Testing, eh?

Last fall, my family finally did the paperwork to apply for Canadian citizenship. When we were looking to leave Montreal, our options were pretty open.  Moving to Ottawa meant a commitment to Canada... hence the application.  The mail to set the date for the exam came more quickly than expected with a shorter timeline: we take the test in two weeks.

When I reached out to my friends, their help was amusing and sometimes helpful (thanks, JTL). 

So far, I have been informed that the test contains some skills that are not mentioned in the guide, and as well some answers:

Skills tests:

• "The best part of test is undoubtedly when you have to write five polite responses to American jokes about Canadian stereotypes." (thanks, KA) 
• I believe the answer is always "sorry".
• There is a French component (JTL is not always helpful). 
• Mais non!
• Be able to sing O Canada (thanks, SGS)
• I know the beginning and end. Can I hum the middle?
• The hands-on canoe skills part of the exam is pretty tricky. (thanks, LN)
• As long as I don't have to be in the same canoe as my wife, I think we can both pass. 

Sticky issues:

• Crown stuff.  I cannot let Phil Lagassé down!
• I don't really sing well, so hopefully the singing test is just about getting 2/3s of the words right. 
• Have to remember that the US was the bad guy in the War of 1812.  And I probably should not mention a tweep's theory that Phantom Menace was based on this war.
• Upper Canada and Lower Canada are not what you think....

Answers (when in doubt):

• Maple Syrup
• Hockey
• Wayne Gretzky
• eh?

 The good news is that we might end up being Canadians by the end of the year (and remain Americans).  We will be too late for this election, which might be a good thing.  Oh and jury duty!

Of course, we will take any additional advice, hints, suggestions as we cram for the next two weeks. 

Contrasting Military Chiefs: US and Canada

The US and Canada are replacing their military chiefs at about the same time.   As each starts their term in office, observers can easily confuse what each can and cannot do.  The striking difference is that the US Chairman can speak but not act and the Canadian Chief can act but cannot speak quite as much.  Let me explain some of the differences and then some of the similarities.

The Canadian Chief of Defence Staff [CDS] is the commander of the Canadian Armed Forces.  He is the ultimate authority, essentially, writing the rules of engagement, firing subordinates if need be, and providing the operational commanders with their missions.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff commands the Joint Staff ... and that is about it.  His primary job is to serve as adviser to the President and the Secretary of Defense.  He cannot order around the Combatant Commanders--the four star generals and admirals who command all of the US forces in their sector or function.

The CDS is appointed by the Prime Minister, and Parliament has no role in vetting him.  Which means he is only accountable to the Prime Minister, but is answerable to Parliament.  This answerability thing is actually quite limited since advice to cabinet is confidential.  So, the CDS can speak about what the Canadian Armed Forces are doing and can do, but not what the CDS told the Prime Minister about what should be done.

The Chairman is appointed by the President but must be confirmed by the Senate.  So, he is actually accountable to both the President and to Congress.  This means that he can and occasionally must speak more broadly, depending on the questions asked by those in Congress.

How are they similar?  Well, I used "he" a lot above since the American and Canadian military chiefs have been male.  The time for a female CDS/Chairman is coming as more women are getting promoted to higher levels and with more women getting more experience commanding in combat, those numbers should increase even more.  Still, not anytime soon.

How else?  CDS's and Chairmen can range from being forward-leaning to acquiescent.  The Chairmen, Myers and Pace, under Donald Rumsfeld experienced "mind melds", where they basically sold out to Rummy's stances on the issues.  One could use many adjectives to describe the outgoing CDS but forward leaning is not one of them. 

The two new leaders, US Marine General Joe Dunford and Canadian Army General Jon Vance, may or may not be that similar as chiefs (time will tell), but they do have some similar attributes.  Both commanded in Afghanistan.  Both are generally viewed as relatively blunt and assertive.  Both have tough jobs ahead as they face more budgetary constraints in more complex times (the Cold War was more dangerous but far more simple).  Both have to deal with messed up procurement processes (a widely shared dynamic among democracies these days).  And both are starting their jobs during election season (although the US election is farther away, the campaign is very much underway).  Dunford's boss will certainly change during his term in office, and might happen to Vance and maybe not.

Anyhow, as each takes over their respective militaries, we need to keep in mind that despite the common title of CHOD (chief of defense, in the NATO parlance), they have somewhat different jobs and definitely different expectations.  The key commonality is that they will lead in interesting times.

Defensive? But of Course

I was reminded of an old post today and decided to re-post a key part of it:

What I do want to take issue with today is something much sillier and yet much more common: the criticism that one is being defensive.  I got that yesterday, and it does not hurt me.  It just annoys me greatly.   It always has annoyed me.  Why?  Because if one is attacked, one has two responses--ignore the attack or defend oneself. So, silence is certainly an option but not really a strength of mine.  Also, silence is often confused with condoning the accusation.  "If you didn't think it was right, why didn't you say anything?"  If you say anything, you are being defensive.  Damned if you, damned if you don't.

Of course, there is being defensive and there is being DEFENSIVE.  I remember one of my first talks at a conference, I tried to reply to every single comment and criticism rather than just picking and choosing a few of the relevant/salient/useful/harmful.  But the simple act of responding to riposte in one's direction to deflect the accusation and perhaps illuminate why the attack is flawed is defensive, right?  Why is being defensive wrong?  The answer: it is not.  If someone tries to spread rumors about you, and you then broadcast your view of the truth, is that problematic?  I think not.

The point of this particular Spew is just to suggest that if your best criticism is that someone is being "defensive," think again.  There are better justifications for dismissing my arguments than that. 

 Silence has never been a strength for me. 

