Was the attack on the US Capitol an attempted coup?
Rather than debate that question here (or in another forum), I'm making it an assignment. Specifically, I'm asking my Quantitative Security students to determine if it belongs in our coup/attempted coup datasets.
[THREAD]
A core goal of this course is to introduce students to how Large-N data on violence and security are created.
We put WAY TOO much emphasis on estimators & software (Stata v R 🙄); not enough on the quality of the data going into the analysis.
First, what happened? @johncarey03755 offers a succinct explainer
Third, the students will look at some of the recent coup data projects to understand the coding rules that scholars use to create "coup attempt" datasets.
These include...
...the Powell & Thyne data on coups & coup attempts...
Fourth, I'll ask the students to answer this question:
"based on what you read and based on the coding criteria used in the datasets you explored, should the event of Jan 6 be included as an observation in a coup attempt dataset?"
I'm VERY curious to see how the students respond. I'll report the findings soon!
[END]
Addendum: The students could consider "self-coup", as Fiona Hill argues here (which is also a category in the Cline Database)
Rather than share an "IR Book of the Week", here are 5 political science books (and 1 history book) shaping how I'm processing and understanding this moment in America (largely from a Comparative politics perspective)
[THREAD]
Sarah Birch on violence as an instrument for manipulating election outcomes.
@monika_nalepa's work on transitional justice. Addresses how societies (namely new governments) come to terms and address the wrongs committed by the previous government.
When teaching Intro to International Relations, I love referencing "IR Movie Easter eggs": explicit international politics lessons/references from movies NOT overtly about international politics.
For those teaching IR classes this coming term, here are my 10 favorite!
A quick note on the rankings: They basically go from #10 "Not subtle and sort of critical to the plot" to #1 "very subtle and not essential at all to the plot at all"
But all were probably unexpected when you sat down to watch the movie for the first time !
#10 Captain America: Civil War
Was NOT expecting a super hero movie to offer a one-scene master-class in the meaning of sovereignty, power, and legitimacy in international politics
Folks have discovered my various "IR and Movies" threads from 2020. Therefore, I'm breaking my "end of 2020 Twitter break" to post a thread of these threads.
If you want to bring popular movies into the IR classroom, this thread is for you!