Defund ALL the political science programs

[Cain]

This is so hilariously short-sighted and stupid I don't even know where to start

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/05/11/house-passes-bill-bar-spending-political-science-research

By a vote of 218-208, the House Wednesday night backed an amendment that would bar the NSF from spending any of its 2013 funds on its political science program, which allocated about $11 million in peer-reviewed grants this year. Explaining the amendment on the House floor Wednesday evening, Flake said that given his colleagues' reluctance to slash the agency's overall budget -- the House defeated his earlier amendment by a vote of 291 to 121 -- Congress should ensure, "at the least, that the NSF does not waste taxpayer dollars on a meritless program."

In hunting for programs that the government should not spend its precious dollars on, Flake said, "I can think of few finer examples to cut than the National Science Foundation's Political Science Program."

The agency is spending more than $80 million, he said, on about 200 active projects -- and three-quarters of those funds, he added, "were directed to universities with endowments greater than $1 billion.... Think about it. Three out of the four of the grants awarded by the NSF Political Science Program go to the wealthiest universities in the country."

More troubling than who received funds from the program is what they were spent on, Flake argued -- before launching into what has become a rite of spring in Washington, in which members of Congress list academic projects whose titles or subjects strike them as unworthy.

Some of the topics that set Flake off seem predictable, given current politics here; "$700,000 to develop a new model for international climate change analysis," for instance.

The Monkey Cage, a political science blog, lists some of the studies which have been made possible by NSF funding

We'd like to point out some of the past and current research findings that NSF supported—some of which established what policymakers and scholars now view as conventional wisdom—that may justify such spending.

    Violent insurgencies—including ethnically-motivated ones—tend to set on not because of religious or ethnic differences, but rather because a state's weakness permits them to. Thus the outbreak of civil wars is driven by low state capacity and the inability to deliver public goods to the population. This finding, although not without its critics, has informed a great deal of policy practice with regard to capacity-building in weak and failed states (for more on James Fearon and David Laitin's project, click here).

    Terrorists are generally rational actors whose behavior often responds in predictable ways to different policies. For instance, after a spate of airline hijackings, most airports installed metal detectors, which drastically reduced the number of airline hijackings. However, many terrorists simply switched to kidnappings—an example of the so-called "substitution effect"—which is a cautionary principle that informs a great deal of counterinsurgency and counterterrorism policy today (see some more work by Walter Enders and Todd Sandler).

    Citizens in democratic countries remain supportive of democratic values in the face of terrorism when policymakers issue reminders about core democratic values, which help to keep citizens from losing confidence in democratic practices. However, citizens of illiberal democracies—i.e. many of our allies—are much more vulnerable to support non-democratic practices in the face of terrorism (see Jennifer Merolla and Elizabeth Zechmeister's book). This research helps us to better understand how societies may remain resilient and avoid overreaction to terrorist threats.

Additional projects investigate questions such as:

    Which factors influence attitudes on U.S. national security policies post-9/11?

    Which factors influence the decision by rebel groups to use terrorism during ongoing civil wars?

    How can governments best reduce domestic terrorism?

    Which factors lead armed combatants to use gender-based violence during ongoing wars?

    Which factors lead to radicalization and de-radicalization in Indonesia and Egypt?

    Do international criminal tribunals increase or decrease violence against civilians?

This is but a small sampling.

NSF-funded research has also provided extraordinary public goods to those of us who study political violence and terrorism through the creation of data sets on civil war, repression, and terrorism. Researchers turn to these data sets routinely to better understand the causes and responses to political violence. In fact, without some of these data sets, it would be difficult to imagine where the field of international relations would be today. To name just a few:

    The Correlates of War/Militarized Interstate Disputes Datasets

    The Minorities at Risk Project

    The Cingranelli-Richards Human Rights Database

    Visual maps and profiles of relationships among militant groups in key countries of strategic importance to the US

    Data on patterns of violence during the Rwandan Genocide

    The Ill-Treatment and Torture Data Collection Project

Such datasets are clearly good investments. Once released, other researchers use them to investigate important questions related to the causes and responses to political violence. The data sets above (and many others funded by NSF) have returned countless articles on a variety of issues directly related to international security—and at very low cost relative to what private security consulting firms would charge for the same product).