Revenge Reconsidered

I saw a tweet about Star Wars today and responded thusly:

Worst part of Sith, going from reluctantly fighting Mace Windu to killing kids in like 30 seconds. https://t.co/5c1Tj8UBXs

— Steve Saideman (@smsaideman) July 11, 2015

The resulting discussion led me to re-watching Revenge of the Sith.  I haven't seen it in years, so I forgot how truly awful it is.  I guess I thought it was not bad because it was better than the other prequels, but damn it is bad.  The dialogue is awful, awful, awful.  The Anakin flitting back and forth between Palpatine and Jedi Council causes headaches, and I got lost counting how many different hairstyles Natalie Portman has in this movie.  It seems as if the rule is that she needs a different hairstyle in each and every scene.

I remembered that the action was good, which it kind of was.  Indeed, the action in the prequels is mostly good.  The start of Phantom Menace with Qui-jon and Obi Wan showing what real Jedi can do is just terrific, and the fight with Darth Maul at the end is very good.  In Clones, the stuff in the arena is quite good, so much so that the dialogue is not bad.  But then I realized watching RoS today that the action in the third movie is mostly ... dumb. 

Examples:

• the fight to save Palpatine at the start is undermined by the very fact that Palpatine staged all of this to manipulate Anakin.  I mean, Palpatine is seriously in danger unless he could bounce from a falling starship. 
• Grievous is scary until he isn't.  Obi Wan literally disarms him one arm at a time.  How could this guy beat some many Jedi before this?  And he coughs?  Why does a droid have a lung condition or allergies?
• Fighting on a volcanic planet?  Why are folks mining lava?  Why does Obi Wan maneuver himself further and further into the lava?  

 The other real problem with this movie is how it ends.  No, not just that Padme gives up on living just as she produces two kids that might just want a mother.  No, I mean, the last we see of the Emperor and Vader is their watching the Death Star being built.  It took 18 years or so to build the Death Star?  Who was their defense contractor?  Lockheed?

Anyhow, as we anticipate Star Wars VII with the latest stuff out of comic-con, people are thankful that George Lucas is not involved. Which is sad, since the original trilogy was his baby and was so very good. But the second trilogy was even more so, as he wrote and directed them, and boy did they suck.  I don't know if JJ Abrams can do better than the first trilogy, but I am fully confident that he can do better than the prequels (even if I am not a fan of his version of Star Trek).

I need to have some beer now to improve the bitter taste in my mouth.

Tyranny of Low Expectations: Doing More Than the Annual Blog Post

Last night, I posted this about sexism in political science.  It has gotten a pretty strong response getting 10x as many hits (so far) as my usual post, lots of retweets by female political scientists, and some sharing on facebook.  The sharing on facebook came with props as my female political science friends were happy to see a senior male political scientist talk bluntly about this.  

These props/kudos made me feel squishy because it is not that hard to blog and notice on occasion that there is sexism in the poli sci business (as it is everywhere, one FB friend noted).  My female friends and former students (who I also consider to be friends) have put up with all kinds of crap over the years.  Indeed, the conversations sparked by last night's post has revealed a bit more of that stuff.  

So, besides from regularly posting about this stuff, which is pretty much the definition of the least one can do (unless one is doing nothing at all), what can a male political scientist do? 

First, obviously, is to be professional in professional settings.  Treat women with respect (and men, too).  The most obvious application of this rule:  the women who are grad students (or undergrads) in one's program are not targets of one's affection/lust.  If one is attracted, wait until they graduate or find some other person or object for one's fascination.  When professors hit on students in their program, little good can come from it.  Yes, our mentors might have done it (my old grad program had several married couples consisting of mentors/former mentorees), but we don't drunk drive as much either.  Norms have changed as we have learned about the damage the previously accepted behavior has caused.  Speaking of the less one could do, refraining from preying upon students is pretty damned easy.

Second, in semi-professional settings, treat the women as you would treat the men.  Include/exclude by the same rules--I don't invite strange men to the semi-annual poker games and I would not invite strange women. I do invite my male and female friends to the poker games.  The gender representation is still skewed but not as much as it once was.  There is much reported fear about socializing with women outside of work as there is much fear about sexual harassment accusations/lawsuits.  There are two obvious answers to that:  (1) go out in mixed groups; (2) trust the people you hang out with.  I have had beers with individual students and junior faculty, male and female, at conferences and have thought nothing of it.  I have not gotten exceedingly drunk while hanging out with women who are not my wife.  Not really that hard.  On the other hand, I did not let the accused plagiarist close the door to my office when she wanted to speak to me about her case (which I was not allowed to speak about anyway) since I had reason to distrust that individual.

Third, listen.  I said something silly once and my student reminded me of the larger context, and I made sure not to make the same kind of remark again.  My learning curve may be shallow, but it exists--we can all learn if we listen.  Oh, and listen to the men, too, and either call out or distance from men who do bad stuff.  There are limits due to concerns about slander/libel (I always forget the distinction), but if anyone asks me about the conditions about the places I used to work, I will tell them.  And if I find out about problems where I am currently working, I will work up the chain of command to find a way to deal with such issues. 

Fourth, include.  Given the number of sharp women in political science, it does not take that much thought to come up with a panel proposal that includes women, a syllabus that includes work by women, a list of favorite books that includes women, to cite the work of women in one's lit review. 

Fifth, listen.  It bears repeating (like deja vu does in Inside Out).  Women are often put in difficult spots when they encounter a problem since many of the powerful people are male and because a public process by which they might lodge a complaint could do them more career harm than to the perpetrators.  

Sixth, support women when they have proposals to improve the profession.  The debate this year has been the timing of APSA--that the conference is family and women-unfriendly by being over Labor Day weekend.  My kid is in college, so it does not matter to me.  But it matters, so I should support their efforts. 

