I went to law school, but wasn't PS undergrad. So how much I could engage depends on topic I suppose. Also interest level.

I finished several IR related courses, and have a good background in political theory (including comparative politics and some introductory modern thought. Obviously, there's such a wealth of material, that I'm only starting to skim the surface, but I did receive honorary recognition for a paper I wrote last semester. It's about comparing the ideational foundations of EH Carr and Keohane and Nye as objective goals in the development of United States congressional political theory. I can post an abstract if anyone's interested...

I've also been studying Russian and Post-Soviet politics and I'm developing a cultural-political theory that I'll need some intensive review on before seeking publication. Really, I have a lot of ideas and I was just wondering if there's anyone around with a lot of their own ideas I can learn from.

I am not your man, though others on the board may be. Irrespective of that, urgently seek out a mentoring relationship with a faculty member whom you trust and who has a good research program. This is what they're there for, and what you're paying all that money for. Congratulations on reaching a point where you can utilize that resource.

Well, the problem with my school's faculty is one that's representative of political science in general. They're each too specialized. My IR professors all stay in IR and congressional theorists in congressional theories. Political science is very scattered, with too many conflicting ideas for the science to be presentable. In my opinion, there needs to be a more systematic approach towards most aspects, that combines cultural, environmental, and historical factors. Too often, analysis is performed piecewise and trends are taught alongside their counterparts.

Sorry if I'm going overboard, just throwing out some thoughts.

I remember Carr's 20 years crisis being one of the first realist books that I had read about 5 years back and it having a profound impact on me despite the material being 60 odd years old.
I've read plenty of third person accounts of Keohane and Nye's works and am quite familiar with their theories but never read the books After Hegemony or Power and Interdependence in full myself.
Do post your abstract.

Happy to read and discuss any of your work - though most of my writings and research and thus expertise is focused on Indian foreign policy and multilateral institutions like the UN, G20 etc.

Hey, KA! How's the symphony coming?

Afraid I wouldn't be of too much help. I've taken a few courses in IR and dabbled in a bit of stuff on the side, but it was mostly in peacemaking and conflict resolution.

Glad to see you've moved past the symphony.

token hard scientist chiming in: biology/chemistion/biological engineering is super specialized too. It's a price of the ridiculous depth of mankind's knowledge.

I'm actually a hard scientist too. Undergrad degree in computer engineering with special (but amateur) interests in astrophysics and cosmology :)

I was a chemistion BS/MS/Ph.D.

I used to be the guy you're looking for, in another life. One of my majors was poli sci with an IR/Soviet focus. But that was back when there was a hot debate on whether glasnost was legit or a clever ruse, and I've forgotten it all now.

It's all a grand deception! I'm glad we can get the conspiracies started already in this thread.

PoliSci here. But European education, and US polisci is usually very ethnocentric to me. So maybe not your guy either.

I have an MA International Relations, specialising in sustainable development, with a side interest in the Balkans.

My major was political science, with focuses on US Constitutional issues and on Voting Behavior. And I minored in Russian--once upon a time I was fluent. But that was 20 years ago, and I never went to grad school. (DUMB DUMB DUMB) I've worked in real estate ever since. So I'm interested in what you have to say but may not be able to speak the jargon like I once could.

Law (with specialisation in Int'l Law) and PolSci (with specialisation on formal theory and IR). I'm probably more in line with TMOW. I always like to read new theories, though.

Ooh, some diversity here! My concentration is in international relations, but the degree I'm getting is based so heavily on electives and self-determined schedules that I'm basically going to be touching in every area. I'm looking to pursue my masters at U of Chicago, but if I want to get into that school, I'm gonna hafta make one hell of a splash in the theoretical community...
And while I haven't necessarily given up on ever writing a symphony, it's definitely more suited for a hobby than a profession. I originally intended on pursuing a music degree, but really there's no sense in that if you have ambitions beyond directing a high school band.

@MinisterofWar: I completely agree. American IR courses are primarily focused on US actions, and while there is some obvious flaw to that, it makes sense. Any political hopeful studying in the US is likely to pursue a government job in the US, but I have found that it narrows things. What region of Europe? Obviously Western Europe education would be much different than that of a former Soviet-bloc!

@dipplayer: I've considered adding Russian as a minor, any advice for or against it?

"with a side interest in the Balkans."

I'll have to remember that the next time you propose an AT.

My most recent paper needs work, but here's the abstract. It's a little choppy because of word limits from submission proposals, but I think it's succinct.