In addition, NSF grants, often quite small in nature, have supported fieldwork in strategically vital regions and countries. Indeed, a short list of projects funded this year in these areas would include:

    Driscoll's study of Al Shabaab's provision of security and governance in Mogadishu, Somalia

    Lust's investigation of Egyptian, Moroccan, and Tunisian elections during the "Arab Spring" and their respective transitions to democracy

    Beissinger's study of energy and water cooperation between five Central Asian states

    Ermakoff's study of the formation of armed self-defense groups in rural Sudan

So, you know, nothing important.

[Doktor Howl]

What can you expect?  None of these programs serve the interest of the government, especially the GOP house.

[Freeky]

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

What do you want them to cut? Corn subsidies?

[Prince Glittersnatch III]

The agency is spending more than $80 million, he said, on about 200 active projects -- and three-quarters of those funds, he added, "were directed to universities with endowments greater than $1 billion.... Think about it. Three out of the four of the grants awarded by the NSF Political Science Program go to the wealthiest universities in the country."

To get an idea of how stupid this is, replace "universities" with "weapons contractors".

[Junkenstein]

Visual maps and profiles of relationships among militant groups in key countries of strategic importance to the US

    Data on patterns of violence during the Rwandan Genocide

    The Ill-Treatment and Torture Data Collection Project

Ermakoff's study of the formation of armed self-defense groups in rural Sudan

The alternative to it being short-sighted and stupid, is that they've got enough relevant intel to open up a new front somewhere else. That sampling struck me as having a few Africa related ones which I'm guessing will be the next place to go for oil after the middle east is settled?

Memo- Buy huge wall map and make big arrows of various shapes sizes and points. Then wait for the opportune moment.

[Roly Poly Oly-Garch]

But all those reports were publicly funded so anybody could read them...EVEN TERRORISTS! Had they been funded in-house by Exxon, OTOH, we could be sure that information would remain safe and secure in the hands of our benevolent free market.

[Junkenstein]

True, but what proportion of the public actually reads these reports in great detail? To a further, more worrying degree, as that section would no longer be serviced it brings a lot of money towards private or state intel firms. I'm probably seeing something sinister where stupidity is occuring, but the trend of restricting access to all sorts of information in various forms troubles me.

[Precious Moments Zalgo]

All of that political science work can be privatized and done by private think tanks such as Center for Security Policy, and it will be just as good, right?

[Cain]

This isn't a cunning Republican plan.  It's because (political) science reports things that Republicans disagree with, such as the actuality of global warming (which was specifically cited as an example of politicized funding) and it is easier to just defund all the things than cherry pick what annoys them.

If you cannot convince people of the rightness of your worldview, the next best step is to shut up everyone who is convincing them that you're wrong.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

OMH WHAT

SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP! 

[Roly Poly Oly-Garch]

This isn't a cunning Republican plan.  It's because (political) science reports things that Republicans disagree with, such as the actuality of global warming (which was specifically cited as an example of politicized funding) and it is easier to just defund all the things than cherry pick what annoys them.

If you cannot convince people of the rightness of your worldview, the next best step is to shut up everyone who is convincing them that you're wrong.

Step 1: turn reality into an idealogical debate.
Step 2: bury the facts.
Step 3: lather, rinse, repeat.

Big carbon doesn't just win when Lord Monkeydick starts pissing ruthiness all over an op-ed piece and people actually buy his bullshit. Big Carbon also wins when some well intentioned Liberal^(tm) "debunks" Lord Monkeydick using every bit as weak a factual basis as he did. Instead of one instance of bullshit and one instance of TROOF, it's just two instances of bullshit (one of which blindly stumbled it's way to being correct). Bullshit -2 (or maybe 1 1/2), TROOF - 0. That's how reality becomes a matter of opinion.

Google search AGW, and see how many pages of hits you have to go through before you find any information that's not just a straight left/right poo-fling, or too hopelessly over-simplified to be meaningful to a legitimate skeptic. This particular misinformation campaign pisses me off more than any other for that very reason. Climate change is no longer about facts, data, science or the viability of human life on Earth...it's about fucking ObamaCare and keeping "under God" in the Pledge of Obedience.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Thus the outbreak of civil wars is driven by low state capacity and the inability to deliver public goods to the population.

This! As soon as they run out of cash to keep enough blackshirts on the streets to keep the rabble in check, the rabble will party!