Seventh, when put in positions to do stuff, do the right thing.  Most academics end up cycling into various decision-making positions--chair, director of graduate studies, whatever.  When in the those positions, do all of the above and figure out ways to help the women in your area of responsibility mitigate the burdens of the past as well as the lousy folks who are still around.

Since I saw Inside Out before I finished this post, I am now thinking about emotions, and I guess the one to emphasize here is: empathy.  Have some empathy for others--women as well as others who are less represented in political science.  It is the very least one can do, I think.

And, readers, please let me know what else we can do to improve things.  I am thinking more about personal behavior and less about policy changes, but I am open to suggestions.  My list here is not very deep, so any suggestions would be most helpful.  As always, my imagination is pretty narrow.  I tend to generalize from my experience, and I have not experienced being without privilege in this business.  So, more feedback here is more welcome.

Taking on Sexual Harassment in Canadian Armed Forces

This story suggests that there are divides within CAF over CDS Lawson's stance on harassment: "lack of leadership!"  That there are conflicting imperatives to fight sexual harassment but to be quiet.  The Chief of the Navy apparently has been much clearer to his sailors.  Given Lawson's initial reaction, his then bungled statement, and this apparent leadership division, I am not surprised that the top brass are "literally counting the days until he leaves."

I can speak to a bit of this as I have some junior officer friends who faced a real challenge: that the roll out of the report was met with no new instructions for how to communicate to the troops.  My friends chose to talk directly to their subordinates about the report, and then found themselves hanging out to dry as their superiors were like "hey, wait, we don't have guidance."

Given that this military, so proud of mission command in Afghanistan--delegating to the commanders on the ground, does not know how to operate when it comes to these issues, it is definitely time for some new leadership. While much can be structural/institutional/cultural, the reality of modern militaries is that the chain of command matters a great deal.  So, although real, quality leadership is not a magic elixir, it can produce far more change and reform than a change in bosses in other realms (such as academia).

General Jon Vance's job was always going to be tough.  It is up for debate whether it is now easier (easier to do better than his predecessor) or harder (more messes to clean up). I vote for harder.

Pet Peeve Du Jour

One of my biggest pet peeves when I hear politician and pundits talk about threats to US or Canadian or whatever security, the phrase existential threat is often stretched to the point of meaninglessness.  There are many threats to security, and they range from minor/modest to severe to, ultimately, existential. 

Climate change might be an existential threat to low lying island countries such as the Maldives.  It is not an existential threat to the US or Canada.  Sorry, it just isn't.  Something that presents significant harm does not threaten the existence of the United States or Canada. 

Nuclear annihilation is an existential threat.  Which is why I concurred with General Dunford in his testimony today when he said Russia is an existential threat.  Why?  Russia has enough nuclear weapons to lay waste to North America AND our relations are such that we have more than a just a bit of concern.  Putin has been making nuclear threats to American allies--ones where the US has a commitment to defend.  That defense is ultimately tied to a nuclear umbrella.  So, yeah, Russia is an existential threat.  France has enough nuclear weapons to destroy the U.S., but is not a threat, existential or otherwise.

China has enough nuclear weapons at this point that it is probably an existential threat as well.  Right now, its assertiveness is troubling, and could start a process that could lead to things getting out of control.  But China is not issuing nuclear threats left and right.

Iran is not an existential threat to the US or Canada.  Even if Iran had a handful of nuclear weapons, they would not have a delivery system that would pose an existential threat to the US.  Ye olde feare of a nuke in a suitcase is not an existential threat--again, harm is not equal to threatening existence.  Sure, it would be an existential threat to Israel, but that is distinct from being an existential threat to the US.  How is this different from Russia's threat to the Baltics?  Iran ain't Russia, and the US does not have an Article V type treaty with Israel. 

Cyber?  Costly, inconvenient but not existential unless the hackers can turn the computers into Terminators.

Terrorism?  ISIS?  Not existential threats.  Even if ISIS were able to get its hands on a nuclear weapon, that would not be an existential threat.  The threat to the existence of some people (say, residents of NYC) is not the same as the threat to the existence of the US.

Alien invasion?  Well, if they have the aims of those depicted in Independence Day, then yes, that would be an existential threat.  A meteor of sufficient size to lay waste to the planet?  Hell yes!

So, we need to address the serious threats, such as cyber stuff and Iran and climate change, but we need to keep things in perspective: they don't threaten the existence of the US or Canada.  Calling them existential threats is fear-mongering.  We have enough to be concerned about without inflating threats.  That is how we got into Iraq in the first place, more or less.

Sexism in Political Science: Fact or Fact?

There is a discussion on PSR about sexism in political science, with most folks concurring that it is still an issue with some deniers pointing out that support groups for women are exclusive, too.  Um, yeah.  How to address such discussions?  I go to my standard operating procedure: what have I seen over the years?  The answer: a heap of sexism which has not gone away.

First, there is the repeated myth that jobs are gamed for women and minorities, which explains why white men don't get jobs.  Of course, this defines all women and minorities who do get jobs as less qualified.  The problem with this myth is that it is not true.  I cannot speak for the other subfields, but my work with the TRIP data indicates that IR scholars are mostly white (80*%) and mostly male (70%), and that these numbers have only changed modestly since they started doing TRIP surveys ten years ago.  You would think that if most of the jobs were going to women and minorities, the numbers would have swung.  I also would not have much in the way of male friends in the business that are my age or younger if women were always or mostly beating the men.
      In my career, I have lost many job competitions and I cannot think of one where an inferior woman beat me out.  I have mostly lost to males, including some I consider superior to me, some that are my equals and a few that I would consider to have inferior records at the time.   Indeed, most of the job searches I remember, I was competing against other men, including my first and second tenure-track/tenured jobs.
     The repetition of this myth helps to foster sexism by allowing the men who share it to consider the women (and minorities) as inferiors who did not earn their jobs.  Indeed, I originally came out on PSR as myself to de-myth a job search my department was running--that we were only looking for females for a particular job search. 

