Clouds, Clocks and Sitting at Tables

If, like many beginning students of IR theory, you are stumped by some of the nuances of the various IR theories, there is a helpful set of videos in which IR experts try to explain the theories in everyday language. (H/t to a student of mine–sensnation–for alerting me to the existence of these videos.)

I’ve posted the video of Caleb Gallemore of The Ohio State University, who talks about constructivism. Among many other insights in this short video, Gallemore stresses that while realists take the existence of what they find in the world as a given–”all states want to increase their power”, “we must stop at a red light”–constructivists understand that the world is “socially constructed” and would ask questions such as these: “what are states?”, “why was red (and not some other colour) chosen as the `stop’ colour?”

Have a look at this, and other videos in this series:

Last Tuesday in POLI 1140, the students completed an class oil-market exercise in which pairs of students engaged in a strategic situation that required them to sell oil at specific prices. Many students were able to understand relatively quickly that the “Oil Game” was an example of the classic prisoner’s dilemma (PD). As Mingst and Arreguin-Toft note on page 78, the crucial point about the prisoner’s dilemma:

Neither prisoner knows how the other will respond; the cost of not confessing if the other confesses is extraordinarily high. So both will confess, leading to a less-than-optimal outcome for both.

From a theoretical perspective (and empirical tests have generally confirmed this) there will likely be very little cooperation in one-shot prisoner’s dilemma-type situations. Over repeated interaction, however, learning can contribute to higher levels of cooperation. With respect to IR theories, specifically, it is argued that realists are more likely to defect in PD situations as they are concerned with relative gains. Liberals, on the other hand, who value absolute gains more highly, are more likely to cooperate and create socially more optimal outcomes. What were the results in our class?

The graph above plots the level of cooperation across all six years (stages) of the exercise. There were seven groups and what the probabilities demonstrate is that in each year there was only one group for which the interaction was cooperative. In year 2, there was not a single instance of cooperation. Moreover, it was the same group that cooperated. Therefore, one of the groups cooperated 5 out of 6 years, while none of the other six groups cooperated a single time over the course of the sex years!! What a bunch of realists!!

If you were involved in this exercise, please let me know your reactions to what happened.

Is globalization good for those in developing countries? What is the link between globalization and poverty? What about globalization and democracy? Today in IS210 we watched a documentary in which the narrator argued that more globalization is good for the poor in developing countries. He argued that countries that have (and are) globalizing, such as Taiwan and Vietnam,  have become richer, more democratic, and poverty levels have plummeted. On the other hand, countries that haven’t democratized, regardless of whether this is the result of domestic or external policy, have done poorly. They’re less democratic and poorer than they otherwise could be.

Here’s a link to the documentary, and some questions that you may want to think about:

1. Has globalization been beneficial or detrimental to Taiwan’s economic development? Explain.
2. What role, according to the narrator, do multi-national corporations (MNCs) play in globalization? Should LDCs embrace the arrival of MNCs into their economies? How can the example of Vietnam inform our answers to these questions? Is there a link between MNCs and worker productivity?
3. According to the narrator, what was the role of sweatshops in the development of Taiwan’s economy? Were they necessary?
4. What is the link between globalization and democracy? What is the process that causes this empirical link?
5. What is the reason for Africa’s slow growth, according to the narrator? Which of Collier and Gunning’s [from Chapter 9 of Essential Readings) four categories would apply? How does the situation of Kenya inform our answers to this question?
6. What is the eect of developing countries trade policies on economic outcomes in Kenya and in other parts of the developing world?

Next week–January 21st–we’ll be looking at the debate between cultural and rationalist approaches to the analysis of political phenomena. As Whitefield and Evans note in the abstract of their 1999 article in the British Journal of Political Science:

There has been considerable disagreement among political scientists over the relative merits of political culture versus rational choice explanations of democratic and liberal norms and commitments. However, empirical tests of their relative explanatory power using quantitative evidence have been in short supply.

