Expert Political Judgment

Expert Political Judgment PDF Author: Philip E. Tetlock
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400888816
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
Since its original publication, Expert Political Judgment by New York Times bestselling author Philip Tetlock has established itself as a contemporary classic in the literature on evaluating expert opinion. Tetlock first discusses arguments about whether the world is too complex for people to find the tools to understand political phenomena, let alone predict the future. He evaluates predictions from experts in different fields, comparing them to predictions by well-informed laity or those based on simple extrapolation from current trends. He goes on to analyze which styles of thinking are more successful in forecasting. Classifying thinking styles using Isaiah Berlin's prototypes of the fox and the hedgehog, Tetlock contends that the fox--the thinker who knows many little things, draws from an eclectic array of traditions, and is better able to improvise in response to changing events--is more successful in predicting the future than the hedgehog, who knows one big thing, toils devotedly within one tradition, and imposes formulaic solutions on ill-defined problems. He notes a perversely inverse relationship between the best scientific indicators of good judgement and the qualities that the media most prizes in pundits--the single-minded determination required to prevail in ideological combat. Clearly written and impeccably researched, the book fills a huge void in the literature on evaluating expert opinion. It will appeal across many academic disciplines as well as to corporations seeking to develop standards for judging expert decision-making. Now with a new preface in which Tetlock discusses the latest research in the field, the book explores what constitutes good judgment in predicting future events and looks at why experts are often wrong in their forecasts.

Expert Political Judgment

Expert Political Judgment PDF Author: Philip E. Tetlock
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400888816
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 368

Get Book Here

Book Description
Since its original publication, Expert Political Judgment by New York Times bestselling author Philip Tetlock has established itself as a contemporary classic in the literature on evaluating expert opinion. Tetlock first discusses arguments about whether the world is too complex for people to find the tools to understand political phenomena, let alone predict the future. He evaluates predictions from experts in different fields, comparing them to predictions by well-informed laity or those based on simple extrapolation from current trends. He goes on to analyze which styles of thinking are more successful in forecasting. Classifying thinking styles using Isaiah Berlin's prototypes of the fox and the hedgehog, Tetlock contends that the fox--the thinker who knows many little things, draws from an eclectic array of traditions, and is better able to improvise in response to changing events--is more successful in predicting the future than the hedgehog, who knows one big thing, toils devotedly within one tradition, and imposes formulaic solutions on ill-defined problems. He notes a perversely inverse relationship between the best scientific indicators of good judgement and the qualities that the media most prizes in pundits--the single-minded determination required to prevail in ideological combat. Clearly written and impeccably researched, the book fills a huge void in the literature on evaluating expert opinion. It will appeal across many academic disciplines as well as to corporations seeking to develop standards for judging expert decision-making. Now with a new preface in which Tetlock discusses the latest research in the field, the book explores what constitutes good judgment in predicting future events and looks at why experts are often wrong in their forecasts.

Predicting the Presidency

Predicting the Presidency PDF Author: George C. Edwards, III
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691172013
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
Millions of Americans—including many experienced politicians—viewed Barack Obama through a prism of high expectations, based on a belief in the power of presidential persuasion. Yet many who were inspired by candidate Obama were disappointed in what he was able to accomplish once in the White House. They could not understand why he often was unable to leverage his position and political skills to move the public and Congress to support his initiatives. Predicting the Presidency explains why Obama had such difficulty bringing about the change he promised, and challenges the conventional wisdom about presidential leadership. In this incisive book, George Edwards shows how we can ask a few fundamental questions about the context of a presidency—the president's strategic position or opportunity structure—and use the answers to predict a president's success in winning support for his initiatives. If presidential success is largely determined by a president's strategic position, what role does persuasion play? Almost every president finds that a significant segment of the public and his fellow partisans in Congress are predisposed to follow his lead. Others may support the White House out of self-interest. Edwards explores the possibilities of the president exploiting such support, providing a more realistic view of the potential of presidential persuasion. Written by a leading presidential scholar, Predicting the Presidency sheds new light on the limitations and opportunities of presidential leadership.