Second, while sitting in various departments, I have seen plenty of sexism.  At my first tenure track job:

• one faculty member was sleeping with multiple female grad students, creating a very hostile work environment for all;  I was told  that one of the perks of the job was "they let you screw the students here." 
• one faculty member said at a job search meeting that a female candidate did not need the job because her husband had a job;
• every sexual harassment workshop for the department was trivialized by some of the older males.  

      At my next job, there was a serial sexual harasser.  I had heard about him before I got there, and then another incident happened.  Because it was all covered in confidentiality, only a few faculty (and all of the grad students at the time) learned of it.  There was a concerted effort to make sure this guy would not serve as adviser to any grad students and especially females.  That effort has apparently dissipated as I recently learned that he is serving as an adviser to female grad students again.  Somewhat less problematic was that we had a speaker series that seemed to invite only males with the occasional token female sprinkled in.  The one year I ran it, I found several female scholars who presented excellent talks and one token male who did great as well.

Third, almost always when I see a list of a person's favorite books recommended on some blog, it has somewhere between zero and one females.  Which is why I wrote this post a while back which took little time to write since most of my favorite books are by women.  Similarly, we see plenty of panels and workshops that have few, if any, women, such as the most recent Aspen Forum.

Fourth, we actually have some IR scholars lamenting the end of the Old Boy's Network.  Note Boy's and not Girls or Kids or whatever.  These folks sit in powerful positions.

Fifth, I also see my female friends be far more burdened by service (there was a recent graph flying around the internet demonstrating that women and minorities do far more service than white men).  Since there are relatively fewer women and minorities who are tenured or Full, they tend to get hit with lots of requests as people want a balance or representation on committees, among letter-writers, whatever.  Good intentions that lead to bad outcomes since service goes unrewarded.

Sixth, I have seen far more attacks at PSR on women for their looks, for their relationships, for daring to beat a man out in a job competition and more.  I don't think that PSR is representative of the discipline, but it does shape attitudes and perceptions.  I don't think the profession is as hostile to women as it used to be, but PSR often makes the case that not much has changed (the evidence would be more obvious if the moderators didn't delete many of the offending posts and threads).

Seventh, women get paid less, promoted less despite/because of doing more service, and get less research money.  Thanks to Page Fortna for reminding me of this (in the comments). 

I am sure there is plenty of sexism that I didn't observe as it did not affect me directly, and I tend to be oblivious.  The reality is that path dependence is a bastard--making it harder to compensate for the sins of the past.  Of course, there are still plenty of sinners still around as I have discovered in my academic travels.  There has been progress, as there are more women who are successful and have gotten tenure, but there are still plenty of impediments and enough men with lousy attitudes/beliefs.  Which is why we need some vigilance when people put forth the old BS.

A Non-Expert Weighs in on Greece

Picture provided by former student

I don't study International Political Economy, I am not an expert on Greece, and my only publication that has anything to do with the European Union scoffs at conditionality.  So, take what I say with a huge grain of salt--->

With those caveats in mind (I cannot help myself),  I have a few thoughts on all of the discussion about Greece.

First, as folks discussed this morning on twitter, Greece has long been Least Loved Member of the EU and of NATO.  Why?  Because Greece not only free rides but then complains and stirs the pot.  Yes, Greek politicians were mildly brave in 1999 by not blocking the decision-making at NATO over the Kosovo campaign.  But Greece, despite having one of the largest militaries in Europe, send the smallest contingent to Afghanistan.  Greece has also blocked most efforts to develop better ties between the EU and NATO on security matters because of ... Turkey.  Greece has stirred the pot in Albania with its irredentist designs.  And, of course, Greece's opposition to Macedonia's name has kept Macedonia from becoming a normal member of European institutions.  Oh, and folks on twitter noted that Greece's cozying up to Putin played poorly in the EU as the Baltics, Finland, Poland, and others are not big fans of Putin these days.

Second, people seem to be far more sympathetic about Greece's domestic politics than about the domestic politics of the rest of the relevant actors.  All EU members have domestic audiences, and few have much sympathy for Greece.  The widely shared view is that Greece has done little to reform itself, so why throw more money down a black hole?  Politicians will lose support if they bend much to help Greece.  It does not make these countries right, but it explains the stances.

Third, some basic veto-player stuff: the EU is not a single actor and is not simply Germany.  To get decisions made, there needs to be a fair degree of consensus, if not unanimity.  So, even if some politicians around Europe were brave enough to ignore their domestic audiences, they might easily be blocked by other countries who do not want to change the current stance.  When you have many veto-players, it becomes hard to change a course of action.  So, there are institutional reasons why the EU cannot bend as well.  For the complexity of collective principals, see chapter two of the Dave and Steve NATO book.  The EU is not NATO, but there are similarities.

Fourth, blaming Germany can be fun, but it can be distraction sauce as the historical analogies are most problematic.

Fifth, it is only a game of chicken if both sides are killed in a crash.  The EU and its members are not likely to be harmed that much.  Hurt?  Yes, but not compared to the costs Greece will face.

Finally, when the crisis broke out years ago, my first reaction was surprise.  Despite being a skeptic about conditionality, I never expected that Greece would be let into the Euro zone.  Italy was a reach, but Greece?  