Theories on the causes and solutions for congressional inaction are varied in perspective and frequently conflicting. If our understanding of politics is the product of theory, a cohesive understanding of the various methods of thought influencing theories on congressional politics is required in order to understand congressional politics itself. This dissertation examines the philosophy behind existing theories on American congressional politics. Some of the methods of thought developed by theorists align themselves with the sociology of the theories of liberalism and classical realism. Although existing theories on American congressional politics are not relevant to international relations and therefore not realist or liberalist by design, the sociologies present in literature by Keohane and Nye on liberalism and by E. H. Carr on classical realism influence the development of these theories. In examination of existing theories, this dissertation analyzes the components of each theory and classifies its position as influenced by Keohane and Nye or E. H. Carr and represents this connection with commentary on political events. Theories which focus on congress as an institution in which parties are beneficial to the political system and are instrumental in representing a diverse group of varied interests are heavily influenced by the liberalist philosophy. Similarly, theories that are developed around the premise that parties work in opposition to each other and that a party’s primary motive in engaging in politics is to obtain “power” through gaining seats across both houses and within committees are theories influenced by the classical realist philosophy. By providing this examination of different congressional political theories, this dissertation presents an alternative focus on methods of examining congressional politics. This dissertation provides an examination of congress in which the two parties act as unions among a diverse nation of competing interests groups. Although this impedes each party’s ability to function as a cohesive political entity, its holding of “power” is based on the need for a collective security provided by positive support between interest groups. This balance between political unity and severe division relates to each party’s ability to balance against its opposition and to enact a legislative process that benefits its constituents.

Interesting proposal, KA. I would re-write the abstract though. Abstracts should be under 300 words, and I think you can express that idea a bit more concisely and clearly. I think I know what you're proposing - analyzing Congressional politics without saying that each party's ideas and goals are uniform throughout their members.Actually, come to think of it if you're going through all this, you may want to look into Economics and decision theory.

I agree, it's certainly not publication ready, but this was a portion of a submission I sent to the National Conference for Undergraduate Research. I'm due give a presentation based on my paper in mid-April. I'll do some polishing by then.

Part of my paper was to touch (briefly) on some different ideas expressed by leading authors on congressional theory. One of the most interesting articles I read was one by David R. Jones, who stated that “when a party is cohesive, it projects a clearer image, and voters are more likely to be able to use that image as a heuristic to help them guess how other members of that party might act if elected.” His broader argument was that while parties develop a united platform to present to the voters to help win elections, the reliability of each individual congressman is diminished as a result. Because accountability is developed in the party's actions within congress, very little accountability is transferred to each individual representative. Hence, the incredulously high incumbent seat retention rate and--to an extent--the low voter turnout rate in the majority of non-presidential elections.

To avoid going on and writing a whole new paper in the forums, I'll just mention that the general effect that economics have on congressional elections is that statistically, the voters will punish the majority party at the voting booths regardless of the policies or performance level of said majority. I don't know if you wanted to hear that, but I find it incredibly interesting...

Right, so by economics I didn't mean the effect of the economy on the political system (which is as you described it and not all that surprising) but rather that you could easily analyze this problem through an economic lens. If you have time

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_theory

I have just heard a talk that showed that your last statement was wrong (statistically as well as formally). The formal proof was in general setup though, the statistics placed the US elections since 1882 very close the opposite thesis of yours. I guess you have some supervisors there, I could ask said person if he is willing to share his model yet (it was a preliminary presentation, but already very well done).

and generally, goldfinger is right!

I'll give it a looking over, goldfinger. Sorry for my confusion, I just saw some words you threw out and got a little excited. Here is one of the articles I cited in my paper and in a team paper I wrote as an effort to develop a house election prediction model.

http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/wsas/academics/political_science/documents/Jones2010ajps.pdf

And X3non, I'd like to hear a more on what you're talking about. But from my understanding, because of changes in voting rights and voter turnout rates, I don't think an 1882 model will be all that reliable for modern elections. Maybe it is, I'd be interested to see!

I'm doing my undergrad in economics and political science right now. I tend to focus more on political philosophy, though. I also live in Canada, so if anyone is looking to discuss Canadian politics . . .

As far as I understand your abstract you are going to look at the inner workings of the two major parties in US. If that is correct then you should consider looking at the Danish parliament. At the moment there is 8 parties in parliament. 4 on each 'side'. In order to get the majority and pass any laws the Government (two parties at the moment) have to convince the two other parties on their side or get backing from the parties on the other side. If you instead of looking at 8 different parties you look at two blocks then you get an idea of what the two big ones in the US have to deal with. They have to hold together people representing a lot of different opinions.

