will get some of the blog posts I have in mind through the pipeline and out there!

Chris Dillow on governments that think they can know the unknowable.

Melissa Harris Lacewell puts it jawdroppingly well about reproductive rights.

On a similar topic: abortion rights and the Tea Party.

Texas in Africa: Newt Gingrich, Obama, and anti-colonialism.

Cordelia Fine: let's end the great gender lie.

YouTube pick: Devlin feat. Yasmin - Runaway

Sunday links

2010-09-12T21:53:00.000-04:00

Chris Dillow muses on a market for lemons problem in prostitution.

Big Picture: Pakistan as the floods recede.

Roger Ebert's love letter to his part of London.

Hungover owls.

A wine pairing guide for visitors of fast food chains.

YouTube pick: Andrea Dorfman - How to Be Alone

9/11 anniversary

2010-09-11T19:21:00.000-04:00

On the anniversary of 9/11, Nicholas Kristof writes about a beautiful initiative that sprung from the destruction and loss of the terrorist attacks. Such amazing women:

[Susan Retik] has pursued perhaps the most unexpected and inspiring American response to the 9/11 attacks. This anniversary of Sept. 11 feels a little ugly to me, with some planning to remember the day with hatred and a Koran-burning — and that makes her work all the more exhilarating.

In the shattering aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, Ms. Retik bonded with another woman, Patti Quigley, whose husband had also died in the attack. They lived near each other, and both were pregnant with babies who would never see their fathers.

Devastated themselves, they realized that there were more than half a million widows in Afghanistan — and then, with war, there would be even more. Ms. Retik and Ms. Quigley also saw that Afghan widows could be a stabilizing force in that country.

So at a time when the American government reacted to the horror of 9/11 mostly with missiles and bombs, detentions and waterboardings, Ms. Retik and Ms. Quigley turned to education and poverty-alleviation projects — in the very country that had incubated a plot that had pulverized their lives.

Hat tip.

Eid Mubarak!

2010-09-09T23:48:00.000-04:00

Today marks the end of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month. I will be celebrating with some of my friends tomorrow night, we will all be very happy the holiday narrowly avoided falling on 9/11 (and in an ideal world that would not have mattered at all), and someecards hit it spot on with this:

Eid Mubarak!

Sunday links

2010-09-05T22:52:00.000-04:00

If they hate us, why haven't they killed us yet? A visual introduction to Muslims.

Selection bias everywhere: race and dating.

Is Russia seeing a re-awakening of civil society?

A male white Baptist feels compelled to denounce the violent actions of another male white Baptist.

8.4 million New Yorkers suddenly realise NYC is a horrible place to live.

YouTube pick: Yann Tiersen - Le Parapluie

What catcalling does

2010-09-01T23:09:00.000-04:00

I find catcalling on the street a spectacularly negative experience. This practice is more common in some countries than in others, but everywhere and regardless of the frequency, it is unnerving. However, I have always been at a loss for words when asked to explain what exactly it is about catcalling that makes me feel vulnerable, unclean and uncomfortable. "Why don't you just take it as a compliment?" is an infuriating question, but one I have never been able to articulate the answer to.

Now, someone has gone and done it for me, in language better than I could muster. A former student of mine, Madeline, spent the summer in Cairo and wrote a lucid and incredibly spot-on account of how harassment on the street marginalises and silences women.

It strips me of my natural tendency to trust other human beings. I am forced to always expect the worst of men, and brace myself for it. I’m not talking about going on a date; I’m talking about minute, daily, basic human interactions. If I hear someone say, “Hello,” and instinctively respond, the next thing I hear is, “So sweet.” If I’m walking past a jewelry seller, I hear calls like, “Where from?” and, “Come look!” As I continue on and walk away, I hear, “Nice.” If I try to practice Arabic with a cab driver, I get a hand touching my knee. One time, two forty-year-old men were chuckling over a kitten who was trotting along the sidewalk with a piece of trash held in its mouth. I couldn’t help but smile with them—immediately, they stopped paying attention to the kitten, and said, “Halo-halo.”

The whole piece is more than worth a read.

To write

2010-08-31T10:27:00.001-04:00

OK, it’s nine in the morning. All I’ve got to do is write. But I go hours before I’m able to write a word. I make tea. I mean, I used to make tea all day long. And exercise, I do that every other day. I sharpened pencils in the old days when pencils were sharpened. I just ran pencils down. Ten, eleven, twelve, one, two, three, four—this is every day. This is damn near every day. It’s four-thirty and I’m beginning to panic. It’s like a coiling spring. I’m really unhappy. I mean, you’re going to lose the day if you keep this up long enough. Five: I start to write. Seven: I go home. That happens over and over and over again. So why don’t I work at a bank and then come in at five and start writing? Because I need those seven hours of gonging around. I’m just not that disciplined. I don’t write in the morning—I just try to write.

Courtesy of marbury, this excerpt is the non-fiction writer John McPhee describing his creative process. It struck me that it is suspiciously easy to see this fitting into a series of PhD Comics, too. Fellow grad students, here's to a new academic year!

Sunday links

2010-08-29T19:28:00.000-04:00

Charlie Brooker pokes fun at the 'Ground Zero Mosque' controversy.

Who needs conspiracy theories when there are New Yorker reports on the Koch brothers?

Simple and genius blog ideas: Hot guys reading books.

Judicial activism: ok for embryos but not gays?

If historical events had Facebook statuses.

YouTube pick: Sara Bareilles - Love Song

No good deed goes unpunished

2010-08-24T22:16:00.001-04:00

In Estonia, there is an old saying: "No good deed goes unpunished." Yes, you read that right: folk wisdom warns Estonians about being too unselfish because good deeds do not get rewarded. Instead, the performer of good deeds depletes their own resources but receives, if anything, bad things in return.

Does that sound too cynical for you? Well, now this old proverb has a piece of social psychology research to fall back on. A recent article by Parks and Stone in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology finds that people who oversupply and underuse public goods are targets for being expelled from the group. In other words, the least selfish actors in a group are not only taken advantage of in the sense that they contribute more than they use. They are actually at risk of being thrown out of the group for having performed such unselfish acts. Here is the abstract:

An initial study investigating tolerance of group members who abuse a public good surprisingly showed that unselfish members (those who gave much toward the provision of the good but then used little of the good) were also targets for expulsion from the group. Two follow-up studies replicated this and ruled out explanations grounded in the target being seen as confused or unpredictable. A fourth study suggested that the target is seen by some as establishing an undesirable behavior standard and by others as a rule breaker. Individuals who formed either perception expressed a desire for the unselfish person to be removed from the group. Implications are discussed.

The results are surprising, and yet they also make intuitive sense... haven't we all felt that tinge of dislike for someone who sets (what we think are) too high behavioural standards?

What is really interesting about these findings is what they can tell us about economic behaviour. Standard economic models visualise individuals as rational actors who carry out cost-benefit analyses of potential behaviours. Public goods are difficult to provide because no single individual has an economic incentive to pay for their share (if the public good is provided, they get it for free). In the real world, we frequently observe behaviour that is consistent with these predictions, which bolsters out belief in the economic models. Once schooled to think of rational actors, it simply seems sensible that the cost-benefit analysis approach is a correct way to think about human behaviour.

However, here suddenly is an alternative explanation which is equally consistent with observed behaviour: high contributors in small groups get ostracised. Perhaps we don't avoid high contributions because we are selfish in an economic sense? Maybe what looks like homo economicus is actually homo would-like-to-keep-my-friends-icus? Suddenly Mancur Olson gets expanded: he predicted that in small groups, social pressure could be used to enforce provision of public goods... turns out, it can be used to enforce a very specific level of provision at an equal level of contributions from each member. The experiments in this article do not show whether the policing could go so far as to enforce the non-provision of a good, but that would make a great next question to explore. The policing of public goods provision suddenly sounds like a great topic for future behavioural economists to tackle.

Parks, C., & Stone, A. (2010). The desire to expel unselfish members from the group. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99 (2), 303-310 DOI: 10.1037/a0018403

Sunday links

2010-08-22T22:08:00.000-04:00

What is it about 20-somethings?

Why do we care where the Obamas go on holiday?

Confession: Talking about the birds and the bees... with someone else's child.

Stuff that is within a two block radius of Ground Zero.

"10 reasons we are not going to grad school."

YouTube pick: Florence + The Machine - Drumming Song

Sunday links

2010-08-15T21:08:00.000-04:00

Academic dual career families: "Is the husband going to be a problem?"

Confessions of a Tea Party casualty.