Where will this go?  I have no idea.  I am just glad that this is happening now and not seven years ago.  As far as I can tell, the impact of a Greek default and Grexit are far lower now as everyone has reduced their exposure.   I don't think this will cause the collapse of the Euro or the European Union whether Greece stays or goes.  Why?  Because of path dependence: the existence of both the Euro and the EU have created audiences that benefit from these cooperative efforts, and these audiences have power and influence.  I do feel bad for the Greek citizens who are paying the price for the bad decisions their leaders have made over the years, but, then again, they chose them.  More benefits and less taxes is an easy promise to make, but there is a price to be paid eventually.

Talking/Thinking About Race

Will Moore has an interesting post about taking about race and racism.  It comes out of a conversation that he and Erica Chenoweth and Christian Davenport had online:




There is a fourth reason why folks don't talk about race and racism: fear.  That is, people are careful about talking about race because they don't want to offend anyone and don't want to be accused of being racist.  Whether it is something being taken out of context, like Obama's mention of the n-word (notice that I don't spell it out) in the Marc Maron interview, or just musing aloud might lead to something that one might regret saying, fear matters a great deal in how/whether people talk about this stuff.

I guess I vary in my comfort/discomfort when I talk about race.  As a scholar focused on ethnic conflict, I tend to view race as I view religion, language or a similar attribute that shape people's identities and shape the politics of countries.  Despite the troubled history of race in the US, I tend to think of race as being less inherently problematic than other identities since there is no direct logical implications about racial divisions as there is for religion, for example.  Different religious groups will have different beliefs about right and wrong and about what the role of government is because the differing values are inherent in religion.  Linguistic divisions usually matter politically in employment and education because that is where language matters.  Race?  What does the color of one's skin have to do with anything?  And the answer, obviously, can be everything as I was reminded listening to a Moth podcast yesterday about apartheid.  While everything is ultimately socially constructed, the political implications of race are much more so, I think.  

I get less comfortable thinking/talking about race when I think about the course of my life, rather than the conflicts elsewhere.  Why? I have tended to live in highly segregated communities:

• I went to summer camp at a Jewish camp.  The only African-Americans were a few counselors and some of the staff.  The kids always considered the African-American counselors to be the coolest.  
• that my high school class had one or two African-Americans, a few Latinos, a couple of Asian-Americans, and was mostly quite white. 
• that Oberlin had more people of color than my high school, but the place was still fairly segregated.  And raising the question of segregation was problematic since it was perhaps the case that some of the African-Americans chose to live among themselves in part because they had always lived in segregated communities and felt isolated in the mass of white people.  Criticizing them for not exposing themselves was wrong.  So, I didn't develop any lasting friendships with African-Americans from college.  I did develop friendships with other people of color during my college years, including Latinos and Asian-Americans.
• This pattern largely continued in grad school, as the folks in my class and in the cohorts around mine were largely white with some Latinos and Asian-Americans and one African-American.  
• While Lubbock was perhaps one of the more diverse communities I lived in, it was also very highly and very clearly segregated.  My only friends were junior faculty in my department and frisbee players.  So, no, no new African-American friends in Lubbock for me.
• My brief time in Virgina was different.  The community may or may not have been diverse, but I didn't really notice since I was working very long hours at the most integrated office of my life--the Pentagon.  We didn't talk about race and racism.  The only "heavy" conversation I remember having there over identity was about religion--about "under god" in the pledge of allegiance.  The place might have been more racially diverse than religiously diverse, or at least it sometimes felt that way.
• In terms of my two lifetime preoccupations, both are relatively white.  The latest TRIP survey has IR in the US and Canada as being 80-something percent white.  I now have some African-American political science friends, and we have talked about racism even if we have not really talked about race itself, if that makes any sense.  Ultimate frisbee is less white than it used to be, but is still a very white sport.  I have had Asian-Americans/Canadians* and Latinos on my teams as often as not, especially in Montreal, but I have only briefly played alongside or against African-Americans/African-Canadians. 

* For this entire section of this post, I feel uncomfortable since I am not sure what is the way that various groups prefer to be called.

 The point here is I am not entirely comfortable when talking about race because I have rarely been engaged in sustained conversations about race with people of other races.  The internet helps with this as my twitter feed is more diverse than my facebook feed.  But these virtual friendships that are formed are not quite the same thing either.  I am sure there is some of the guilt that Will mentions in his post  is at the heart of my discomfort, since I sometimes think I have not done enough to reach out.  Again, it gets to fear--that I might say the wrong thing.

The good news it that my daughter has lived in far more integrated communities than I did, as we tended to end up sending her to schools with lots of immigrants especially in Virginia and Montreal.  And she went to her college a week early as an "international" student despite her American citizenship, so she immediately had a more diverse community to hang out with.  Her friends on facebook are a far more diverse lot than mine.  I don't know whether she is more comfortable about talking about race with her friends, but I guess I can find out on one of the many long drives in our near future. 

Of course, when I am uncomfortable, I try to make jokes and making jokes in a racial context can be very problematic, which is why I leave it to the professionals:



Update: I wrote this post and then read this piece by Ta-Nehisi Coates, which makes my notion of fear silly by comparison.  Which points to a second way in which the internet is a positive force--I read more stuff written by those who have very different, very powerful perspectives.

Sunday Silliness: Scattergun Approach

Brian McFadden had a sharp drive by this morning

Ranking the Future and the Past and the New Present

Last night I completed my re-watch of the Back to the Future trilogy.  I discussed the other day the first movie, so I just want to quickly rank the movies and highlight some fun stuff I had noticed before or enjoyed even more this time.

Evil and the Agent-Structure Problem of American Racism

I was listening to the "Do You Like Prince Movies" podcast while biking today, and it got me thinking.  Alex Pappademas and Wesley Morris noted that Hollywood tends to depict people who have messed up lives by having them eat out of Chinese takeout cartons.  This is anti-takeout-ist they noted.  Eating out of takeout cartons is not wrong!

