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Scott Wolford Profile picture
Scott Wolford
@thescottwolford
Professor @UTGovernment // Editor @cmpseditors // Co-Director @correlatesofwar // IR, war, game theory, Dune, beer snobbery, rock music // he, him, his
Sep 29, 2020 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Some quick, inchoate thoughts on prosecuting ex-presidents, following @profmusgrave's very good piece in @ForeignPolicy. Assuming this guy goes peacefully, which ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, then... (1/x) Seems like you need sufficient GOP buy-in to make a prosecution work. Co-partisans shouldn't have incentives to make the ex-POTUS a martyr. *Ideally*, otherwise-tainted GOPers go on Fox News and say that cleansing their party of Trump is a good idea. (2/x)
Sep 4, 2020 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
#APSA2020 paper with @hilango and @curtismbell, on the link between oil discovery and coup attempts: scott-wolford.com/uploads/2/5/2/… (1/x) Image We show that oil wealth itself is unrelated to coup attempts, but proved yet unexploited oil reserves create a commitment problem (2/x)
Jun 22, 2020 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Pandemic #wolfording is getting ready for a retooled undergrad Causes of War syllabus, now with more about America crushing the Slavers’ Rebellion (1/x) Image I've started following my #WWIinrealtime model, where students read the history and then learn the political science--the act of theory building---in class (2/x)
Mar 4, 2020 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
I try to keep this account separate from my @cmpseditors role, but I've got what I hope is some useful advice about dealing with reviews as an author... especially as I've gone from *awful* at it early in my career to something just shy of awful these days. (1/6) First, my modal result is rejection. (Like, with modal a capital M.) But I treat *all* rejections as R&Rs. I always assume that the reviewers are onto something...and that those same folks might review the paper again. (2/6)
Jan 14, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
My latest, "War and Diplomacy on the World Stage," now available ahead of print at the Journal of Theoretical Politics: doi.org/10.1177/095162… (1/x) Image Asks what happens when states want to signal resolve to an enemy and restraint to a potential supporter/balancer, and shows that achieving one may preclude the other. (2/x)
Dec 30, 2019 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
New working paper, Coalition Politics and War Termination, with some game-theoretic models, a case study of the end of WWI on the Western Front, and a null-result Cox model *in the lit review*.

scott-wolford.com/uploads/2/5/2/…

(1/x) Image This one came directly from teaching #WWIinrealtime: after years of talking about military victory, why did the Allies grant Germany an armistice they knew would be fragile in 1918?

(2/x)
Dec 30, 2019 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
Yep. TLJ is the best (recent) Star War. Not least (for me) because of Yoda's characterization of what it's like to train grad students.
Dec 19, 2019 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
A brief note on the rule of law from a citizen (and half-expert, given that I know war and international law far better): (1/x) Perjury is impeachable, no matter why the question was asked. So is withholding Congressionally-mandated aid in return for private gain (political investigations and giving air to baseless conspiracy theories). So is obstructing justice. So is obstructing Congress. (2/x)
Aug 30, 2019 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
My #APSA2019 paper, on how coalitions end their wars...and why World War I ended in armistice, not the "knockout" the Allies had sought for so long. (1/x)

scott-wolford.com/uploads/2/5/2/… Why did the Great War end (in the West) not with a bang but with a whimper? Turns out its part of a general problem of shifting power inside a war coalition. (2/x)
Jul 2, 2019 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
My latest, "Neutrality Regimes," available ahead of print @SecStudies_Jrnl. In which international law supports balance-of-power systems by helping clarify when balancing is (and isn't) desirable. doi.org/10.1080/096364… Image There's a second result I like a lot: this type of agreement is easiest to ratify when mistrust is both mutual and severe. Otherwise, no dice.
Jun 24, 2019 • 16 tweets • 5 min read
A thread on leadership turnover as a commitment problem, following @Prof_BearB's wise note on the matter. Let's do this. (1/x) Image My dissertation and a few subsequent publications touch on this, so get ready for some timely self-promotion. (2/x)
Sep 19, 2018 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
Inside The Modelers Studio, ep1 featuring @gametheory101, with your hosts, @UTTerryChapman and @thescottwolford. #insidethemodelersstudio @UTGovernment Image @gametheory101 @UTTerryChapman @UTGovernment "We're taught to value simple models, but it seems we rarely practice that as reviewers."
Jul 30, 2018 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Revised working paper w/@ProfSaunders, “Elites, Voters, and Democracies at War,” casts a critical eye on assumption that leaders interact directly w/ publics in foreign policy. scott-wolford.com/uploads/2/5/2/… (1/x) @ProfSaunders Most theories of democracies at war assume that leaders deal directly with a public audience: voters. Yet elite bargains are an essential feature of democratic politics. (2/x)
Jun 29, 2018 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
First working paper, scott-wolford.com/uploads/2/5/2/…, focuses on multilateral dimensions of postwar settlements, which entail bargains both *across* and *between* formerly warring sides. (1/n) Theoretical model shows that postwar shifting power inside a war-winning coalition can undermine collective deterrence of the vanquished, whether b/c the coalition itself collapses or because its fractures encourage revisionists to attack. (2/n)
Jun 16, 2018 • 20 tweets • 5 min read
It's a weird one for them, but fuck if this isn't a cool-ass song: And so is this:
Mar 28, 2018 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
When your empirical model comes up roses (thx, @prisonrodeo), then you realize you’re looking at some pretty dark sh*t: evidence that revisionist states try to overturn peace settlements—and violently so—when the coalitions that defend them start to look fragile. Image @prisonrodeo Now, for the details: that's the predicted risk of war between members of war-winning coalitions showing a positive relationship with the risk that those same coalitions end up in war with their former enemies. (2/x)
Mar 14, 2018 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
When drawing the game tree actually makes things *more* confusing. Image And part of why I rarely put trees in my papers, until or unless a reviewer or editor requests it. What the hell *is* that? (1/2)
Jan 20, 2018 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Much of political science has acted like interstate war disappeared. (You should see reviewer comments to that effect!) Collectively ignoring it during an interregnum was surely trendy, but we may find that doing so came at a cost. And that’s not to say we shouldn’t have spent time on civil and substate violence. Not at all. But we might’ve under-rewarded a continued focus on the occurrence and threat of interstate conflict.
Nov 22, 2017 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
My new piece, “Wars of Succession,” in latest issue of @II_journal. On link b/w anticipated leader turnover and war. doi.org/10.1080/030506… @II_journal This piece, btw, is a research note—but a theory-based one. Something I’d like to see more of, despite some general disagreement on what they should look like & try to do. (1/x)
Oct 24, 2017 • 7 tweets • 1 min read
Songs that are toweringly difficult to cover well, part 1/n: T. Rex, Bang a Gong (Get It On). Just heard something that sounded like Robert Palmer doing this, which is…not something that should’ve ever happened.