Their analysis of the political attitudes of Czech and Slovak residents is relatively rare in that the research is explicitly designed to assess the relative explanatory purchase of cultural and rationalist approaches to the study of political phenomena. Whitefield and Evans compile evidence (observational data) by means of a survey questionnaire given to random samples of Czech and Slovak residents. In order to assess the strengths of rationalist versus cultural accounts, Whitefield and Evans use statistical regression analysis. Some of you may be unfamiliar with statistical regression analysis, This blog post will explain what you need to know to understand the regression analysis results summarised in Tables 7 through 9 in the text.

Let’s take a look at Table 7. Here the authors are trying to “explain” the level of “democratic commitment”–that is, the level of commitment to democratic principles–of Czech and Slovak residents. Thus, democratic commitment is the dependent variable. The independent, or explanatory, variables can be found in the left-most column. These are factors that the authors hypothesize to have causal influence on the level of democratic commitment of the survey respondents. Some of these are nationality–Slovaks, Hungarians, political experience and evaluations–past and future–of the country’s and family’s well-being.

Each of the three remaining columns–Models 1 through 3–represents the results of a single statistical regression analysis (or model). Let’s take a closer look at the first model–ethnic and country dummy variables. In this model, the only independent variables analysed are one’s country and/or ethnic origin. The contrast category is Czechs, which means that the results are interpreted relative to how those of Czech residence/ethnicity answered. We see that the sign for the result of each of the two explanatory variables–Slovaks and Hungarians–is negative. What this means is that relative to Czechs, Slovaks and Hungarians demonstrated less democratic commitment. The two ** to the right of the numerical results (-0.18 and -0.07, respectively) indicate that this result is unlikely to be due to chance and is considered to be statistically significant. This would suggest that deep-seated cultural traditions–ethnicity/country or residence–have a strong causal (or correlational, at least) effect on the commitment of newly democratic citizens to democracy. Does this interpretation of the data still stand when we add other potential causal variables, as in Models 2 and 3? What do you think?

As I mentioned in lecture today, I’ve decided to allow those of you who are a little bit reticent about speaking in tutorial/lecture to supplement your participation grade via commenting on entries to this blog. In order to do so, you’ll have to sign up for a wordpress user account. To do so, go to and fill out the form. Make sure that you’re only signing up for an account rather than for a blog as well (unless, of course, you’d like to create your own blog). You can create a user name that is pseudonymous if you’re wary about publicly revealing your name. If you choose a pseudonym, make sure you e-mail me to let me know what it is.

Henry Farrell, who teaches political science at George Washington University, has posted an essay with tips for students writing political science papers. There are some important insights, such as “cut to the chase”, “organize, organize, organize”, and “avoid data dumps.” In my opinion, his most important tip (and this would also apply to examinations) is “read the requirements for the assignment.” If you’re unsure about the requirements, or there is something you don’t understand, seek clarification from your professor/instructor. The whole essay can be found here:

Here are some questions that we will try to answer in class, based on the Mueller, Kalyvas, Collier & Hoeffler, and Kaldor readings:

Thematic Questions:

1. How has the nature of warfare changed (or has it) over the course of the last 70 years or so? Provide evidence from at least four sources.
2. Comparatively assess the arguments of Collier & Hoeffer, Kalyvas, Mueller, and Kaldor. What are some commonalities? Divergence of opinion?
3. What are the policy implications–from a humanitarian perspective–of taking each of the authors’ arguments seriously? Discuss.

Collier & Hoeffler (2004) “Greed and Grievance in Civil War

1. Define `greed’ and `grievance’ in the context of the analysis of rebellion/civil war.
2. What are the types of causal mechanisms that each term implies?
3. What do C & L mean by `opportunity’?
4. Based on the statistical results, what conclusion do C & L draw regarding the causes of the onset of rebellion?
5. What is the analytical importance of diaspora communities?
6. How important are ethnic grievances in fomenting rebellion?