Predicting Politics

Predicting Politics PDF Author: Bruce Bueno de Mesquita
Publisher: Ohio State University Press
ISBN: 9780814208984
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
To predict likely policy developments around the world over the next thirty years, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita uses game theoretic models as described in Predicting Politics. The tools used in this book have found wide application in business and in the development of significant American foreign policy initiatives over the years. The author uses data from 1948 to show the ability of models to predict the end of the Cold War. He then turns to data from 1980 for about one hundred countries and simulates future states of the world, especially with regard to further democratization. In the process he shows strong evidence that the burst of democratization that occurred at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s was predictable based on replicable data known in 1980. While delving into rather gloomy predictions about likely developments in Russia and China's domestic affairs, he offers a novel explanation for the failure of Russia to attract more investment and to achieve the higher growth rates commonly associated with democratic government. Although Russia is certainly more democratic in an absolute sense today than it was in 1980, it has fallen farther behind the rest of the world in terms of democratization and so lacks the comparative advantages of property rights, rule of law, and transparent governance that are essential for attracting investment. Bueno de Mesquita shows how policy situations and game theoretical analyses can explain the past, illuminate the present and forecast future events. At the same time he provides the tools necessary for others to create their own rigorous estimates of future foreign policies.

Predicting Party Sizes

Predicting Party Sizes PDF Author: Rein Taagepera
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199287740
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
Predicting Party Sizes connects party systems and government duration to electoral systems. This book provides an overview of electoral systems, worldwide, and supplies evidence for models that tie simple electoral systems to the number and sizes of parties and government duration.

The Politics and Science of Prevision

The Politics and Science of Prevision PDF Author: Andreas Wenger
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000088367
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 433

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Book Description
This book inquires into the use of prediction at the intersection of politics and academia, and reflects upon the implications of future-oriented policy-making across different fields. The volume focuses on the key intricacies and fallacies of prevision in a time of complexity, uncertainty, and unpredictability. The first part of the book discusses different academic perspectives and contributions to future-oriented policy-making. The second part discusses the role of future knowledge in decision-making across different empirical issues such as climate, health, finance, bio- and nuclear weapons, civil war, and crime. It analyses how prediction is integrated into public policy and governance, and how in return governance structures influence the making of knowledge about the future. Contributors integrate two analytical dimensions in their chapters: the epistemology of prevision and the political and ethical implications of prevision. In this way, the volume contributes to a better understanding of the complex interaction and feedback loops between the processes of creating knowledge about the future and the application of this future knowledge in public policy and governance. This book will be of much interest to students of security studies, political science, sociology, technology studies, and International Relations. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.routledge.com/The-Politics-and-Science-of-Prevision-Governing-and-Probing/Wenger-Jasper-Cavelty/p/book/9780367900748, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Selling the Future

Selling the Future PDF Author: Ariel Colonomos
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781849045537
Category : Economic forecasting
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
*** Winner of the 2017 ISA Ethics Book Award 2017*** In an age of uncertainty, those who can anticipate revolution, the outbreak of wars, or which states might default are much in demand. The marketplace of ideas about the future is huge, and includes 'wonks', scholars and pundits who produce scenarios, predictions and ratings. The more opaque the future seems to be, so the relation between knowledge and power intensifies, above all the nexus between those who sell their expertise and those who consume it. In his investigation of the paradoxes of fore--casting, Ariel Colonomos interrogates today's knowledge factories to reveal how our futures are shaped by social scientists, think tanks and rat--ing agencies. He explains why conservative and linear predictions prevail, and why the future, especially when linked to national interest, re--flects a systematic search for stability. The notion of a globalised world whose main characteristic is speed, and where predictions have accelerat--ing, self-fulfilling effects, is obsolete. Those who are supposed to know, reassure those who are supposed to act. Their preferences converge, and thus the industry of the future has a decelerating effect on world politics. These 'lords of knowledge' reinforce pre-existing beliefs, create expectations about the future, while obstructing its vision when - inevitably - it diverges from its orderly path.

