PUBLICATIONS

International travel is part of the job description for the modern politician, and governments invest substantial resources in public visits. We examine public opinion of heads of government in a host nation before and after that head of government conducts a public visit to that host (e.g., U.S. opinions of Chinese leadership following Xi Jinping’s trip to the U.S.). We find that public visits of a routine nature—annual summits, public speaking engagements, and the like—have no effect on public opinion. However, overall analyzes show that public visits have an overall positive effect. We suggest that unexpected, timely, or symbolically charged visits drive this effect. These visits are difficult to study by nature; therefore, there are few of these events with consistent measurement before and after the visits that follow them. These findings represent an important preliminary step in the study of these unexpected visits, and future research should examine them in detail, as well as impacts beyond public opinion.

Here, I reconcile concepts of power from across the social sciences to form a model for understanding power. I reveal three fundamental variables of power: actors, abilities, and objectives. I split abilities into three categories: hard power, soft power, and formative power, a novel label for abilities which give form to actors and abilities. I discuss the variance in actors and objectives which may affect power and assessment of it, breaking them down in subgroups with similar characteristics. Assessment of power begins with actors and abilities, which give rise to outcomes. Outcomes are then held over thresholds set by the objective to determine power. I demonstrate the use of this model in two scenarios: a theoretical battle and an infrastructure project. Understanding and assessing power is essential for study of international relations, interpersonal relations, political movements and protest, and nearly any field which involves humans and their objectives.

Radical action is necessary to respond to modern threats to the legitimacy of science as a vocation. These challenges are hardly a new phenomenon, and science has responded to these critiques to varying success. Here, I conduct a normative analysis of the role science as a vocation is expected to fill in society, relating these expectations to recent criticism. Then, I suggest institutional and individual action which may revitalize and reorient science to fill the roles expected of it. This analysis is an important step in regaining the public trust, reputation, and status that science should hold.

Here I defend the uninformed voter and demonstrate that the modern vote should not be decided by individual policy issues. Critics of democracy correctly argue that individuals are unable to understand technical information required for all political decisions. However, in pure democracy, voters are expected to judge expert opinions rather than interpret information themselves. This makes voting a second-order decision. Then, critics may reasonably claim that the layman cannot hold the information necessary to judge expert opinion on all matters. However, voting in a democratic republic is a third order decision. Voters need only select a representative with good judgement rather than judge expert opinion. I develop a frame for candidate evaluation and suggest methods of reorienting public depictions of candidates, campaign policy, and civic education to better fit the citizen's goal in voting. I suggest empirical investigation of the layperson's ability to assess judgement and motivations behind candidate selection and approval ratings. I conclude by discussing this model relative to normative arguments for leader selection in different political systems.