Anyhow, their conversation eventually turned to the appearance of President Obama on the Marc Maron podcast.  Alex expressed his frustration with the discussion of the murders in the Charleston event as evil, that it allows us to shrug and move on, rather than consider why the event happened.  And this got me thinking while I biked along a particularly beautiful part of Ottawa about evil and the agent-structure problem of Racism in the U.S.

As a quick caveat, I am not an expert on any of what I am about to discuss.  I am starting to realize how apt the name of my blog is as something that is spewed is not filtered.  Something that is semi-spewed is only partially filtered.

I don't want to be too social science-y, but when I think of the Charleston event, I don't want to let anyone off easily.  That is, if we blame society or politics, we focus on the social/political structures at the expense of agency--that this one individual had free will and chose poorly, so very badly.  If we focus on the individual, that the perpetrator was insane or racist or whatever, we tend to gloss over the conditions that enabled him and even encouraged him to kill nine innocent people.  The reality is that both matter and both... can be understood and perhaps even treated via social science.

Observers/pundits/folks trying to make sense of events like this prefer to privilege one side or the other, the actor or the structural conditions, and get upset when people focus on another aspect.  Nobody is wrong for focusing on the agent or on the social/political structures, but they are wrong for dismissing the arguments of others who focus on the other part of the problem.

I do think that focusing on "evil" is a problematic approach because it takes us away from agents and structures.  There can be "evil" within individuals and within institutions, but we need to explain why there is variance--some people and institutions are more "evil" than others--as the variance provides us with leverage so we can figure out causes and conditions that facilitate the bad stuff and then develop ways to mitigate/reduce. 

Why focus on agents?  Because lots of people exist within a set of norms (what is appropriate behavior, what is expected behavior) and institutions and yet few pick up a gun and shoot a bunch of people (too many, but still not only a few).

Why focus on social structures and political institutions?  Because an individual who is somehow messed up may act out in any number of ways.  Why target African-Americans?  Something in this guy's social scene/growing up/whatever helped direct the blame for his circumstances towards African-Americans.  Why was he able to kill so many people so quickly?  He lives in a society where access to guns is easy and where the focus is on gun rights and not on gun responsibility.

Obviously, there is more to both sides of this problem, and that is where social science comes in--figuring out as much of this as possible not so that we can eliminate evil (even I am not that naive or optimistic) but so that we can reduce the harm caused by these agents and these structures.

And to both illustrate the agent-structure problem and to have something pretty to offset the ugliness of racial divisions, I present a picture from the aforementioned bike ride.

Thirty Years Has Not Diminished the Ride

1985, 1955, 2015, 1885.  These are important dates in American movie history... as today is apparently the 30th anniversary of the premiere of Back to the Future.  I watched the first movie last night and plan to watch the sequels over the next couple of nights.

I have watched pieces of each semi-recently, and saw the original many times.  But watching last night, I realized many things:

• Such great casting.  The tale of Michael J. Fox coming in late, after many scenes had been shot with Eric Stolz, is well known.  But no one could have done Doc Brown like Christopher Lloyd.  Lea Thompson melted many a teenage boy and was otherwise both funny and dramatic as called for.  Her reaction to kissing Marty was wonderful--I had forgotten about that.  Crispin Glover may be somewhat crazy but he was so very good in all versions of George: awkward, creeper; middle-age failure; cool Dad.  Tom Wilson, my personal comedian, is the perfect bully. 
• So many small pieces that worked so well. The movie opens on a bunch of clocks, including this one, the foreshadows the climax nicely:
  

• My favorite line, which I messed up on twitter:  I am your density!
• Which comes after a great, great moment where George walks into the dinner, asks for a milk! Chocolate!  Immediately receives the sliding glass and takes a swig.  Great comedy, and not easy as you can see at about 1:40 of this blooper reel:

• Doc's reactions to various challenges to his plan are priceless.
• It was only this time, watching after all these years and so many times, to realize how thoroughly unreliable the Dolorean was as a vehicle (just the driving, the stalling, hard to start part, not the time travel part).  Which is perfect, given how lousy the car was.
• Huey Lewis, as head of the band competition committee, complaining about how loud Marty's band was.
• Marty overplaying the guitar solo.
• The racism!  Yes, Biff's buddies of bullies were bigots!!!  When they throw Marty in the trunk of a car, it turns out to be the band's car.  One bully utters a slur when confronted by the one bandmate.  
• This movie was more rapey than I remembered as not only does Marty's plan have him being too aggressive for Lorraine so that George can be the hero, but Biff actually tries to rape Lorraine!  And then at the dance, some other dude tries to force his way with Lorraine, with George slowly and finally confronting him.  Not a cool school at all.
• Great writing: "have you no concept of time!"
• I may need to watch again, as Jennifer, Marty's girlfriend, seems to be wearing the same clothes as when we last saw her.

Anyhow, I plan to watch the next two in the next two days or so, but who knows?  I mean, my future is not written yet.

Canada Day Celebrated!

Twas a wet and windy day for much of Canada, but things dried off so that we could enjoy the festivities.  We have lived in Ottawa for three years, but this was our first time going downtown to celebrate.  Perhaps we were deterred by the crowds and the traffic, but it was well worth it.  It was great to be among so many happy, silly, loud Canadians as they celebrated their country.

The day had some extra meaning in the aftermath of last year's terrorist attack.  I am pretty sure that this picture is different from one that would have been taken in previous years.  People left their flags to honor perhaps all of Canada's war dead but probably specifically to honor Nathan Cirillo, who was a soldier serving as part of the honor guard for the War Memorial.





