Joshua Tucker

Muslims in Russia are often alleged (most recently by President Putin) to be potential Islamists, ready to support the radical Chechen separatist project of establishing an Islamic state in the Caucasus. This article challenges this claim, which assumes that Muslims in Russia form a coherent group based on religious identity, and as such, share a […]

Just finished up a very interesting discussion at the Midwest Political Science Association annual conference about ways we can continue to make political science research more accessible to wider numbers of people. With that in mind, I thought I’d share this animated video that Princeton University put together to promote an article entitled People Power […]

There is a larger game at work here that probably centers on the difficult-to-read domestic politics of North Korea. It is by no means assured that Kim Jong Un has fully consolidated his authority. By ramping up rhetoric, but exercising restraint with respect to actual military actions, the regime can count on the fact that […]

This is the question posed by political scientists Kenneth Scheve (Stanford University) and David Stasavage (New York University) in a post on the NY Times’ Opinionator blog.  They note: With income inequality at levels not seen since the 1920s, and low economic mobility, some liberals hope that in the coming years our lawmakers will face […]

This weekend, the Eurozone was greeted with the specter of a something it had hoped was behind it: the dreaded bank run. Cyprus, a small Eurozone state, agreed to terms on a 10 billion Euro bailout that included an immediate tax on all bank deposits (a smaller but non-negligible tax on accounts under 100,000 Euros […]

In modern times, the College of Cardinals have been locked in the Sistine Chapel with the purported aim to divine the Will of God in the election of the Pope. Between 20 and 60 percent of cardinals vote for the same candidate throughout the conclave, depending on the length of the conclave. For those cardinals […]

University of Montreal political scientist Andre Blais sends along the following: A team of scientists has launched the website voteforpope.net. The website has two objectives: inform the public about the various electoral systems that exist in the world to elect state leaders, and collect data on voters’ behaviour under these systems.  We provide information about four […]

According to the smart money, the odds favor the election of Ghana’s Cardinal Peter Turkson as the next Pope, the first from Africa since Pope Gelasius I over fifteen hundred years ago. In the intervening years, several African candidates have attracted interest (Benin’s Cardinal Gantin, in 1978, and Nigeria’s Cardinal Arinze, in 2005), but none has ever been a front-runner […]

The pope has resigned. That’s it.  Don’t really have anything more to add at this point, just figured it might be a while before I ever get to write that again (e.g., maybe 600 years or so…). In the meantime a here are number of references for those looking for information on how popes are […]