Winner-Take-All Politics

Winner-Take-All Politics PDF Author: Jacob S. Hacker
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416588701
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
In this groundbreaking book on one of the world's greatest economic crises, Hacker and Pierson explain why the richest of the rich are getting richer while the rest of the world isn't.

It Can't Happen Here

It Can't Happen Here PDF Author: Sinclair Lewis
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0698152700
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
“The novel that foreshadowed Donald Trump’s authoritarian appeal.”—Salon It Can’t Happen Here is the only one of Sinclair Lewis’s later novels to match the power of Main Street, Babbitt, and Arrowsmith. A cautionary tale about the fragility of democracy, it is an alarming, eerily timeless look at how fascism could take hold in America. Written during the Great Depression, when the country was largely oblivious to Hitler’s aggression, it juxtaposes sharp political satire with the chillingly realistic rise of a president who becomes a dictator to save the nation from welfare cheats, sex, crime, and a liberal press. Called “a message to thinking Americans” by the Springfield Republican when it was published in 1935, It Can’t Happen Here is a shockingly prescient novel that remains as fresh and contemporary as today’s news. Includes an Introduction by Michael Meyer and an Afterword by Gary Scharnhorst

Predicting Presidential Elections and Other Things, Second Edition

Predicting Presidential Elections and Other Things, Second Edition PDF Author: Ray Fair
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804778027
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
"It's the economy, stupid," as Democratic strategist James Carville would say. After many years of study, Ray C. Fair has found that the state of the economy has a dominant influence on national elections. Just in time for the 2012 presidential election, this new edition of his classic text, Predicting Presidential Elections and Other Things, provides us with a look into the likely future of our nation's political landscape—but Fair doesn't stop there. Fair puts other national issues under the microscope as well—including congressional elections, Federal Reserve behavior, and inflation. In addition he covers topics well beyond today's headlines, as the book takes on questions of more direct, personal interest such as wine quality, predicting football games, and aging effects in baseball. Which of your friends is most likely to have an extramarital affair? How important is class attendance for academic performance in college? How fast can you expect to run a race or perform some physical task at age 55, given your time at age 30? Read Predicting Presidential Elections and Other Things and find out! As Fair works his way through an incredibly broad range of questions and topics, he teaches and delights. The discussion that underlies each chapter topic moves from formulating theories about real world phenomena to lessons on how to analyze data, test theories, and make predictions. At the end of this book, readers will walk away with more than mere predictions. They will have learned a new approach to thinking about many age-old concerns in public and private life, and will have a myriad of fun facts to share.

Amusing Ourselves to Death

Amusing Ourselves to Death PDF Author: Neil Postman
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9780143036531
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
What happens when media and politics become forms of entertainment? As our world begins to look more and more like Orwell's 1984, Neil's Postman's essential guide to the modern media is more relevant than ever. "It's unlikely that Trump has ever read Amusing Ourselves to Death, but his ascent would not have surprised Postman.” -CNN Originally published in 1985, Neil Postman’s groundbreaking polemic about the corrosive effects of television on our politics and public discourse has been hailed as a twenty-first-century book published in the twentieth century. Now, with television joined by more sophisticated electronic media—from the Internet to cell phones to DVDs—it has taken on even greater significance. Amusing Ourselves to Death is a prophetic look at what happens when politics, journalism, education, and even religion become subject to the demands of entertainment. It is also a blueprint for regaining control of our media, so that they can serve our highest goals. “A brilliant, powerful, and important book. This is an indictment that Postman has laid down and, so far as I can see, an irrefutable one.” –Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post Book World