Of course, that just made it even more annoying, disturbing, and offensive to see a truck with 9/11 Truther crap and two idiots promoting their racist, ignorant, insulting mindlessness just a few steps down from here.   I have absolutely no tolerance for that crap, and to see folks trying to use this day to celebrate Canada to promote their utter bs pissed me off.  In general, I have little time for conspiracy theorists whose beliefs are not theories but unfalsifiable beliefs.  When it comes to 9/11 truthers, I just have utter contempt.

Anyhow, the day got better after that as we watched a concert briefly.  It was in Confederation Park, which is across the Rideau Canal from the National Defence Headquarters (that is what is behind the stage) and across the street from City Hall.  We missed out on the deep fried oreos (they seem to have closed up by the time we got there), but the music was good.




How else to end the night?  Fireworks, of course.  We had a good standing position on Wellington Street and Bank Street.  The young Canadians sang Oh Canada with great enthusiasm, but not well timed with the others singing the same song.  It felt as if the anthem was being sung a la Row, Row, Row Your Boat, as the three or four different groups of singers seemed to have started at different times.  Anyhow, it was a great day to hang out in Ottawa with friends and Mrs. Spew.  I hope you had a great Canada Day.

Canada Rocks!

Vox celebrates Canada Day with a list of the ways Canada rocks, but it is incomplete.  As someone who has been an immigrant (with a citizenship application in process) here, let me add to the list:*

*  Of Vox's list, the only quibbles I have are "Canada's kids are among smartest" when it should be that they test well, and that the clean air bit is offset by the lack of serious policy on climate change.

1. Canada is a great country for immigrants.  Not only have I been welcomed despite my strange American accent, but the country is incredibly diverse thanks to a fairly open door policy.  Of course, things are not perfect as we see some xenophobia here and there, and the selection criteria for immigrants can be politicized, but overall, Canada, like the US, gets this right far better than most of the world.  
2.  While the slogan/maxim of "peace, order, and good government" gets contested by those who are not fans of the current government, we should not take for granted that Canada has very little organized violence.  The Vox piece deals with assaults and murder (and not car/computer theft!) but omits a Canadian miracle--that the Quebec separatist movement was only modestly violent for a brief period of time but has not been at all ever since.  While there have been some confrontations between First Nations and the government, they, too, have not been very violent.  Only nine countries are viewed as less corrupt than Canada, which is amazing given the corruption stories out of Montreal.
3. Yes, it had marriage equality ten years earlier. 
4. While College Spew didn't take advantage of it, university education is damn cheap here.  The students complain about the rising costs, but tuition is still very low.  If Canada had more of a tradition of parents covering the cost and more means testing for aid, the students would have little to complain about.  Oh, and when the Canadian dollar is not dropping, professor pay is quite excellent.
5. It is a great place to do research.  Not only does the Social Science and Humanities Research Council have an acceptance rate that is something like three times better than the US's NSF, there is no discussion in parliament about how to politicize the grants or cut funds for political science.
6. It is a great place to do research, part two.  I have had incredibly access to those in the government and especially in the military.  While the former are quite open and honest off the record, the latter have been, with one notable exception, very forthcoming on the record.  It has made my research not only far easier but so very interesting. 
7. It is an amazingly beautiful country.
   
8. Speaking of which, the skiing is great.  Last year, I had great experiences at Sunshine Villeage and Whistler.  I am hoping that my next book tour, Adapting in the Dust: Lessons Learned from Canada's War in Afghanistan, will take me to these and other ski areas.
9. The students are terrific.  While I pooh-poohed above the relative rankings, I have greatly enjoyed teaching here for thirteen years now.  The students often have impressive experience that feed into the classroom, they are quite curious about the world, ask excellent questions, push me to think harder, and have been of tremendous help when I have asked for it.  Oh, and very little grade whining.
10. Winters are long, which is bad, but it means that we all appreciate summer so very much.  
11. And the summers have been chock full of ultimate.  Both Montreal and Ottawa have wide and deep communities of frisbee players that have tolerated my lousy defense and caught my throws.  I have seen more of both cities as I have driven all over the place to get to games.  

I can go on, but I have to prepare for my first real Canada Day, as I am going downtown this afternoon with my wife to meet up with some friends to be in the middle of things.  I will conclude with this: Canadians have been so very kind, helpful, generous, funny and neighborly to us since we moved here.  I am so very grateful for that, which is why I am embracing so very fully Canada Day this year.

Diversity vs Merit? Storifying a Strong Criticism of a Weak Critique

Andrew Coyne wrote a fairly lame piece about the Liberal promise to have a diverse cabinet--that 50% of the ministers would be women.  Well, I am glad I didn't take it on, as Lauren Dobson-Hughes took it apart nicely so we don't have to do so:

The Next Fights

My previous post was on focusing on the policy victory and not the games down the road.  But there are other fights to be had.  This map from the NYT illustrates the challenge:




It did not translate that well, but the idea here is where there are "laws protecting against sexual orientation- and gender-identity based discrimination" in public sector employment, private sector employment, housing and public accommodations  respectively.  The pattern is obvious--best to be in the Northeast or West or mid-midwest (Min, Wis, Iowa, Illinois).

Much room to perfect the union.... alas.

It's About the Policies, Stupid!

Bill Clinton famously had the line "It's About the Economy, Stupid!" from James Carville when he ran for President.  I am reminded of that as I see tweets and stories about people wondering whether this last week of great victories for various progressive causes--the lowering of the Confederate flag, the decision that keeps Obamacare intact, the fair housing decision, and the Marriage Equality decision--might hurt the Democrats in the next elections.  The idea is that the disgruntled Conservatives can mobilize their base better with all of these accumulated grievances whereas the left may not show up because they got what they wanted.

And I just want to yell "FFS!!!"  Why?  Because we choose politicians and parties to get the policies we want that affect people's lives.  This past week, in the shadows of the awful event in Charleston and subsequent arsons of black churches elsewhere, was a great week for the policies people have been fighting for.  So, these are wins that affect people's lives and not pyrrhic victories.  Embrace and enjoy the progress.

