Year: 2016
The Calculus of Vote-Selling: Electoral Trust and the Value of a Vote
The following is part of a series of posts written by 2016 MPSA award recipients highlighting outstanding research presented at previous MPSA annual conferences. Existing work has established that clientelistic parties can maximize their returns by targeting poor voters, because their votes are…
Social Media: Great Campaign Tool, but Bad News for Democracy
By now, we have all read about and analyzed Donald Trump’s (in)famous Cinco de Mayo tweet, which featured a picture of him grinning broadly while eating a taco bowl, with the following tweet: “Happy #CincoDeMayo! The best taco bowls are made in Trump Tower Grill. I love Hispanics!” Twitter and…
The Company You Keep: How Voters Infer Party Positions on European Integration from Governing Coalition Arrangements
The following is the first in a series of posts written by 2016 MPSA award recipients highlighting outstanding research presented at previous MPSA annual conferences. Democratic accountability requires citizens to be reasonably well-informed about political parties’ issue positions. Citizens may…
Trendspotting Through the Gradventurist’s Lens
Now that it has been two weeks since MPSA 2016 ended, there are a few trends I observed during the conference that I feel need revisiting especially from a graduate student perspective. The conference weekend was hectic for everyone and there was a lot going on simultaneously, so it is useful to…
The American Impasse Between Environmentalists and Industry
In a recent book by Joel S. Whitworth, “Quantified: Redefining Conservation for the Next Economy” (Whitworth 2015), the author issues a bold challenge claiming that our 45-year old approaches to environmental policy through labyrinthine regulation, litigation, and exhortation are bringing…
If Political Science Ruled the World (and We Were on Our Best Behavior)
Once, as a graduate student at the University of Missouri, I wisecracked, "the entire world should be turned over to political scientists for experimental purposes." I was joking and everyone knew it... but I never lived down that moment. The world should not be turned over to political scientists…
A Grad Life Recap of the 2016 MPSA Conference
As the MPSA 2016 conference wraps up, I wanted to share a few thoughts as a first time attendee. This has been a phenomenal experience for me and my colleagues (most of whom are also first time attendees) and has made me fall in love with this profession all over again. Creative Research and…
Political Science: The Final Frontier
Can science fiction teach us about political institutions? A group of political scientists says yes. James Endersby of the University of Missouri-Columbia is spearheading a project with several of his former students, now colleagues, to show how science fiction illustrates the importance of…
Your To Do List: One Week until MPSA 2016
We are one week away from the MPSA 2016 conference and a lot of us are still scrambling to get everything in order. Those of us making it to the MPSA for the very first time are especially equal parts excited and nervous to be presenting at such a big forum. So to help out my fellow first timers, I…
Sir Edmund and Hillary: A Surprisingly Likely Pair
Mainstream political scientists often struggle with the subfield called political theory. Otherwise known as normative theory or political philosophy, theory is the study of history, philosophy, and values. It made up the bulk of political science before the data-driven “behavioral revolution”…