Defending federally funded research: your pork is actually my policy.

A young PhD student's illustrated primer.

Immanuel Kant's guide to hosting a good dinner party.

YouTube pick: The Pierces - Secret

More tales from gender-land

2010-08-10T21:47:00.001-04:00

Today I changed my gender as specified in my Pandora profile. Why? A comparative study of adverts that target me:

As a man: comedy shows, concert venues, services for backing up my computer, discounts on printing business cards.

As a woman: engagement rings, concert venues, contraceptive devices, make-up removal.

File me under "demographic targeting: ur doing it wrong". For further examples and explanation of the concept of the male as the default person (who does not like comedy shows or need to back up the computer they use to listen to Pandora?) and the female as a special case, Sociological Images are a great resource.

"Plain Jane" makes me wish I was "plain" too

2010-08-10T21:26:00.000-04:00

Imagine that you are a teenage girl. You have feelings for a friend and you don't dare to confess these feelings. What is the solution to your problems? Well... you obviously need to start by going skydiving, followed by getting rid of half your wardrobe and replacing it with more colourful and feminine attire. Then you need to give your dorm room a remake, get electroshocked as you practice flirting, and then you must wear a short red dress to a "blind" date with your friend where you will tell him how you feel.

Is that not obvious? In the world of "Plain Jane", a new make-me-over TV series aimed at teenage girls, this is how it's done. If you sense that I find this logic unconvincing, you are right. In fact, I find it sufficiently bothersome to blog about it. What is the message of the show? This is what I got from the episode that aired tonight:

A "Plain Jane" is a college girl who is above-average looking, has a bubbly and outgoing personality, studies physics and has what appears to be an adorable set of friends. Why is she a plain Jane? She wears sweatpants and does not wear mascara. Horror! She finds it hard to not control what goes on in her life. This is bad, but luckily this personality trait can easily be fixed with the above-mentioned skydive. Above all, this girl (whose personality immediately shines through the TV screen to light up your living room and makes it impossible to not like her) needs a haircut and professional make-up before she can tell her crush what is going on. Oh, and while this physics major is skydiving, her "coach" tells the camera that "this is the biggest thing she has ever done".

I hesitated to blog about this at first, because something in me wasn't sure whether anyone out there takes the message of this show seriously. But then I remembered what it was like to be a teenage girl and the hopeless insecurity that comes with growing up. Why would anyone air a programme with the message that intelligence, natural charm and a captivating personality are not enough to "get the guy" - at least not in the absence of make-up and high heels? Oh, wait, I forgot about those ad revenues from the make-up companies. How silly of me. The part of the message that bothers me most of all: if tonight's plain Jane is truly plain, what does that say about the rest of us?

Can someone please reassure me that in fact I was the only person foolish enough to sit through an entire episode tonight? It would make my day. That, or the news that the series has been discontinued faster than I can say "body image issues".

Sunday links

2010-08-08T20:17:00.000-04:00

Christopher Hitchens: Topic of Cancer

Humorous take on cultural variations in cures for depression. Well worth the 15 minutes!

Jay at Feministe on the expression "lucky lady".

Jon Stewart gives up.

Matthew Taylor on human psychology and political change.

Photography/art: the ghosts of World War II

This week's YouTube pick requires some DIY: YouTube flowchart.

On laws and sausages... and slavery

2010-08-03T17:34:00.003-04:00

It is a well-known Bismarck quote: "Laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them being made." In the case of the British anti-slavery movement of the 19th century, this is true... and yet (just like sausage-making, I guess) so fascinating.

In a great 1999 article on the development of a political coalition against slavery in late 18th and early 19th century Britain, Kaufmann and Pape discuss the origins and momentum of the anti-slavery movement. The article shows that even movements that in hindsight occupy the obvious moral highground crucially depend on everyday political coalitions for success. In other words, even good laws are made just like sausages.

So, what mattered for the success of the anti-slavery movement? The article is more comprehensive than I am about to be, but it lists among other things:
1) The ability of the anti-slavery movement to link the slavery question to concerns regarding the morality of British domestic politics, the position of non-Anglicans in British society and the powerful position of large landowners.
2) The simultaneous development of demands for broadened and eventually universal suffrage. The threat of universal suffrage made abolishing the slave trade look like a moderate option, a way to gain political legitimacy without crucially altering the balance of political power at home.
3) Something that worked against the movement in its early years: the French abolition of slavery following the French Revolution. This made the anti-slavery position look radical and pro-revolution in England. Only after France re-introduced slavery did the English anti-slavery movement regain serious consideration.

Do you not agree that this is fascinating? Not only that, please admit also that the following exerpt on the slave trade is not only interesting, it is great trivia (emphasis added):

"In 1788 abolitionist committees from around the country generated 102 petitions to Parliament demanding an end to the trade, with probably more than 60,000 signatures, and in 1791–92 they presented 519 petitions with about 390,000 signatures (or slightly less than 20 percent of the adult male population). These were the first major instances of mass petitioning as a form of popular political pressure in Britain and placed abolition firmly on Parliament’s legislative agenda, from which it could not thereafter be dislodged."

Since this occurred before the Reform Act of 1832, the proportion of adult men who signed these petitions was actually higher than the proportion of adult men who were eligible to vote. What a great early example of mass politics.

Kaufmann, C., & Pape, R. (1999). Explaining Costly International Moral Action: Britain's Sixty-year Campaign Against the Atlantic Slave Trade International Organization, 53 (4), 631-668 DOI: 10.1162/002081899551020

Sunday links

2010-08-01T20:14:00.002-04:00

Tenured Radical reviews "The Kids Are Alright" by suggesting some great plot improvements.

Fantastic Furry Monsters

A Russian policeman speaks out against corruption.

What Ethiopians want you to know about their country.

Redesigning the NYC subway map.

Brazil's sex tourism boom.

YouTube pick: Kate Nash - Foundations

Creative signs

2010-07-31T10:52:00.002-04:00

As seen in Tallinn, at the exit of the parking lot of a major grocery store.

Boys, girls and children

2010-07-30T11:39:00.002-04:00

Gender equality begins in childhood. This promotion in a children's clothing store reads: "Not for girls. Not for boys. We make clothes for children." Spotted in Sweden, where else?

It takes one to know one?

2010-07-30T11:05:00.003-04:00

Are most people nice, happy, trustworthy and interesting? Or do people usually strike you as cold, grumpy and not to be trusted? How you answer can tell us something about you. In a recent psychology article, Wood et al. explore "perceiver effects", or in other words how your own personality affects your perception of others.

They show that our personality affects perceptions of others with respect to one major factor: how positively we view other people. If we see others as relatively happy, we are also likely to think that they are more trustworthy, nice, interesting and have fewer anti-social tendencies. Seeing others in a more positive light is related to being happy, satisfied with life and emotionally stable yourself. What remains to be studied is the causal direction: do we view others positively because we ourselves are happy people, or do we become happy people because we think others are?

Wood, D., Harms, P., & Vazire, S. (2010). Perceiver effects as projective tests: What your perceptions of others say about you. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99 (1), 174-190 DOI: 10.1037/a0019390

Abstract: In 3 studies, we document various properties of perceiver effects—or how an individual generally tends to describe other people in a population. First, we document that perceiver effects have consistent relationships with dispositional characteristics of the perceiver, ranging from self-reported personality traits and academic performance to well-being and measures of personality disorders, to how liked the person is by peers. Second, we document that the covariation in perceiver effects among trait dimensions can be adequately captured by a single factor consisting of how positively others are seen across a wide range of traits (e.g., how nice, interesting, trustworthy, happy, and stable others are generally seen). Third, we estimate the 1-year stability of perceiver effects and show that individual differences in the typical perception of others have a level of stability comparable to that of personality traits. The results provide compelling evidence that how individuals generally perceive others is a stable individual difference that reveals much about the perceiver's own personality.

Sunday links

2010-07-25T20:45:00.002-04:00

Reasons to buy a pink car.

Jelloware: edible disposable cups. And they help plants grow. (No word on whether they also help old ladies over the street.)

The women's vigilante groups of India.

Spiegel report on a unique collection of documents chronicling the Holocaust from inside the Warsaw ghetto.

A good life lesson.

YouTube pick: Passion Pit - Little Secrets

Sunday links

2010-07-18T16:11:00.002-04:00

Photos: women and their maids.

Amazon gives free shipping for those with a .edu e-mail address.

An office made of cardboard (I would doodle everywhere!)

Art: a tree in jars.

