Jacob Christensen

My personal advice: Don’t!*

But Lee Siegelman relays some results from a US study into completion rates among Ph.D.-students in Political Science and asks:

For example, what is it about political science as a field of study that slows our students down relative to the performance of students in some other social science disciplines? (The fact that many of our students do extensive fieldwork obviously enters in, but there must be more to it than that.) What, for that matter, is there about the social sciences that slows our students down relative to the performance of students in most other fields (the obvious exception being the humanities)? And what can political science programs legitimately do to move our students along at a less glacial speed, especially given that most programs provide funding for no more than five or six years?

I don’t have any Scandinavian numbers (at least not at hand) but my hunch is that this doesn’t necessarily apply to Scandinavian universities. The Swedish problem generally used to be that post-graduate education wasn’t linked with financing so departments would take on applicants beyond their – and the applicants’ – capacity. In Denmark, organised post-graduate programmes (i.e. beyond the 5-6 year kandidat-degree) is a relatively new phenomenon – I actually belong to some of the first cohorts of Ph.D.s.

And in case you wonder, I wrote my Ph.D. dissertation in a little over two years – due to (lack of) financing of the programme I was involved in. This was definitively not an experience I would recommend to anybody, but fortunately things have been straightened up somewhat since the early 1990s.

*Why not? 1) I have no indications that holding a Ph.D. in Political Science will be an advantage over holding an PolSci M.A. on the general labour market (a Ph.D. in economics or statistics may be useful, though) in Scandinavia, 2) the academic labour market is limited and pretty bumpy. So you’re turning away from the high road and into a pretty much unchartered field full of the proverbial dragons. If, on the other hand, you are the adventurous type, then a PolSci Ph.D. may be something for you.

• Modern Two-Party System in the Senate Timeline
  Beginning with the antebellum 35th Congress, and progressing through to the 109th, this timeline tells the story of the evolution of politics in America as played out on the floor of the Senate.
  (tags: ideology parties politics senate usa visualization)
• Welcome to Google Sites
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• Marginal Revolution: Which 20th century classic of American conservative political thought has held up best?
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• Which 20th century classic of American liberal political thought has held up best? – EzraKlein Archive | The American Prospect
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• Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin: Best of “Sagen Sie jetzt nichts”
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• Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin: Aus dem Magazin – Und es war Sommer
  Zum ersten Mal spricht Angela Merkel darüber, wie sie das Jahr 1968 in der DDR erlebte – und wie der Aufbruch sie für immer veränderte.
  (tags: germany politics interview angelamerkel)
• Summary of Findings: Obama Has The Lead, But Potential Problems Too
  the survey results point to several potential hazards for Obama. A solid majority of voters (56%) says Obama has not provided enough information about his plans and policies;…Moreover, a plurality of voters (43%) says that Obama would not be “tough enou
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• PRO INNO Europe: INNO-Metrics
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• EUROPA – European Commission – Enterprise and Industry
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Let’s see: Sweden gave the world ABBA, Cardigans, Europe, Roxette – and a few other acts. And around this time every year, the country goes completely crazy over the national qualifiers for the Eurovision Song Contest. If you didn’t now any better, you might be excused for believing that Melodifestivalen was the Eurovision Song Contest.

Denmark … well, our claim to pop music fame is Aqua which was fronted by a Norwegian singer.

Need we say more?

Why have Denmark and Sweden differed in musical performance? After all, both countries – like all Baltic countries – have a great choral tradition.

The usual explanation for the Swedish success in the world’s recording studios has been political: As part of the cradle-to-grave Welfare State, Swedish local councils created and supported a comprehensive network of afternoon musical schools and at one point the investment – which may have been motivated partly by a desire to keep the kids of the streets, partly by an ideal of artistic participation – paid off. Denmark also had afternoon music schools for children but the Danish system was never developed as comprehensively as the Swedish (the Swedes are nothing if not comprehensive and systematic).

But maybe we need a supplementary explanation. The [insert nation] Idol craze has swept both countries recently and Danish commentators have pointed out that non-conformist churches have been mass-providers of singers. My impression is that non-conformist (often Evangelical) churches are relatively bigger (and definitively much more prominent in the public) in Sweden than in Denmark, and even though Sweden has and has had its share of stern no-fun pietist movements, Sweden in some ways seems closer to American Evangelical than North European Lutheran traditions.

So perhaps what was needed for the big pop bonanza was a fertile combination of a Social Democratic welfare state and American Evangelism?

I should point out, in all fairness, that Björn Ulvaeus of ABBA fame is an out-spoken secularist.

My guess is that most of us would answer Russia, Canada, Greenland or Svalbard, if we were asked to locate the Land of the Polar Bears.

As it is, the correct answer seems to be Germany where Stuttgart Zoo today revealed a polar bear cub. A non-orphaned one, for a change.

To repeat Berlingske Tidende’s question: What’s the deal with Germans and polar bears?

PS: Berlingske has a link to Stuttgart Zoo, but it is no use trying. The server is flooded with requests from polar bear-addicts.

• Gallup – World Poll Analyses
  (tags: politics sociology research polling gallup polls)

I note that the multi-event-arena rage plans have been resurrected here in Umeå and the local newspaper asks the question “Does Umeå need a multi-purpose arena?”.

I’ll just repeat my earlier argument.

Executive summary: If it is intended as an instrument for economic and demographic development, then no. If private investors want to throw money in the project, then go ahead. Make their day.

Update: Here’s a sceptical local politician. From a political science perspective the question about how such projects are made and decided is indeed interesting.

PS: The same issues actually also applies to the opera and symphony orchestra.

More goodness from Dani Rodrik.

At the time, Harvey Mansfield and Michael Walzer alternated as the instructors of this course. Aside from obvious differences in political orientation, these two also differed greatly in their grading policy. One of the first things that Mansfield did on the first day of class was to write down on the board the grade averages in the course over the last few years. The see-saw pattern was obvious: you didn’t need to run a regression to know that the Mansfield dummy was negative and statistically significant. Mansfield looked at the class and smiled. We nervously smiled back.

Randy Newman has the executive summary.

• Velfærdsministeriet: Betydningen af skolelukninger i landdistrikter
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  (tags: denmark regionalpolicy economics sociology publicpolicy education)
• Eva Nordmark – “De allra flesta svenskar misstror socialtjänsten”
  (tags: sweden socialpolicy publicadministration)
• So, you want to write an op-ed? – Andrew Leigh
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Just a quick follow-up to the earlier post on the Treaty of Roskilde: Today’s DN has an essay about the peculiar absence of commemorations of the Treaty compared with the preparations for the official celebrations of the loss of Finland.

There is probably a lesson about Swedish foreign policy and the Swedish self-image to be learned here.

Ah, “The 11th Hour” is back and in the words of host Michael Bertelsen:

The show will be going downhill all the way from here. Wearing patent leather shoes.

Now, if the monkeys at DR screw up the podcast of just one single episode … oh, who am I fooling. It’s DR. They will screw up.