Prolonging Defeat (Wartime Elections)

Yesterday there was an interesting blog post by Phil Arena discussing how the costs of war are distributed within democracies. The idea behind distributing the costs of war is that, “By shielding the average voter from the worst of war’s ravages, which they can do through a variety of strategies, not the least of which is avoiding […]

Wartime Elections

Motivation How does war (or any highly significant policy) affect the electorate’s vote choice? Moreover, how do different signals regarding the state of the war (success or failure) help the electorate to form their belief about the incumbent’s war policy? The political science literature regarding the affect of war on elections has a long history, beginning with […]

Should Political Scientist Prescribe Public Policy?

Happy Holidays! I hope everyone is having a great holiday season and enjoying time with family and friends. Prescriptive Realism I just received the December 2011 copy of Perspectives on Politics. As I was flipping through an article immediately caught my eye: “A Realist Foreign Policy for the United States” by Rosato and Schuessler. In this piece the […]