YouTube pick: Swedish House Mafia feat. Pharrell - One (Your Name)

Target audience

2010-07-16T11:02:00.002-04:00

In addition to the strange spam comments I diligently remove from this blog, I recently got an interesting e-mail. One Randy wrote to me saying that a client of his is looking to advertise on websites, and this client's "target demographic is similar to your own."

Who is my target demographic? I am not sure myself, but happily Randy then clarified: "The site I represent deals with Alcohol and Drug Rehabilitation, making it relevant and of mutual benefit."

Glad to have that one sorted out! But I must now ask the obvious question: is this because I am a grad student? I promise, being an eternal student is not that bad.

Sunday links

2010-07-11T13:20:00.002-04:00

Chris Blattman finds a skit that should be in every course on survey methods.

Time: Self-immolation by women in Afghanistan and the obstacles to improvement.

The Cake Committee. Yum.

What it looks like when someone is drowning (hint: not like on Baywatch).

The unintended consequences of educational integration.

YouTube pick: Yolanda Be Cool - We No Speak Americano

Books: A Short History of Racism by George M. Fredrickson

2010-07-10T05:15:00.003-04:00

I just finished reading A Short History of Racism by the historian George M. Fredrickson. I had skimmed this book before, but took time to read it properly this summer - and it was very much worth it. As the title suggests, the book is short, and it is pitched at a level that makes it intellectually captivating and yet very approachable for a non-historian.

Fredrickson traces the development of anti-Semitism and black-white racism, starting with medieval Europe and culminating in the twentieth-century racist regimes of Nazi Germany, apartheid South Africa and Jim Crow-era United States. The author makes sure to distinguish throughout the book between official, hierarchy-sanctioned ideologies and "everyday racist beliefs", two related concepts which can flourish at different times. I found this distinction particularly interesting as well as very useful for thinking of ideological history. The book also suggests that there is a close connection between the development of an ideology of human equality in this world and the development of a counter-ideology that denies this equality. The emergence of Christianity as well as the Enlightenment are discussed as double-edged swords that simultaneously provide ammunition for egalitarian and non-egalitarian views, which in turn are conditioned by economic and political events such as industrialisation and the two World Wars. In all, for being such a short book that skims several centuries of European and North American history, A Short History of Racism is filled to the brim with interesting ideas, insights and connections. I would strongly recommend this read to anyone interested in ideological history or modern day racism.

This time for Africa

2010-07-08T11:22:00.002-04:00

The official FIFA World Cup song is one of the catchiest tunes I have heard since... well, the German Eurovision entry. I haven't been humming anything else for a few days now, and while I am enjoying this state of affairs, my family has been driven nuts by my random exclamations of "waka waka".

The reason for my obsession is that one day last week, I randomly showed up in central Stockholm to see a couple of hundred people dancing to the song. Here's a video of the Stockholm event:

I will gladly admit that this dance party in the street, where people of all colours dance and sing "This time for Africa" made me really think about what hosting the World Cup is doing for the image of Africa. On the one hand, the world doesn't change because someone somewhere is dancing. But on the other hand, if there is a continent that could use an image change, it's Africa - and the World Cup has definitely done its share to give Africa positive visibility.

While gloomy news from "the third world" or advertisements for international charities (which form the bulk of what most Westerners see about Africa) are quite compatible with the sense that Africa is "somewhere else", I think that this dance party is not as easily experienced as being about somewhere foreign and irrelevant. Hearing (mostly negative) news from far away can just as easily contribute to "othering" an entire continent as it can help bring it closer. But there is not much "other" about the way in which the whole world engages with the World Cup in South Africa - and the entire continent feels more and more "us" now that we are all debating vuvuzelas. Waka waka!

Knowing your audience

2010-07-05T10:37:00.004-04:00

This summer I have seen several adverts in England that I don't think could ever work in the US. I think the difference has to do with that famous aspect of English life: the distinct, ever-present sense of humour. As you probably know if you're reading this, the English like making fun of themselves and others - so much so that it would be very difficult to live in England for anyone who is thoroughly earnest about everything they do. Humorous self-deprecation and mild (or not so mild) innuendo are integral parts of communication of every kind... including advertising.

Below, I have a couple of snapshots of advertising strategies that I felt were particularly English, in the sense that I would have been deeply surprised to see any of these billboards in America. It's not so much that these ads would have caused offence in the US (well, perhaps some of them would have), but I think the primary reason is that they just wouldn't work in America. Even if people would not be offended, they wouldn't really understand why a pun with innuendo (especially if unrelated to the product) should convince them to buy anything. For the British, I think, this strategy works because it is similar to the way the British make friends. Knowing that someone can laugh at themselves is an important first step to friendship and indicates "a good sport". The following, I think, are examples of companies trying to mimic that social interaction.

A candy shop with pun at Waterloo station:

Selling ice-cream with innuendo that relates to the product:

Selling shoes and bags with innuendo that has absolutely nothing to do with shoes and bags:

And finally, this advert is much more universal in its appeal than the first three, so not actually distinctly British, but it is still funny. Click for larger version:

Sunday links

2010-07-04T07:38:00.002-04:00

This Sunday links is a middle-of-the-summer videoclip bonanza. (But it could also be known as "I had accumulated too many YouTube picks so I am posting them all in one go.")

Rats laugh when you tickle them.

RSA: What really motivates us?

10 quirky places in London.

No Lay - Unorthodox Daughter

Massive Attack - Sly

Timbaland ft Nelly Furtado and Soshy - Morning After Dark

Sunday links

2010-06-27T14:56:00.002-04:00

One reason humans are special: ability to mentally visualise events. Of course, we use this great ability for very predictable ends.

In The Chronicle of Higher Education: We must stop the avalanche of low-quality research.

The trouble with intuition, or why you might want to do more than blink.

Where locals and tourists take photos in big cities.

YouTube pick: Dragonette - I Get Around

Total self-flagellation

2010-06-27T14:52:00.002-04:00

Further to the post below, the prediction of total English self-flagellation following a loss to Germany came true in a spectacularly accurate fashion. Overheard in a London pub after the first Germany goal: "Germany is just a superior country, aren't they. Better at everything except for wars."

And (an England supporter) after the fourth goal: "We are sh*t. Absolute, total, complete sh*t and nothing else."

Football sociology

2010-06-24T10:10:00.002-04:00

England is covered in St George's crosses - the clearest and most unmistakeable sign that the FIFA World Cup is on right now (and that England are still in the game). Yesterday, most of the country was out of service for two hours, as a majority (surely, it must have been!) of the population either shirked from work, took the afternoon off, or just sat and watched at work, together with their bosses. In the spirit of celebration (and the dread of facing Germany), here are a couple of nice pieces on football sociology.

Slate's Jeremy Stahl goes to a small English town looking for hooliganism. He doesn't find it, but he does come across a surprisingly predictable sequence of elation and disappointment that every England fan will recognise. The trough of England fans booing the England team came after the Algeria game, and yesterday's victory moved England back to the top of the wave:

The next phase in the cycle came with the convincing 1-0 win over Slovenia: a return to favored status in the media and a renewed flicker of hope among the truest England supporters. "We'll fight our way through it and win it by the odd goal," Parker correctly surmised prior to the Slovenia match. "Then we'll go on and start to 'win the World Cup' again for some unknown reason."

For this round of redemption to last longer than a few days, the English must beat the dreaded Germans. Given Germany's impressive form, the more-likely scenario is that they simply lose and enter the final phase of the cycle: total self-flagellation.

Bagehot in The Economist also reflects on the cycle of hope - as reflected not within but across World Cups, and he draws some unexpected parallels to the economic climate.

As this World Cup begins, think back to the last one, in 2006. Britain was still enjoying an economic boom that, to many, seemed set to last for ever. The housing market and the FTSE were rising, apparently inexorably. People borrowed too much to buy their houses, then borrowed more for cars and holidays. The government was just as profligate. In retrospect it is clear the country was living in a bubble of hubris and unearned kudos.

The England football team exemplified this collective delusion, and the country’s rampant materialism. The last World Cup was the heyday of the WAGs (footballers’ wives and girlfriends), consorts who were famous for being famous, and for their pharaonic shopping trips and table-top dancing. They personified a spreading everything-for-nothing culture—the corrosive idea that young men and women could take the elevator straight to the top, if only they were pretty or lucky enough.

This time around, both the economy and the fans' expectations are in a much more sombre state. The description seems strangely apt to me; but a political scientist can't help wondering... where is the causal mechanism? I think there is a serious grain of truth in this piece - but how does the beehive of humans on this island produce such an outcome? I don't know, but that doesn't stop me thinking about it - in halftime.