Having 'only' two parties doesn't mean people agree on more things, it just means that you have to spend more time 'controlling' the members of your party. In the US members of one party will sometimes vote with the other party. This is because there are people in the middle. In Denmark in 2007 people from two of the parties in the middle split from their former parties to create a new party. This is similar to the situation when the US politicians in the middle don't want to follow party line.

The difference in the two systems can help you get a better inside into the workings of the two parties in the US. Be studying the development in countries with more parties on each 'side' you can get an inside to internal fights inside the two major US parties. An inside that can be hard to get in the US because they don't wanna show this fight.

I got a candidate in law from Denmark and is working in the field of law and politics in the Danish central Government plus I have been member of a political party and political organisations for more that 10 years. So have tried most elements of politics in real life.

Soo... I gather you've written like a poli-sci symphony, then?

I'm very much in over my head here, but I'm presently hoping to tack on International Political Economy as a second major on top of my Spanish Language and Literature. I just finished the Spanish requirements and am embarking now on the IPE adventure. So far I've taken only Micro- and Macroeconomics and "Intro to International Politics," so my fluency and knowledge in this subject is rudimentary at best. Still, I do get a kick out of reading and thinking about this kind of stuff, so I'd love to bounce ideas around as best as I can.

@KA the data contained ALL elections of democracies since a specific date for each country, I think this had something to do with availability and comparability. So rest assured, even the 2014 elections are included in the set.

Seems like you could delete the first two sentences of the abstract and not lose anything of substance.

My question re: your abstract is this:

is there going to be any discussion of the justification for the use of "theory" at all to describe congressional politics, much less the assumptions of all theories (which seems to be in each case that parties act as units - what about less institutionalist theories, ones based more on individual interests of members of congress?)

But yeah the immediate thought that jumps to my mind is, sure you can go ahead and write this paper, but somewhere in there, probably near the beginning, you may want to defend the use of theory full stop. It depends what your *real* purpose for writing the paper is, but if you are actually trying to prove some point, doing it this way will make it, in my view, a more holistic paper that can better stand alone.

i say we kill him

@KA don't even listen to Thucy. If you take a theoretical approach to the issue you just take it, and name it that way. That's the justification. As for the second part I would give Thucy all credit. Then again the way you wrote it is the way US-Americans write it and you hand it in in the US, so I would not make a fuzz about it.

@xenon: Okay, that makes more sense. But from what I've seen is that, depending upon the model that's created, there can still be some internal biases projected onto the results when analyzing statistics, especially with congressional politics. I'm not trying to defend any argument. It just seems to me that you can use different models to support whichever ideas you want to prove. I read one theory that used sound statistical practice to prove that the republican party is more fiscally responsible! But again, it's not a focus of my paper, although it would make an interesting side note.

@Thucy: I did include a section like that. It points to significant trends in Carr's and K&Ns' theories and links them to trends in theories on congressional politics. Perhaps it's not quite the argument you would like to see, but I basically stated that because both IR theory and congressional theory are our primary methods for observing political trends, they're justifiable for the premise of my paper. I disagree that defending the theoretical approach will strengthen my paper. It's a theoretical paper based on how theories interact with other theories. But still, any chance to defend theory is worth it to me, so I'll see about adding some defending points in my next edit.

As per the purpose of my paper, I have a kind of view where I want to present political actors as motivated by practical needs for power and security. I'm having trouble wording exactly what I want to say (which is obviating the fact that my theory needs work), so I'll spare the full explanation for another time. But really, I'd like to at least field the idea that congressional political actors need more of a systemic analytical approach: each congressman has countless influences beyond personal belief, including party motivation and support, financial stress from supporters, interest group lobbyists, constituents, and a staff of 60+ members, each telling him what to do and think. Personally, from all this, I've adopted the thought process that no political actor acts of their own free will. While decisions made by feudal kings and army generals had much more significant impacts on the personal level, congressmen (and presidents) act as some sort of voice to a structural entity. This view is impossible to defend without theoretical analysis, and would take a book for me to thoroughly present - a task I'll be much better suited for in twenty years or so.

So, in general, my paper is an attempt to discuss a factor that influences a theory that I can't fully articulate. Which is why, I'll admit, my paper is incomplete.

SYMPHONY

Did someone say that already?

You're so behind.

Then you should definitely consider this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAwKKQlzcro

and a short summary:

http://www.ted.com/talks/bruce_bueno_de_mesquita_predicts_iran_s_future

and as you said that economic - voting theme is far off of what you want to write about, it should not be discussed here at length. also this wold just lead to these extensive trolling operations.

I love the Russian language and Russian literature, history, etc. The time I spent over there had a profound effect on me. So I was glad I minored in it.