. Mueller (2000) The Banality of `Ethnic War’

1. Why does Mueller put the words ethnic war in scare quotes in the title?
2. What does Mueller mean when he says that ethnic war is `banal?’
3. What evidence does Mueller use to support his main argument(s)?
4. According to Mueller, what are the stages of ethnic war and ethnic cleansing?
5. What is `ethnic cleansing’?
6. Did ethnicity play any role in the inter-ethnic violence in Yugoslavia and Rwanda? Read more…

Victor Shih, currently an assistant professor of political science at Northwestern University, keeps a blog at which he addresses issues related to Chinese politics. The blog deals mainly with topics related to Chinese political economy (an increasingly important topic as the rate for your car/home/student loan is intimately connected to the amount of US Treasury bonds purchased by the Chinese Central Bank) and elite politics in China.

According to rational choice theorists, how do individuals make decisions?  Put simply, they act so as to maximize their expected utility, given their a priori preferences and some general idea of the nature of the world (by this, they mean that individuals have some idea of the probability of certain actions leading to specific outcomes).  While rational choice theory was first developed in academic disciplines such as economics, political scientists have adopted the technique and it’s use has proliferated in that discipline.  One of the criticisms of using rational choice theory to explain political phenomena is that often individuals have difficulty ordering preferences adequately.  This is because there is no single “currency” of utility in political science.  The same, however, can not be said for economics as it is much easier to order preferences when there are dollar values attached.  But what happens when time, leisure, etc., have to be taken into account.  Well, it turns out that individuals make many “mistakes” that diverge from that expected of instrumentally rational decision-makers.

Jonah Lehrer informs his readers of a fascinating series of studies done by Ap Dijksterhuis, a psychologist at Radboud University in the Netherlands.  One of these studies looks at decisions related to real estate purchases.  The studies:

look at how people shop for “complex products,” like cars, apartments, homes, etc. and how they often fall victim to what he calls a “weighting mistake”. Consider two housing options: a three bedroom apartment that is located in the middle of a city, with a ten minute commute time, or a five bedroom McMansion in the suburbs, with a forty-five minute commute. “People will think about this trade-off for a long time,” Dijksterhuis writes. “And most them will eventually choose the large house. After all, a third bathroom or extra bedroom is very important for when grandma and grandpa come over for Christmas, whereas driving two hours each day is really not that bad.” What’s interesting is that the more time people spend deliberating, the more important that extra space becomes. They’ll imagine all sorts of scenarios (a big birthday party, Thanksgiving dinner, another child) that will turn the suburban house into an absolute necessity. The lengthy commute, meanwhile, will seem less and less significant, at least when compared to the allure of an extra bathroom.

But, as Dijksterhuis points out, that reasoning process is exactly backwards: “The additional bathroom is a completely superfluous asset for at least 362 or 363 days each year, whereas a long commute does become a burden after a while.” For instance, a recent study found that, when a person travels more than one hour in each direction, they have to make forty per cent more money in order to be as “satisfied with life” as someone with a short commute. Another study, led by Daniel Kahneman and the economist Alan Krueger, surveyed nine hundred working women in Texas and found that commuting was, by far, the least pleasurable part of their day. And yet, despite these gloomy statistics, nearly 20 percent of American workers commute more than forty-five minutes each way. (More than 3.5 million Americans spend more than three hours each day traveling to and from work: they’re currently the fastest growing category of commuter. For more on commuter culture, check out this awesome New Yorker article.) According to Dijksterhuis, these people are making themselves miserable because they failed to properly “weigh” the relevant variables when they were choosing where to live. Because these deliberative homeowners tended to fixate on details like square footage or the number of bathrooms, they assumed that a bigger house in the suburbs would make them happy, even if it meant spending an extra hour in the car everyday. But they were wrong.:

In response to a short assignment on the process of modeling social phenomena, one of my students (thanks, EE!) has chosen to try to understand why the residents of some countries consume (on average) more alcohol per capita than the residents of other countries. She argued that it may have something to do with the cultural acceptance of drinking alcohol as children. That’s seems to be a plausible hypothesis. You can find data on annual drinking rates from the EarthTrends website (which I’ve used on many previous occasions; it’s a fantastic resource!). Here is a link to 2003 data (the most recent year for which they have data) and here is a table, which I have created from the data. What do you think accounts for the difference in consumption across these countries?