Sunday links

2010-06-20T17:39:00.002-04:00

"Somewhere, a dog barked."

Photography experiment on portrayals of poor people.

Women scientists on women scientists.

Where do locals vs. tourists take photos?

David Runciman reviews Christopher Hitchens.

YouTube pick: Norah Jones - Chasing Pirates

The market, your purveyor of social justice

2010-06-18T11:37:00.002-04:00

At The Times, a great and simple statement of the role markets and large corporations can - and do - play in the provision of affordable goods to the poor. (Access may require free registration.)

Today’s supermarket customers eat considerably better than the Queen ate 50 years ago. Supermarket shelves are laden with food that is fresh, varied and affordable.

The Leahy revolution has driven massive price-cutting competition between the food giants. This competition has not been without its casualties but has helped family shopping bills to tumble in size. Food prices fell by nearly 10 per cent in the 1990s and by a further 8 per cent in the past decade. The average family spends an average £5,000 less on the same shopping basket as a result.

Should graduate students blog?

2010-06-14T17:28:00.004-04:00

I have just come across an online debate on the perils of blogging, especially under your own name, as a graduate student. Drew Conway defends the practice by pointing out many good things that can happen to a grad student blogger. These include getting an audience, developing technical skills, and making a name for oneself. Last but not least, he writes:

It is just plain fun – You are a nerd. You enjoy writing. In many ways, a blog sells itself. But, the additional joy you will feel as you watch your daily hits go up, and the frequency of (non-SPAM) comments increases, will become a powerful motivating force in your day-to-day. A wonderful side effect of which is that the overall quality of your work will also increase, as you become a better writer, researcher and conveyer of complex ideas.

In the other corner, there is an old post on Dan Drezner's blog, discussing a vehement anti-blogging statement from the Chronicle of Higher Education. According to the (in my opinion, rather extreme) viewpoint of the anonymous chronicler, blogging can seriously hurt your chances on the job market:

A candidate's blog is more accessible to the search committee than most forms of scholarly output. It can be hard to lay your hands on an obscure journal or book chapter, but the applicant's blog comes up on any computer. Several members of our search committee found the sheer volume of blog entries daunting enough to quit after reading a few. Others persisted into what turned out, in some cases, to be the dank, dark depths of the blogger's tormented soul; in other cases, the far limits of techno-geekdom; and in one case, a cat better off left in the bag.

On balance, Dan Drezner also concludes that blogging might not be a good idea if you're a graduate student:

I'd like to say that Ivan the Tribble is your classic piece of outlying data, but I can't. The default assumption you should make is that the academy has a lot of people who share the Tribble worldview of the blogosphere. I seriously doubt that any amount of reasoned discourse will alter this worldview. So think very, very, very carefully about the costs and benefits of blogging under one's own name.

First of all: ouch.

Now, before I get to my own viewpoint I need to point out that this particular blog is less professional than the type of blogging encouraged by Drew Conway - so it gives me fewer of the advantages he lists. Equally, however, this particular blog is less personal than the 'horrors' described by Ivan the Tribble in The Chronicle - so hopefully it is also subject to fewer of the drawbacks.

I have chosen to blog under my own name and have always been open about it if asked. I do not point out the existence of this blog to my professors, so I honestly do not know how they would react if I did. But I can sum up my own thoughts on this by saying that I have always hoped (perhaps vainly) that the anti-blogging attitude is on the decline. After all, the Drezner post dates to 2005, which in internet-time is practically a whole generation ago. I find it difficult to think that blogging has not become more acceptable since then.

[If you are reading this as a possible future hiring committee member who disapproves of blogging because it distracts students from real work, please take a moment to note that the frequency of posting has been in slow but steady decline since I started this degree.]

[If, however, you are reading this as a possible future hiring committee member who approves of blogging, please note that my posts have become - marginally - more related to political science as time has gone on.]

In all seriousness though, I would like to add another benefit of blogging to Drew Conway's list. I keep this blog because it gives me a welcome avenue for thinking in relatively rigorous ways about subjects and topics that lie on the margins of academia. There are a lot of reports, books, events and news reports that are not 'for' citation in academic work but that help fuel my creativity and understanding of the world nonetheless. Academic work isn't something you leave behind when you leave the office at the end of the day, and I process my thoughts and come up with ideas perhaps even more outside the library than I do inside (where I am preoccupied with absorbing other people's views, or perhaps cleaning up data...). Even when these marginally related links and thoughts don't make it into a blog post, I read my RSS feed quite differently when I am thinking about writing something for Coffee Shop Philosophy. This blog disciplines my reading and directs my thoughts - so if I one day publish an academic article someone finds worthwhile, it will be in part due to the existence of this blog.

So there you are, an 11th reason to blog as a graduate student. I hereby declare that Coffee Shop Philosophy will not be closing down quite yet... but I would certainly feel more comfortable out here if more of my colleagues joined me! (Hint, hint...)

Sunday links

2010-06-13T07:20:00.002-04:00

Humpback whales are shown to form friendships that last for years.

Lane Kenworthy discusses the surprisingly similar levels of net social spending in the US and Nordic countries.

Parental leave and fathers in Sweden.

Shelby Grossman reviews Mamba Point, a children's book.

Simon Jenkins: Cut the British armed forces. All of them.

YouTube pick: Lady Gaga - Alejandro

Unexpected parallels

2010-06-09T10:51:00.000-04:00

Quote of the day - Vello Vikerkaar writes in characteristic style about how it feels to be a first-time father:

I soon found it helpful to see my relationship with the child much the way the west views Hamid Karzai. Recognize you have to give him aid, but know that he’s almost always out to manipulate you. Remain flexible and in good humor. And constantly seek intelligence about his motives.

Why you shouldn't ask political scientists about politics at the dinner table

2010-06-08T16:54:00.003-04:00

Every once in a while... ok, often when people hear that I am a political scientist, they ask me about my opinion on the latest legislative victory, electoral poll or political scandal. If they knew me better, they wouldn't (my friends have long since given up).

There are several reasons for this. One of them is that electoral politics is only marginally related to my research interests, so I have relatively little professional reason to keep up with such controversies. However, even if I was whole-heartedly studying electoral politics (as some, but far from all, political scientists do), my friends probably still wouldn't want to ask me these questions. The reason is simple: my answers would be boring. Non-political-scientists, hereby please note that a political science answer to a regular, political dinner-table talking point is, well, not what you expect. My point can be difficult to convey in the abstract, but is illustrated brilliantly in a recent Slate article, "What if political scientists covered the news?". It is written a little bit tongue in cheek - but with a very, very large grain of truth. My personal favourite part (though the whole thing is worth reading):

Democrats hope that passing health care and financial regulatory reform will give them enough momentum to win in November. Unfortunately, there's little relationship between legislative victories and electoral victories. Also, what the hell is "momentum"?

Prospects for an energy bill, meanwhile, are looking grim, since Obama has spent all his political capital. He used to have a lot. Now it's gone. Why winning legislative battles builds momentum but saps political capital, I have no idea. Just go with it.

I hereby apologise in advance to all the people I will disappoint in the future after they ask me about, say, the political aftermath of the oil spill. I may well avoid answering their question and divert to talking about this Slate article instead.

Sunday links

2010-06-06T12:31:00.002-04:00

Chris Dillow's three lessons from David Laws' resignation.

Big Picture: photos from this last week in Guatemala that will haunt you.

The book book. Hereby on my wishlist.

An amazing impression of Gandalf reciting the theme of Fresh Prince.

Shakespeare's Sister: journey of an envious girl.

YouTube Pick: The Veronicas - Untouched

Books: The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton

2010-06-06T10:51:00.002-04:00

Why is the whole greater than the sum of its parts? I frequently think about this when I travel, whether to new or old places. What is it about the multitude of small changes that can make a place feel so different from another?

Right now I am in London, one of my many homes, and it has been a week since I arrived here. I feel good here - but I wouldn't be able to tell you why. Should it really make such a difference that the brick here is brown instead of the Boston red, that the streets are dirtier but the people are more diverse, that I can't find good coffee shops but at the same time have difficulties choosing from among the abundance of good pubs? All these differences are small. They drive on the left hand side of the road here - but so what? Why do I get giddy at the sound of a 'cheers' or a 'watch out, mate'? Any one of these things, on its own, cannot explain why London feels so different to Boston, Stockholm, or any other place I have ever been. Yet, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and the combined experience of London brings me home and makes me happy.

