Suchergebnisse

AbstractDuring political campaigns the spread between the popularity of the candidates is a common metric capturing the state of the horse-race feature of the campaign. One candidate is said to be ahead of another by an indicated number of percentage points. If the difference is less than the margin of error, the race is considered too close to call. In two-person races, however, the spread corresponds to a much smaller confidence level than is usually reported because the two numbers used to compute the spread are not independent. The size of the confidence interval that is typically reported is incorrect by a factor of two. Therefore, some spreads that are reported as decisive are races too close to call.

Realism tells us that states are unitary actors and foreign policy ends at the water's edge. This essay questions this view in the context of recent US policy on Afghanistan. In early 2008, Senator Barack Obama won several early primary victories and gained a substantial lead in the Democratic presidential nomination contest. Both Democratic senator Hillary Clinton and to a lesser extent the apparent Republican nominee, Senator John McCain, questioned Obama's leadership ability. The future president responded in part by announcing his intent to expand the US military presence in Afghanistan. The policy of increased militarization crystallized publically in response to domestic campaign pressure rather than because of events on the ground in South Asia.