The Dustbin of Political Science

DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) Grading

2012-10-13T10:47:00.001-07:00

Do you hate grading? Is it the most tedious part of your job? Do you find yourself writing the same comments on papers, over and over and over and over? Does grading make you want to scratch your eyes out? Do you feel like you need another computer program in your life? Consider DRY Grading.

DRY Grading is a web app that lets a user enter comments which can then be selected as needed, automatically constructing feedback for students which can be copied into a word processor and printed.

Why should you use DRY Grading:

It is cool.
It is free.
It works really well.
It even works on mobile devices!

DRY Grading Online
(The online version can be used with smartphones and tablets.)
(Availablr, starting on October 23 2012.)

There is not a tutorial yet, but the work flow is as follows.

Add categories and comments to use in generating paper feedback (you can add more as you grade so you don't need a comprehensive list to start) (You can also save your categories and comments under the Menu link. You have to copy the text to a separate document to save permanently but the text can be used to re-load your comments in the future).
Grade essays by filling in the text boxes and clicking the "[ ]"'s next to the comments to include comments in student feedback. Click on the "Move Student Feedback to Archive" link when you are finished.
After grading papers, copy and paste the text under the Archive link to a word document and print.

Important stuff to know:

If you close your browser, you will lose what ever categories, comments, and student feedback (including the Archive) you have created. Make sure to save and to copy content you want from the archive.
If you find a bug or have a suggestion, contact me directly, I will try to fix it.

Event Data Helper

2012-06-20T07:07:00.002-07:00

I have just complete an update of my Event Data Helper (EDH) program. This program can process the four major event datasets (WEIS, COPDAB, IDEA, and now GDELT*), selecting out events with the desired dates, actors, targets, and event codes. If you have ever worked with event data (particularly the IDEA or GDELT data), you know how complicated it can be to isolate the relevant information. The EDH program should greatly reduce the effort needed to extract the desired events from what can be very large datasets.

I have included in the release of EDH the 1962-1992 WEIS data file. The other event data files are archived at other locations (described under the help menu) and I do not have the appropriate rights to distribute those files. I may not have the right to distribute the WEIS data either. . . but it has been circulating informally for years and I don't believe the 1962-1992 version has been formally archived.

The program should be intuitive for anyone with a basic background in event data, so I have not written a tutorial or any other support documents. I have generated hundreds of test files and have not encountered any problem I haven't been able to fix, but if you do find a bug, please contact me and I will try to find a solution.

Event Data Helper (beta)
The .exe file should run directly on most Windows computers without need for installation

* GDELT access is currently password protected. I will allow general access some time in 2014. In the mean time the GDELT release contains a python script that can be used to extract events.

The Separation Plotter

2012-01-02T08:26:00.001-08:00

Recently, Brian Greenhill, Michael Ward and Audrey Sacks published an article in the American Journal of Political Science titled The Separation Plot: A New Visual Method for Evaluating the Fit of Binary Models

They propose a powerful visual method for showing the predictive value of binary regression models. Unfortunatly, the program that they provide to generate "Separation Plots" is embeded within R. While R is a fantastic statistical program, it is not widely used in politcal science. So, for those of us who use Stata, SAS, SPSS, or some other program, I have developed a stand alone windows based computer program that can generate separation plots.

The program should be intuitive to use. Users can load .csv files that contain an outcome variable and a predicted probability variable (most statistical software packages can export data as .csv). Once the data is loaded, the user identifies the outcome and probability variables under the "variable view" tab. The user sets the properties desired for the separation plot and then selects the option to "Generate Graph" under the File menu. The plot can then be saved as a .jpg image file.

I have done quite a bit of testing and de-bugging, but if you encounter problems with the program please let me know.

Most Recent Version (including Microsoft's VB Powerpack)
Separation Plotter Download

(I have been having problems running the program on other machines that do not have Microsoft's VB Powerpack already installed. Thus, I have included this in the installation package. The instalation file may need to be run twice before the install file recognizes the VB Powerpack has actaully been installed.)

Known Bugs:
I have resolved the issue with the program crashing in response to very large files. However, a new issue relating to the placement of expected number of events marker has arisen. This issue can be fixed with a bit of image editing (or simply selecting the option to not use a marker for expected events), but I will try to fix the placement in the code.