I cannot explain this phenomenon, not fully, but I was helped along the way to understanding it by reading "The Art of Travel" by Alain de Botton. This book, a series of essays on travel, is an exquisite find (thank you Byung-Man for the recommendation). In a light and yet philosophical style, with a dash of self-deprecating humour and excellent insight into people as well as places, de Botton explores the delights and disappointments of travel using famous thinkers, writers and explorers as guides along the way.

Why did Flaubert enthuse over a donkey shitting right next to him in a cafe in Egypt? de Botton's answer to this unexpected question helped me figure out some of the appeal of London to me. He suggests that the details of everyday life inevitably suggest underlying values and ways of life to us. If so, then these details, varied as they are across different places, make us feel more or less at home - even when we are abroad or in an entirely unknown place. London for example is busy, vast, dirty, loud and anonymous. Far from turning me against the city, all these qualities appeal to me. London suggests the chaos and unruliness of life to me, and I appreciate this. Intuitively, I like places that seem to accept a certian level of randomness and uncontrollability as a truth of life. (The converse also applies; make a place even more unruly and chaotic, and I might find that it is too out of control for my liking...)

But I am not doing justice to Alain de Botton with my attempts to (poorly) restate what he lays out with brilliant clarity in the book. He deals not only with the appeal of a new place, but also with the appeal of travel itself. I have, for as long as I can remember, had a love affair with airports. In this book, for the first time ever, I found an exact description of what I love about them:

"Nowhere is the appeal of the airport more concentrated than in the television screens that hang in rows from the terminal ceilings to announce the departure and arrival of flights, whose absence of aesthetic self-consiousness and whose workmanlike casing and pedestrian typefaces do nothing to disguise their emotional charge and imaginative allure. Tokyo, Amsterdam, Istanbul; Warsaw, Seattle, Rio.

The screens bear all the poetic resonance of the last line of James Joyce's Ulysses, which is at once a record of where the novel was written and, no less important, a symbol of the cosmopolitan spirit behind its composition: 'Trieste, Zurich, Paris.' The constant calls of the screens, some accompanied by the impatient pulsing of a cursor, suggest with what ease our seemingly entrenched lives might be altered were we simply to walk down a corridor and onto a craft that in a few hours would land us in a place where no one knew our name. How pleasant to hold in mind through the crevasses of our moods, at three in the afternoon, when lassitude and despair threaten, that there is always a plane taking off for somewhere, for Baudelaire's 'anywhere! anywhere!': Trieste, Zurich, Paris."

This book helped me to better understand what I have wondered but never been able to explain to myself, and so it moved straight into my list of the best books I have ever read. Regardless of whether you like travelling, this book will give you a deep appreciation of why you may feel the way you do. Perhaps it will awaken a desire to leap out of the sofa and travel; perhaps you will lay down the book and be more content than ever sitting right where you are. Regardless of the outcome, however, I dare promise that you will understand the art of travel better after reading this book.

Do you remember Pluto licking your ear?

2010-06-02T17:01:00.003-04:00

How many of your memories actually occurred? Fewer than you think (unless you've already read Prof. Loftus's work). Slate just published a series on the formation and reformation of human memory, with a focus on how easily it can be doctored. The series is centred around the life and works of Dr. Loftus and makes really interesting reading (hat tip to Mind Hacks). There were many interesting parts to the story, but here is a quote that struck me:

[O]nce memories were altered, there was no going back. In this respect, Loftus theorized, the brain worked like a computer: "You call up a file, edit it and then put the revised file back. The original is lost."

Worse, there was no way to distinguish altered memories from originals. For three decades, Loftus looked for telltale signatures that might help judges and juries. She tried everything: confidence, vividness, emotionality, brain scans. She found some differences on average, but nothing that reliably identified a false memory. In 2009, she and her colleagues concluded that "it might be virtually impossible to tell reliably if a particular memory is true or false without independent corroboration."

I was reminded of an acute piece of advice written by Robert Jervis in a piece on belief formation (the exact reference escapes me): that we should not make the mistake of treating false beliefs as being fundamentally different from correct ones.

When you think about it, this makes sense - if your mind were not convinced your belief or memory is correct, why would you hold it in the first place? Thus all beliefs are held as genuine and are functionally similar in that sense. But initially, it did strike me as an odd thought... The mind is a strange place, and we should deal with it on its own (strange) terms.

Sunday links

2010-05-30T12:12:00.002-04:00

Really cool Nike World Cup TV ad.

What is a philosopher?

Are men better at everything? No, but it might seem so.

Elena Kagan and her undergraduate history thesis.

YouTube pick: The Clash - London Calling.

Sunday links

2010-05-23T20:59:00.003-04:00

I am back! Off to an easy start with Sunday links. It feels good to be operational again. :)

How the British infiltrated the IRA: a real spy story.

New York is not a choice. It's a bet.

This simple metric for measuring code quality would work just as well for scholarly articles. (Scroll down for the comic.)

An illustrated guide that explains the mind's decision biases.

The British elite overwhelmingly attend two universities... especially one of them... especially one programme in one of them. Good or bad? Discuss.

YouTube pick: the Bechdel test for films explained.

Sunday apologies

2010-05-16T15:58:00.003-04:00

I wrote on Monday that I was about to take the most comprehensive exam I have ever taken. Well, subsequent to taking (and passing!) that exam, my brain has gone into the most comprehensive shutdown it has ever been in. The reset is so powerful that, for the first time in a long time, I have no links at all to post this Sunday. My apologies - once I regain some modicum of cognitive functioning, I will be back.

On exams

2010-05-10T20:55:00.004-04:00

I remember, as vividly as if it was yesterday, a particular moment in May 2003. I was a first year student at university, about to take my inaugural end-of-the-year exams. In my schedule loomed five economics exams on five consecutive days, I found the subject matter challenging, and I was going to find out first hand what Cambridge University exams were like. Was I scared senseless? Yes. Stressed out? You bet.

There I was, sitting on a bench in a courtyard, probably looking as frantically frazzled as I felt, revising from a folder I carried with me everywhere. The sun was shining and the lilacs were blooming, but I didn't really notice. As I looked up, a third year student walked past me. He was wearing a t-shirt and rolled-up trousers, carrying a folder under his arm and in his hand a cup of steaming coffee. He was barefoot, clearly headed toward the library - and his every step exuded utter relaxation. He looked around, squinted into the sun, took a deep contented sigh, and disappeared through an archway into the next court. That's when it occurred to me: "That's how it's done!"

Since those economics exams, I have taken what feels like countless others (and I will not amuse my readership by actually counting them all; the number would be too depressing). Every spring, I head straight into the period of stress, revision notes, walls covered in maps, and insane caffeine consumption... and every spring, I remember that guy, his bare feet, his coffee cup, and the way he was striding through an exam term with calm. I have aspired to be just like that - and on the way, I have picked up some tricks on how it's done.

I know now that "worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum". This doesn't stop me from worrying of course, but it allows me a somewhat amused distance to my own nerves playing tricks on me. I have learned to take the little things that can make my day brighter - the lilacs that unfailingly bloom during exam weeks for example - and really enjoy them. I have learned that an extra hour of sleep the night before will probably help you more than that extra hour of studying.

Tomorrow I take my M.A. qualifying exams, which are not only the most comprehensive exam I have ever taken, but also signify the end of my years of taking university exams. It feels ironic that I should stop now that I feel I finally have it figured out... it is the night before my exam and I feel as calm as a fish in water. This year, I really noticed the lilacs, and I really enjoyed those coffees. And I feel I really learned something - not only about exams but for them. (And ultimately, that is the point, right?) Is it ironic that I will stop now - just as I feel I have finally figured it out? Perhaps not. After all, these are exams we are talking about... Good-bye exams, and thanks for all the fish: I think I will find better things to do with my springs in the years to come.

Bring on the grading.

Sunday links

2010-05-09T08:52:00.003-04:00

Diplomatic language at its hilarious best.

Visa now has a concierge service - and they will help you out with anything. Well, almost.

The coolest image from the UK election: Big Ben and the exit poll.

The "dirty hands" problem in political philosophy.

YouTube pick reflects the mood of this week: Queen - Under Pressure

On the unusualness of tomorrow

2010-05-05T11:55:00.003-04:00

How unusual could tomorrow's general election in the UK turn out to be? Prof. Shugart takes a look:

Today–one day before UK election day–the UK Polling Report average of polls shows the Tories on 35%, Labour on 28%, and Liberal Democrats on 27%. Needless to say, this would not be an outcome that matches Duverger’s Law, were it to materialize in the actual voting. But just how uncommon would such a result be?