Oh, and, by the way, one of the points I made a few days ago is that winning some battles can give us hope.  That it may actually encourage some more activism since victory is now seen as being possible.  The union is far short of being perfect, that the task of perfecting the union goes on and on. 

Again, I think the next fight is to reverse #voterfraudfraud as well as to do something to improve the quality of policing and confidence in the police, which probably means focusing on restraint.  Is the glass half full or half empty?  The answer, as always, is yes.  But let's enjoy this week and use it to think about making improvements rather than worrying that better policy might undermine a smidge the political strategies of tomorrow.

Learning the Art of Having No Shame

Twitter folks were surprised last night to find that two of the actors behind the Iraq war are going to be teaching a course: "The War in Iraq: A Study in Decision-Making".  The two "profs": are Lewis Libby and Paul Wolfowitz.  Libby was convicted of perjury as he was partially responsible for outing Valerie Plame as a CIA agent since her husband, Joseph Wilson, did not rubber stamp some of the more than questionable evidence that Iraq was pursuing nuclear weapons.  Wolfowitz was the number two guy at the Pentagon and chief cheerleader of the Iraq war.  While I am appalled at the hubris involved in this "course," I am not surprised since these folks have long demonstrated that they lack self-awareness and lack shame.  

So, I asked what would folks ask if they were in this class?

Footie FTW!

Today was my first time at a real soccer game: Women's World Cup in Ottawa Quarter-Finals with USA vs China.  I wanted to see one game over the course of this series, and gambled that the quarterfinals would provide me with the best chance to see the USA or Canada.  And it worked out.  I went to the game with my niece, a colleague and his wife.  We had a great time as the US won!!  Not a bad way to celebrate marriage equality day.  The highlights are here.

Anthem Time to Start

Despite the 1-0 score, the game was  dominated by the American women.  They kept the ball in the Chinese side of the field.  They could not finish, as they kicked and headed many chances over the cross bar.  This was very frustrating, but it seemed inevitable that the US would score.  And they did on a great cross and header.

Another frustrating header

I am not a soccer expert as I don't even watch much on TV except for the years where the World Cup (Men and Women) and occasionally the Olympics are on.  But the one thing I did notice that was seconded by my more knowledgeable colleague, David Long, is that the American forward was out of position nearly the entire game.  She was almost always offsides which helped to stifle more than a few attacks.

End of game handshake line

Julie Johnston stuck out, dominating on defense and making many good plays on offense, including the cross that produced the goal.  Indeed, the American defense lived up to its billing.  It will be interesting to see if they can handle the German attack.

Besides some soccer lessons, I also learned that standing up at a game is forbidden, more or less.  I got poked by the woman behind me whenever I stood up.  And I only stood up when the folks in front of me stood up.  Very strange. 

My wife, my niece and I spent the afternoon walking around downtown Ottawa as I played tour guide to them.  Twas a fun day, and I did enjoy standing in front of a Supreme Court today even if it was not the right one.  Great day for the USA with greater justice and equal protection for all and then a nice win to put some icing on the cake.

A Method By Any Other Name

One of my big pet peeves is when a person using quantitative methods refers to their stuff as "empirical", suggesting that other methods are not empirical but somehow imaginary.  This is an oldie but a goodie in the olde methods wars because empirical means:

Empirical evidence (also empirical data, sense experience, empirical knowledge, or the a posteriori) is a source of knowledge acquired by means of observation or experimentation. The term comes from the Greek word for experience... Notice there is nothing in there about counting and using math.  There are folks in my school who do this, but it is not their fault--they are economists (we cannot hold such folks responsible for their social skills [just teasing]).  In political science, this still happens, and mostly because of old habits, I think.  

There is work in political science that is not empirical: game theory, formal modeling, political theory.  But most of the work published is empirical in one way or another.  Similarly, some folks will use the word systematic as if to suggest all quantitative work is systematic and all non-quant is not.  Believe me, as I have reviewed much quant stuff (and written some), not all of it is that systematic.  And much work using comparative case studies is quite systematic and some not.  Systematic is a variable, not a constant, for any method.  Same goes for rigorous (thanks to @alb202) for reminding me of that one.

This is, of course, mostly a debate for grad students, as mature political scientists realize that each method has strengths and weaknesses, and that the best work often involves mixing methods.  Indeed, the one trend I noticed over the past ten years or so of the job market is that many of the most successful candidates are those that use multiple methods.  

My career path has crossed the supposed quant/qual barrier, as my early work was entirely qualitative (comparative case studies) and then I found a handy dataset for asking a variety of questions, producing some of my most cited work, and then I found myself doing more qualitative work as I interviewed military officers, government officials and others about their country's Afghanistan operations.  My current projects, as I ramp up the next big qualitative project, include a bunch of different quant projects of varying degrees of complexity (the heavy lifting of the quant techniques is being done by younger, savvier co-authors).

Maybe I am too dismissive, perhaps the quant/qual wars are taking place somewhere outside of the PSR threads.  There are probably departments where the fight still resonates quite a bit.   From my vantage point, where I see glimpses of the job market, and where jobs are the most precious resource in our business, the mixed methods folks doing so well is very suggestive to me.  It is certainly the case that journals have certain tendencies (that the very scarce resource that is an APSR article is still distributed in a particular way).   The good news is that the quant and qual people can join together in being threatened by the experiment zealots.... or they could until a few weeks ago.

All I know is that when I hear empirical, it makes me think of the key move the Realists made in IR, as they try to define everything as as Idealist.  There are lots of names in this game, and lots of gaming of names.  Which means I can invoke Omar.