Unpublished

Why are Things Messed Up? Political Economy Basics

• This is a sort-of-textbook that I worked on a lot in 2020-21, but haven’t finished or been able to return to in a serious way since then. It started as notes for a grad game-theory-for-political-science course that I teach sometimes, but evolved in a non-standard direction for a textbook. I’m including the first three major sections (“Parts”), which are fairly but not entirely complete. Part II, “Game theory starter,” is a self-contained introduction to normal-form game theory with applications to political science problems. Comments and corrections greatly appreciated!
• Parts I-III (DRAFT)

Noisy Warning Systems and Nuclear War. Revised and updated version of paper presented at the 2019 Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association, Washington DC, August 29-September 1. [pdf]

Relative Power and the Risk of Conflict [pdf]

Civil War Violence and Refugee Outflows (co-authored with Andrew Shaver). [pdf]

Armed Conflict Bargaining (co-authored with Xin Jin). Fixes some mistakes and extends Fighting rather than Bargaining. [pdf]

A Theory of Elite-Initiated Democratization, Illustrated with the Case of Myanmar (co-authored with Patrick Francois). Paper prepared for presentation at the 2018 Annual Meetings of the Western Political Science Association, San Francisco, CA, March 28-31. [pdf]

International Alignments, the Arms Trade, and International Conflict (co-authored with Bertel T. Hansen). Paper prepared for the 2017 Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco, CA, August 31-September 3. [pdf]

Does Contemporary Armed Conflict have “Deep Historical Roots”? (co-authored with David Laitin). Paper prepared for the 2014 Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association. [pdf]

Beyond Civil War: The Costs of Interpersonal Violence and the Next Round of MDGs (co-authored with Anke Hoeffler). Paper prepared for the Copenhagen Consensus, July 2014. [pdf]

Arming and Arms Races. Presented at the 2010 Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC, September 2-5, 2010. [pdf]

Biological Institutions: The Political Science of Animal Cooperation (co-authored with Erol Akçay, Joan Roughgarden, John Ferejohn, Barry Weingast). Stanford University, 2010. [pdf]

A Simple Political Economy of Relations between Democracies and Autocracies. Presented at the 2008 Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association, Boston, August 27-31, 2008. [pdf]

An International Organization for Democracies? Accreditation versus a League. Stanford University, 2008. [pdf]

Fighting rather than Bargaining. Paper presented at the 2007 Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, August 30-September 2, 2007. [pdf]

Civil War Termination (co-authored with David Laitin). Paper presented at the 2007 Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, August 30-September 2, 2007. [pdf]

Civil War and Economic Growth. Paper presented at the 2005 Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., September 1-4, 2005. [pdf]

Ordinary Language and External Validity: Specifying Concepts in the Study of Ethnicity (co-authored with David Laitin). Paper presented at the 2000 Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., August 31-September 4. [pdf]

Weak States, Rough Terrain, and Large-scale Ethnic Violence. Paper presented at the 1999 Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association, Atlanta, GA, September 1999. [pdf]

Catastrophic Terrorism and Civil Liberties in the Short and Long Run. Prepared for presentation at the symposium on Constitutions, Democracy, and the Rule of Law, Columbia University, October 2003. [pdf]

What is Identity (as We Now Use the Word)? Mimeo, Stanford University, November 1999. [pdf]

Why Ethnic Politics and “Pork” Tend to Go Together. Presented at an SSRC-MacArthur sponsored conference on “Ethnic Politics and Democratic Stability,” University of Chicago, May 21-23, 1999. [pdf]

The Politicization of Cultural and Economic Differences: A Return to the Theory of Regional Autonomy Movements (co-authored with Pieter Van Houten). Presented at the 1998 Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association, Sept. 2-5, Boston, MA. [pdf]

Chunky Shoes: A Model of Style Choice and Fashion Trends with Implications for Understanding “Image” Advertising. Mimeo, June 1998. [pdf]

A Cross-sectional Study of Large-Scale Ethnic Violence in the Post-War Period (co-authored with David Laitin). Mimeo, September 1997. [pdf]

Bargaining over Objects that Influence Future Bargaining Power. Chicago Center on Democracy Working Paper, University of Chicago, 1995. [pdf]

The Offense-Defense Balance and War since 1648. Presented at the Annual Meetings of International Studies Association, Chicago, February 21-25, 1995. [pdf]

Ethnic War as a Commitment Problem. Presented at the 1993 APSA Annual Meetings, New York. [pdf]