In the database I assembled for my chapter in the edited volume by Andre Blais, To Keep or Change First Past the Post, I have 210 elections under FPTP. These include three or four decades worth of elections from the UK, Canada, New Zealand (before it changed from FPTP), India, Botswana, all but the smallest Caribbean island states, Belize, and all Canadian provinces.

In these 210 elections, how many saw the largest party have less than 36% and the third party have more than 25%?

One. Nova Scotia, 1998.

This makes tomorrow particularly exciting. But it also reminds us that while tomorrow could be an exception to Duverger's Law, it would be just that: an exception to an otherwise remarkably strong empirical rule.

Thanks to Chris for sharing.

Quote of the day

2010-05-03T20:29:00.006-04:00

Today I am reading Green and Shapiro's "Pathologies of Rational Choice" (1994). If you are like me in that you have misgivings about rational choice approaches to political science (and even if you don't), and you have not yet read this book... it is worth it. The book takes on rational choice theory on its own turf - the authors take seriously the claim that politics should be studied in a scientific and rigorous manner, and then explore how well rational choice has lived up to this task. The book is famous for a reason... and it is also funny.

For example, the authors discuss the tendency of rational choice approaches to search for confirming evidence once the theoretical predictions are known, picking cases that exhibit the expected outcome. Green and Shapiro refer to this practice as "reminiscent of advertisements that show one brand's achievements while mentioning neither its failings nor the comparable achievements of its competitors", and then: "In its more qualitative manifestations, rational choice scholarship tends to ruminate over confirming illustrations combed from the political landscape, memorable moments in history, and biblical texts." (Both quotes p.43) I sincerely hope that I am not the only person who finds the stabs hilarious.

In the interests of disclosure, I am a political psychologist, so a certain amount of scepticism regarding rational choice comes with the turf - which probably makes this funnier than if I felt it was an attack on my own preferred methods. And in the interests of fairness, my intuitive sense is that the field of rational choice applications to political science has improved since the publication of this book. However, "Pathologies of Rational Choice" is still a great read.

Sunday links

2010-05-02T23:32:00.002-04:00

Strength performance from Poland - a video that is worth sitting through a commercial for.

Defectors from North Korea and their reception in South Korea.

Is there a relationship between Australian censorship laws and labiaplasty popularity? Video - definitely NSFW.

marbury on snooker... read all the way through!

The Monkey Cage: polarisation is not associated to trust in government.

YouTube pick: Janelle Monae ft Big Boi - Tightrope

Throwing the rascals out?

2010-04-30T13:24:00.003-04:00

While reading about voting behaviour and public opinion, I have now come across the expression "throwing the rascals out" innumerable times. Today, after the umpteenth time I read this expression, I wondered where this uniform way of expressing a political phenomenon came from. Frequently, the expression is used without a reference attached, so for a long time I thought that this was simply a common expression in the American public (referring to electing for the opposition to get rid of the current incumbent, regardless of partisanship and with respect to past performance only). But even if this is the case, was there once an article that made this expression such common parlance among political scientists? It looks like yes, because a quick Google Scholar search gave me this:

Arthur H. Miller and Martin P. Wattenberg, "Throwing the Rascals Out: Policy and Performance Evaluations of Presidential Candidates, 1952-1980" The American Political Science Review, Vol. 79, No. 2 (Jun., 1985), pp. 359-372

Abstract: This article explores two dimensions of public evaluations of presidential candidates on the basis of open-ended survey questions from 1952 to 1980. The first dimension looks at whether citizens evaluate candidates on the basis of policies, performance, or strictly candidate attributes; the second examines the time perspective of these assessments, that is, whether they are retrospective or prospective. It is found that incumbents have been judged primarily on the basis of retrospective performance, challengers on prospective policy, and candidates running in non incumbent races on prospective performance. Throughout the period from 1952 to 1980 both policy and performance considerations have become increasingly related to the vote. Except for 1964, performance has outweighed policy as a predictor of the vote, with an emphasis on retrospective evaluations whenever an incumbent runs for reelection and on prospective assessments in nonincumbent races. The 1964 case provides the best example of a policy mandate, with the 1972 election also fitting the pattern to a lesser degree. The data for the 1980 election, however, fail to support the claim of a mandate for Reagan's policy stands.

It looks like I may have found the reason for the popularity of the expression in political science... now, can anyone tell me whether real people also use this expression, or is it a polisci speciality?

Link to paper (ungated).

Thin blogging: blaming general exams

2010-04-29T20:07:00.004-04:00

I have qualifying exams for my MA on May 11th. I can't promise anything about the frequency of blogging until then... if you don't know what qualifying exams are, then this facebook update, shamelessly stolen from one of my cohort colleagues, sums it up pretty well:

It took me two years to have a good grasp of over 250 references in comparative politics and political economy i.e. stuff I had never read before... and in addition they want me to know Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, Marx, Nietzsche, Hegel, and liberty, justice, democracy, equality, oh and also a bit of american politics and social policy and oh yeah stats... had I known I would have started in kindergarten, COME ON!!!!

Sunday links

2010-04-25T10:41:00.002-04:00

Great thought experiment: imagine if the Tea Party was black.

The superstar effect.

Psychology research: don't start group discussions by sharing your pre-discussion preferences.

Best headline award goes to: "At Newark Airport, stranded Brits colonize Terminals B and C, seeking tea."

Contrasting Danish and American attitudes toward taxes.

YouTube pick, Chicago edition: Ferris Bueller's Day Off - Twist and Shout

Blogging MPSA: voter knowledge, transparency, information effects

2010-04-25T10:23:00.003-04:00

In comparative political behaviour, Jason Arnold examines the impact of voter knowledge of party positions on their vote choice. He uses data from Western European multi-party systems and finds that under conditions of higher information, electoral results would change. Further, in 4 out of 6 simulated elections, the gaining party is on the left. It was great to see this issue in comparative perspective (this paper is essentially the same as what I am doing with Eastern Europe, so I am bound to be excited by this). Link to paper (perishable).

Jenny de Fine Licht presented a really interesting paper on the effects of transparency on trust. Taking a cue from Swedish debates on whether health care allocation decisions should be made more transparent, she examined one of the arguments in favour of greater transparency: that it would increase trust in the system. She tentatively concludes that knowing more about how health care priorities are set ("how sausages are made") does not increase trust in the system. Perhaps there are things we really would rather not know? Link to paper (perishable).

And lastly, yours truly presented a paper on the effects of information in comparative perspective. I look at three Eastern European countries in the period following democratisation and ask what role political information plays in vote choice. My argument is that as democracies stabilise, more and less informed voters become increasingly similar to one another. In other words, in the early years of a democracy, there is a higher payoff to holding factual political information, and this advantage appears to dissipate as democracies consolidate. Link to paper (perishable).

Blogging MPSA: campaigns, political awareness, consumer knowledge

2010-04-23T23:09:00.004-04:00

Friday at MPSA started with a roundtable on campaign effects (a follow-up to a roundtable on this topic that was held 14 years ago). John Zaller argued that we should remember the big picture: he put up a scatterplot of economic performance against incumbent vote and reminded us that 80% of the variance in vote outcomes can be explained by the economy and incumbent time spent in office. Given this, what we are studying in campaigns is not just the remaining 20% of variance - there are also interesting things to be said about what does not matter, or matters less than expected. What I took away from the roundtable as a whole was that we need a better way of specifying what a good campaign does. Pinning down campaign effects is difficult, but research might proceed by looking at whether there are some things that campaigns should not do, tactical mistakes that bring punishment in the polls. Can we arrive at knowledge about the 'good campaign' and its effects by focusing on 'bad campaigns' and what they fail to do? If there's another roundtable in 15 years, perhaps we will have found out.

In the afternoon, an interesting paper by Craig Burnett and Mathew McCubbins showed some survey evidence on voter and consumer sophistication. Using a straightforward battery of 'standard' political sophistication questions ("Who is the Vice President?" etc), combined with some consumer knowledge questions (e.g. "Do credit card companies charge higher interest rates for cash advances than purchases?"), they showed that voters in fact know marginally less about consumer facts than they do about political ones. This was a first survey, and finding comparable political and consumer sophistication measures is likely to be a challenge (what does comparability even mean in this context?), but I found the idea behind this paper really fascinating. We would expect people to know more about consumer items than about politics for various reasons (think Schumpeter) but if - as this paper suggests - that is not empirically the case, the finding would reframe a lot of the political sophistication puzzles. Politics might not be a special domain of knowledge after all - perhaps the "sophistication" puzzle is a question worth exploring in most areas of life in a mass society... all the way down to something as immediate and specific as what we eat. Food for thought! Link to paper (perishable).