Update: I have been notified of a memory issue that can occur with the separation plotter (particularly when using the default width setting), I am still in the process of nailing down all the related bugs to this issue but a greatly improved version was posted on October 27th 2012.

The Comparative Case Identification Tool

2011-05-18T11:53:00.000-07:00

The Comparative Case Identification Tool is a computer program that I have developed. The program systematically compares cases in a dataset to identify pairs of cases (dyads) that would make for a strong comparative (most similar or most different) case study research design.

The most recent version of the program can be downloaded here, while a paper providing a conceptual discussion and an application of the program can be found here.

CCIT Introductory Tutorial

My Research

2011-05-18T11:52:00.001-07:00

Civil Wars and Conflict Resolution

General Focus

Over the last five years, my research focus has moved from negotiation and cooperation to conflict resolution particularly in the area of civil wars. I focus on civil war intervention, diplomatic pressure and civil wars, peacekeeping, and the impact of domestic level factors in explaining the intractability of civil wars.

Publications and Current Projects

Urlacher, Brian R. (Forthcoming). "Negotiating with Insurgents: Changing Perceptions or Changing Politics?" International Negotiation.

Urlacher, Brian R. (Forthcoming). "Game Theory: Explaining Ethnic Violence" in Making Sense of IR Theory: Iraq. Jennifer Sterling-Folker ed. Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner

Urlacher, Brian R. (2011). "Political Constraints and Civil War Conflict Resolution." Civil Wars, 13(2): 81-98.

Urlacher, Brian R. (2009). The "Wolfowitz Conjecture: a research note on civil wars and news coverage." International Studies Perspective, 10(2): 186-197.

Urlacher, Brian R. (2008). "A Bottom-up Approach to Peacebuilding." International Studies Review, 10(3): 619-621

International Cooperation

General Focus

I have worked on a number of projects related to international cooperation both in general and in relation to the provision of public goods. This strain of research was sparked in 2006 by a collaborative project undertaken with Joseph K. Young, now at Southern Illinois University to develop a simulation of the prisoner's dilemma to study how group decision making structure affects the ability of groups to cooperate in a two-group prisoner's dilemma. The most recent version of the simulation is written in Excel and is available for replication purposes (here). I have also provided documentation on the performance of the simulation under various constraints (here).

Publications and Current Projects

Urlacher, Brian. R. (2011) "Pubic Goods and International Relations." Compendium Project published on behalf of the International Studies Association

Young, Joseph K. and Brian R. Urlacher. (2007). "Cantankerous Cooperation: Democracies, Authoritarian Regimes, and the Prisoner’s Dilemma." International Interactions, 33(1): 51-73.

Urlacher, Brian R. (2008). "Walking out of Two-Level Social Traps (With a Little Help From my Friends)" Simulation and Gaming, 39(4): 453-464

GlobalEd at the University of Connecticut

About Global Ed:

GlobalEd is a research project started at the University of Connecticut by Mark A. Boyer and Scott W. Brown. The GlobalEd project conducts on-line simulations of international negotiations using middle and high school students. The simulations are coded for negotiation styles. The project seeks to understand the gender and the socialization process as it relates to negotiation behavior. The project has produced dozens of conference presentations and a number of scholarly publications.

Publications and Current Projects:

Anat Niv-Solomon, Laura Janik, Mark A. Boyer, Natalie Florea-Hudson, Brian R. Urlacher and Scott D. Brown (2009). "Evolving Beyond Self-Interest? Some Experimental Findings from Simulated International Negotiations" Simulation & Gaming

Boyer, Mark A., Brian R. Urlacher, Anat Niv-Solomon, Natalie Florea Hudson, Laura Janik, Scott W. Brown, Clarisse O. Lima, and Andri Ioannou. (2009). "Gender and Negotiation: Some Experimental Findings from an International Negotiation Simulation." International Studies Quarterly, 53(1): 23-47.

Boyer, Mark A. , Scott W. Brown, Michael J. Butler, Anat Niv-Solomon, Brian Urlacher, Natalie F. Hudson, Paula Johnson and Clarisse O. Lima. (2007). "Experimenting with Global Governance: Understanding the Potential for Generational Change." Globalization, Societies, and Education, 5(2): 153-180.