In preparation for a graduate seminar on political science publishing, I had the pleasure of re-reading Gary King’s very useful “Publication, Publication,” published in PS: Political Science and Politics in 2006. Readers will know that I have lately criticized King’s vision of political science, as it applies to “big data” ...

The US bombing of a hospital run by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) this month in Kunduz Afghanistan, which killed 22 people including staff and patients, has variously been described as an ‘unfortunate accident’, ‘collateral damage’, and a ‘war crime’. The labelling of this event can be seen as a function ...

What would Israel’s economy have looked like without the Palestinian Intifadas? Scholars have long debated the impact of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on Israel’s economy. Some point to Israel’s long-term growth trajectory and conclude the conflict has little or no impact on Israel’s economy, while others argue the conflict has a ...

Political science research has become increasingly transparent over the past few decades, with rising emphasis on procedures such as data sharing and replication projects. At this time, many journal editors have signed the public statement on Data Access & Research Transparency, in a wish to further this commitment to open ...

Writing on book on Abraham Lincoln, which I am doing for Rowman & Littlefield’s Modernity and Political Thought series, may seem ill-advised given the number of volumes on the 16th president of the United States already extant. On the other hand, given the unstable combination of Lincoln’s iconic status and ...

What’s up with DA-RT? What happened regarding DA-RT at the APSA meeting in San Francisco? Is it true, as one prominent editor has been quoted, that DA-RT is a fait accompli, and that “the train has already left the station?” In recent weeks I have been repeatedly asked these questions. ...

The outcome of the recent regional election in Catalonia (which was held on September 27th) has been read very differently by the pro-independence and the pro-union camps. The former have emphasized that pro-independence parties won, for the first time in Catalan history, a clear majority of seats in the Catalan ...

What if one could manipulate only a few conditions? This is exactly the idea of experiments that are used to test causality – to deliberately manipulate only one variable or a few variables, while at the same time keeping everything else constant. For example, if one varied ONLY the gender ...

The election of 20 September 2015 in Greece resulted in victory for SYRIZA, who renewed its governing coalition with the right-wing Independent Greeks (ANEL) party (see table 1 for historical election results). The new government under the Premiership of Alexis Tsipras returns to office, with a strong mandate, which, however, ...