Thomas Leeper's paper in the same panel made thoughtful contributions to breaking down the frequently-too-broad concept of political awareness. Just as political sophistication varies by issues, it also varies by context, this paper argues, showing that distinguishing between self-reported preferential attention to national or local news predicts different types of political knowledge. It is not reasonable to expect all voters to know facts about national politics that may not at all to be relevant to them - we know this. But what we do not know is what (and how) to measure instead. Going local/national is one of the steps we should be taking toward making the concept work better. Link to paper (perishable).

Blogging MPSA: Economic voting, inequality, emotion and politics

2010-04-22T22:40:00.004-04:00

I am in Chicago for the Annual Conference of the Midwest Political Science Association (better known as MPSA). This is my first time in Chicago and my second time at a big political science conference, which means that I walk around with stars in my eyes and absorb as much as I can... here are some of the papers I liked today.

Gabriel Lenz takes the finding from psychology that we (humans) are really quite bad at assessing experiences ex post facto and brings the insight to bear on the question of voter myopia. Voters give a disproportionate amount of weight to the last year of an incumbent politician's performance - without being aware of or intending to do so. As a politician, then, it is important only to do well in your last year in office, because that is what voters assess your performance on. The paper includes some cool ways to minimise this effect, such as presenting cumulative achievements instead of annual percentage changes in economic growth or crime rates. Link to paper (note that link is perishable).

Raymond Duch and Philippe Rehm have an interesting hypothesis on the empirical link between economic inequality and the relatively high frequency of right-wing governments in unequal countries. Economic inequality leads to lower educational performance among the poor in particular, they show. Low educational performance, in turn, may lead to less consistent voting patterns - in particular, higher levels of sociotropic (as opposed to pocketbook) voting. If this is true, and the wealthy consistently vote pocketbook but the poor do not, right-wing governments will enjoy a structural majority. The paper is not online, but the panel listing is here.

Finally, Bethany Albertson and Shana Kushner Gadarian presented experimental results on the effects of anxiety on trust and information seeking behaviour. Increased levels of anxiety make individuals more likely to trust relevant authorities (in this case, health authorities) but also more likely to seek out threatening information. The effects are moderated, interestingly, not by partisanship but by strength of ideology (in other words, not Republicans/Democrats but moderates/ideologues). The paper is not online, but a link to the panel is here. Also, I have blogged about Shana's work before here.

Sunday links

2010-04-18T23:12:00.002-04:00

An honest Facebook-based political discussion.

Why does Susan Greenfield matter?

And why does Baywatch matter?

The health effects of marriage and divorce.

Binge drinking in the UK gets political.

YouTube pick: The Killers feat. Lou Reed - Tranquilize

Helping you make quick decisions

2010-04-17T11:02:00.003-04:00

It is election season in the UK, and Coffee Shop Philosophy steps in with a public service. Conflicted about who to vote for? Confused after the leader debate? Fear not! Inspired by Wife in the North, here is the quickest and easiest way to find out who your ideal match is. Simply answer the following question: which would you prefer from a choice of:

a) smoked salmon pate
b) hummus
c) guacamole

Done? Results: a) Tory, b) Lib Dem, c) New Labour. For this and more excellent election coverage go to Wife in the North.

Sunday links

2010-04-11T22:36:00.002-04:00

What is going on with White House Communications?

Great piece on Ellen DeGeneres in American Idol.

The Sudanese elections in pictures.

What credit card companies know about you.

Evolution of fairness: cultural, not genetic?

YouTube pick: Eels - Saturday Morning

Thinking of Poland today

2010-04-10T15:24:00.003-04:00

This morning, a peaceful session of Saturday morning reading abruptly stopped when I heard the horrible news from Poland. Thinking of a plane crash seemed (and still seems) entirely surreal in the calm and quiet of a weekend in Cambridge, MA. I have spent much of the day thinking about the blow to the government (in the broad sense) of Poland, and how difficult human knowledge, experience and contacts are to replace. According to the NYT,

Russian emergency officials said 97 people were killed. They included Poland’s deputy foreign minister and a dozen members of Parliament, the chiefs of the army and the navy, and the president of the national bank. They included Anna Walentynowicz, 80, the former dock worker whose firing in 1980 set off the Solidarity strike that ultimately overthrew Polish Communism, as well as relatives of victims of the massacre that they were on their way to commemorate.

This post is simply a small condolence to all of Poland. I only hope that, after last week's news from Moscow, next week will bring some happy news from Eastern Europe.

Sunday links

2010-04-04T10:07:00.002-04:00

You have a scientific finding? Odds are, it's wrong.

Douglas Murray on how Nick Griffin is not a useful barometer of truth.

If anyone missed the NYT op-ed "The rage is not about health care" then go read it now.

Ian Leslie: The book that hates itself.

The "mommy track" turns 21.

This is the best piece of comedy I have seen in a good while: The Unexpected Items - Gap Yah.

And some news items that really are...

2010-04-01T10:58:00.002-04:00

...inspired.

The Brown team has been buoyed by focus group results suggesting that an outbreak of physical fighting during the campaign, preferably involving bloodshed and broken limbs, could re-engage an electorate increasingly apathetic about politics. They also hope they can exploit the so-called "Putin effect", and are said to be exploring opportunities for Brown to be photographed killing a wild animal, though advisers have recommended that weather, and other considerations, mean Brown should not remove his shirt.

Labour further hopes to "harness the power of internet folksourcing", the aide explained, encouraging supporters to design their own posters, which could then be showcased online. The "design your own poster" initiative has caught the imagination of Downing Street strategists, the aide said, because it is cheap, fosters engagement among voters and, above all, nothing could possibly go wrong with it.

The Guardian, masterfully walking the thin, funny line between credibility and absurdity.

Some news items I wish were April Fool's day jokes...

2010-04-01T08:48:00.005-04:00

...but they probably aren't. This morning in the NYT:

In a reflection of growing anxiety in Europe over the use of Islamic symbols, a committee of Belgian lawmakers voted Wednesday to ban the wearing of burqas in public, paving the way for the first clampdown of its kind on the Continent.

I agree with Isabelle Praile's comments later on in the same article, "I am against the imposition of such clothing, but also against banning it."

I sympathise with the wish to stop the subjugation of women, one part of which can be the imposition of the burqa by male members of the family. This is probably how the lawmakers framed the intent of the legislation. However, I have serious doubts as to whether the law will achieve anything like conservative Muslims changing their mind about the importance of the burqa. The most likely immediate outcome is that women who are forced to wear the burqa will not be allowed to leave the home - hardly an outcome that increases liberty. As for women who choose to wear the burqa, they should have the right to do so.

Add to this the observation that few people in Belgium currently actually wear the burqa, and the whole affair really looks rather like an ill-advised, symbolic anti-Muslim move. Can someone please inform me that this was an April Fool's day joke?

Moscow and Black Widows

2010-03-29T11:45:00.003-04:00

This morning, two bombs went off in the Moscow subway system. Devastating news:

Female suicide bombers set off huge explosions in two subway stations in central Moscow during the Monday morning rush hour, Russian officials said, killing more than three dozen people and raising fears that the Muslim insurgency in southern Russia was once again being brought to the country’s heart.

The first attack occurred as commuters were exiting a packed train at a station near the headquarters of the F.S.B., the successor to the Soviet-era K.G.B. Officials said they suspected that the attack there was intended as a message to the security services, which have helped lead the crackdown on Islamic extremism in Chechnya and other parts of the Caucasus region in southern Russia.

The two explosions spread panic throughout the capital as people searched for missing relatives and friends, and the authorities tried to determine whether more attacks were planned.

I was very sorry to read this news. But beyond commiserating with all Muscovites today, I was also sad to see the New York Times article repeatedly and unqualifiedly referring to the insurgency as "Islamic extremism". The attack was most likely carried out by "black widows" - and yes, while the Chechens are majority Sunni Muslims, it is problematic to frame this attack (to an American readership) as a case of "Islamic terrorism", because the details set it apart from attacks such as 9/11 by Al Qaeda. Here is an excerpt from a CNN background to Black Widows (my emphasis):

Chechens, the majority of whom are Sunni Muslims, regard the region as their ancient homeland, while Moscow fears the creation of an independent Muslim-majority state in its midst and has refused to grant any real autonomy.

The struggle can be traced back to the Stalin era when hundreds of thousands of Chechens were forcibly displaced to Siberia, according to Bob Ayers, a retired international security analyst. "When they returned they wanted to reestablish their presence in Chechnya and they saw it as their homeland," said Ayers.

The use of women as suicide bombers or "Black Widows," is one way in which the struggle in Chechnya is different from al Qaeda and more analogous to the military campaign waged by the IRA in Northern Ireland, says Ayers.

"This war is politically motivated, it is not about a religious ideology as in the case of al Qaeda, so everyone participates and it is ultimately irrelevant if you are a man or a woman," said Ayers.

The insurgency is about autonomy (at least) as much as it is about religion, and the existence of black widows is the result of the two Chechen conflicts in the 1990s. The similarities with "Islamic extremism" (and its connotations for an American audience) exist but by no means define the extent of the issue, and a publication such as the New York Times should make that much clearer when reporting on this undeniable tragedy.

Sunday links

2010-03-28T10:38:00.002-04:00

The Sartorialist spots: skirts on men.

Chris Dillow: the lawmaker's fallacy.

Corporate rebellion against evasive tampon ads (is expected to bring in revenue).

The Salon: My daughter, a girly-girl.

Smiles in the White House.

Map of alternative medicine efficacy.

Video pick: commenting on Johnny Weir as an athlete - that's gay.

Sunday links

2010-03-21T09:30:00.002-04:00

Tips for getting that article done this summer.

How to spend finances on the problem of the poor: read through to the punchline...

IKEA in the Paris metro.

Best puns in store names.

Temporary marriage in Islam. Does what it says on the tin.

Love science: we are one step closer to an invisibility cloak.

YouTube pick: The Vegetable Orchestra

The Handbook and the geek

2010-03-17T08:56:00.005-04:00

I am now the proud owner of the 2010 edition of the Handbook of Social Psychology. It arrived last night, and I am so excited by the 1300 pages of goodness that I simply had to share with the world.

(If you had any doubts about just how geeky I am, know that I really look forward to actually lugging this with me on summer break and spending a somewhat insane amount of hours in coffee shops with it.)

Sunday links

2010-03-14T12:18:00.003-04:00

Why do people ask questions at public events? Tyler Cowen muses.

Changes to the social sciences curriculum passed by the Texas Education Board.

Alternative prizes at the Westminster Dog Show.

A very touching commercial.

John Quiggin: Ideology and agnotology

YouTube pick: Da Vinci's Notebook - Title of the Song

Travelling abroad domestically

2010-03-10T15:28:00.003-05:00

Question: Why is it difficult to find a travel guide for Montreal in the Harvard Coop bookshop?

Answer: Because if you're like me, you might be looking in the wrong section. Canada is not listed under "International Travel" - it is on the same domestic travel shelf as Hawaii and Alaska. So, er, essentially domestic but a bit weird and/or far away?

In case you are thinking this has to do with sharing borders, I will point out that Mexican guidebooks are dutifully shelved under "International".

BBC reports on acupuncture effectiveness

2010-03-09T20:27:00.002-05:00

I'm having a Ben Goldacre moment. This headline just appeared on BBC:

'No evidence' acupuncture boosts chances of IVF baby

I can't decide which of these four is the worst news about this piece:

a) That scarecrows were put around the phrase 'No evidence', suggesting more uncertainty around this issue than there really is

b) That the ineffectiveness of traditional Chinese medicine should be newsworthy. (Who would write a news piece about the ineffectiveness of bloodletting, a traditional Western European treatment?)

c) That the proponents of acupuncture are allowed to criticise the meta-analysis the newspiece is referring to, without being called out on making comments that do not even address the fact that this is a meta-analysis. They all appear to be talking about problems in some specific trial - but the news item is that the totality of available evidence shows no effect.

d) The actual topic: that a treatment that couples have been (duped into) getting does not work.

Quote of the day

2010-03-08T15:17:00.002-05:00

[H]e who looks for large-scale social change must be possessed, with Kierkegaard, by 'the passion for what is possible' rather than rely on what has been certified as probable by factor analysis.

Albert Hirschman, 1970

(As quoted in Dan Slater, "Can Leviathan be a Democrat?" Studies in Comparative International Development 43:4, 2008)

Sunday links

2010-03-07T13:44:00.002-05:00

Why you should never ask "but where are you really from"?

The nonstop lifestyle of Harvard undergraduates. Sometimes I wonder if they're a different species.

Russia: lenient sentence for fatally shooting a journalist.

BPS Research Digest: Darkness encourages unethical behaviour.

The mathematics in Alice in Wonderland.

This week's YouTube pick is just in case there is someone on the interwebs who hasn't seen this yet: OK Go - This Too Shall Pass

Gagaism

2010-03-05T17:03:00.005-05:00

On a somewhat brighter note than below, here is a brilliant, brilliant quotation by Lady Gaga:

Some women choose to follow men, and some women choose to follow their dreams. If you’re wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn’t love you anymore.

Yes I laughed, and yes my friends sometimes call me cynical. Also, for your enjoyment: Lab Romance (via Drek).

James Bond could do this

2010-03-05T16:37:00.002-05:00

A new Austrian book gives a first-hand account (confession?) of a former North Korean colonel who used to work directly for the (former) North Korean dictator. The colonel reports on the luxurious lifestyle preferred and enjoyed by North Korean leaders and how they go about procuring items of foreign origin that are unavailable to their citizens:

[Kim Il-sung] had dozens of sprawling villas – some of them built underground – filled with crystal chandeliers, silk wallpaper and costly furniture.
/.../
Kim Il-sung, while publicly denouncing "western decadence and imperialism", had an extensive luxury car collection that included Mercedes, Lincolns, Fords, Cadillacs and Citroëns. Kim Jong-il, who liked taking fast sports cars for a spin, also appeared to share his father's passion.

In the early 1990s, the car-obsessed ruler even ordered a North Korean version of the Mercedes 200 to be built. Upon completion, it was presented to a cheering North Korean public amid much fanfare, the defector said.

Other than being further confirmation of just how horrific the current regime in North Korea is, this information raises some questions in me. Sure, the agents who "procure special foreign food" for the North Korean leaders may have to go underground (i.e. they probably do not announce openly at farmers' markets who it is they're shopping for...) but how much effort do Western governments put into stopping this? If Mercedes produced a special car for the country, these activities cannot be entirely unknown to the powers-that-be.

My basic question is: given how fond North Korean leaders are of Western goods, and how horrified the West is at their regime, why are they still able to get these goods? Is anyone out there right now, tracking down the routes by which the chandeliers travel to North Korea? I realise, of course, that if there is someone doing this job I wouldn't know about it for obvious reasons. I will simply say that if that job doesn't exist, it should: it seems like the cheapest and most harmless way to undermine the dictatorship. And if the job already exists, can someone restructure/rehire/increase funding or whatever else is necessary to achieve the objective? This is what 007 is for, right?

/via Chris Blattman's shared items

Department of oxymoronic statements

2010-03-04T07:26:00.003-05:00

"This is the Conservative Party that is offering radical change."

That is David Cameron, in an interview with The Times. Too much coattailing on messages of hope and change, anyone?

The NYT article that relayed this great statement is amusing in other ways, too. It takes on the current state of British politics with a delightful mixture of glee and amusement. The one-sentence caption on the NYT frontpage this morning reads:

The Conservative leader David Cameron has learned that it is not enough to sit back, relax and wait for a government to eat itself alive.

The article then delivers on the promised tone, noting among other things that:

In January, Mr. Cameron was derided for a campaign poster featuring an enormous, 15-foot-tall photograph of his face.The party denied that anything had been done to the photograph, but the image appeared to be so aggressively airbrushed that it made Mr. Cameron, who is running in part on an image of honesty and directness, look more like Data from “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”
/.../
Mr. Brown, of course, is a soft target, particularly after revelations of his bad temper and aggressive management style. His ability to turn positive developments into humiliating fiascos is such that you suspect if he were to be handed a baby in a crowd, he would drop it.

Britain, you might be losing some of that high ground you're so used to when comparing UK politics to the US.

Sunday links

2010-02-28T17:48:00.003-05:00

He's not saying that anyone who ever posts an internet comment is nuts. But...

Amazing spoken word: When you hear that I have died.

New England: Road sign win.

A short story about the treatment of hysteria in women in c19th, based on personal experience: The Yellow Wallpaper (1899)

YouTube pick (just music this week, no video): Guru - Keep Your Worries