Jay Ulfelder

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Jay Ulfelder is an American political scientist who is best known for his work on political forecasting, specifically on anticipating various forms of political instability around the world. [1] [2] From 2001 to 2010, he served as research director of the Political Instability Task Force (PITF), which is funded by the Central Intelligence Agency. [1] [3] [4] He is also the author of a book [5] and several journal articles [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] on democratization, democratic backsliding, and contentious politics.

Contents

In the 2010s, Ulfelder maintained a blog called Dart-Throwing Chimp that offered commentary on geopolitical forecasting and other topics. [11] Around the same time, he worked as a consultant to the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on the design of a public early warning system for mass atrocities in countries worldwide. [12] [13] From 2017 to 2019, Ulfelder worked for Koto, the national security and risk division of Kensho Technologies, on the development of software to support the work geopolitical analysts. [14] [15]

In 2020, Ulfelder became a Carr Center Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School to work with Erica Chenoweth as program director for the Nonviolent Action Lab. [16]

Reception

Ulfelder has been cited and quoted as an expert on political forecasting and political instability in the New York Times [17] [18] [19] and the Washington Post . [20] [21] [22]

Ulfelder is an occasional contributor to Foreign Policy [23] and FiveThirtyEight . [24] [25] One of his pieces in Foreign Policy, on why forecasting political violence and unusual situations around the world was considerably harder than forecasting the results of elections in the United States, [26] received a lengthy response from Michael Ward and Nils Mitternich. [27]

In 2014, Ulfelder was interviewed on The Agenda with Steve Paikin about his work forecasting mass atrocities. [28] He has also been interviewed by Strife blog [4] and by the Center for Data Innovation [29] and gave a talk at TEDx Tbilisi in 2013. [30]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dictatorship</span> Form of government

A dictatorship is an autocratic form of government which is characterized by a leader, or a group of leaders, who hold governmental powers with few to no limitations. Politics in a dictatorship are controlled by a dictator, and they are facilitated through an inner circle of elites that includes advisers, generals, and other high-ranking officials. The dictator maintains control by influencing and appeasing the inner circle and repressing any opposition, which may include rival political parties, armed resistance, or disloyal members of the dictator's inner circle. Dictatorships can be formed by a military coup that overthrows the previous government through force or they can be formed by a self-coup in which elected leaders make their rule permanent. Dictatorships are authoritarian or totalitarian, and they can be classified as military dictatorships, one-party dictatorships, personalist dictatorships, or absolute monarchies.

A military dictatorship, or a military regime, is a type of dictatorship in which power is held by one or more military officers. Military dictatorships are led by either a single military dictator, known as a strongman, or by a council of military officers known as a military junta. They are most often formed by military coups or by the empowerment of the military through a popular uprising in times of domestic unrest or instability. The military nominally seeks power to restore order or fight corruption, but the personal motivations of military officers will vary.

Regime change is the partly forcible or coercive replacement of one government regime with another. Regime change may replace all or part of the state's most critical leadership system, administrative apparatus, or bureaucracy. Regime change may occur through domestic processes, such as revolution, coup, or reconstruction of government following state failure or civil war. It can also be imposed on a country by foreign actors through invasion, overt or covert interventions, or coercive diplomacy. Regime change may entail the construction of new institutions, the restoration of old institutions, and the promotion of new ideologies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Democratization</span> Society becoming more democratic

Democratization, or democratisation, is the structural government transition from an authoritarian government to a more democratic political regime, including substantive political changes moving in a democratic direction.

The resource curse, also known as the paradox of plenty or the poverty paradox, is the hypothesis that countries with an abundance of natural resources have lower economic growth, lower rates of democracy, or poorer development outcomes than countries with fewer natural resources. There are many theories and much academic debate about the reasons for and exceptions to the adverse outcomes. Most experts believe the resource curse is not universal or inevitable but affects certain types of countries or regions under certain conditions. As of at least 2024, there is no academic consensus on the effect of resource abundance on economic development.

The Political Instability Task Force (PITF), formerly known as State Failure Task Force, is a U.S. government-sponsored research project to build a database on major domestic political conflicts leading to state failures. The study analyzed factors to denote the effectiveness of state institutions, population well-being, and found that partial democracies with low involvement in international trade and with high infant mortality are most prone to revolutions. One of the members of the task force resigned on January 20, 2017, in protest of the Trump administration, before Donald Trump was sworn in as U.S. president.

Civil resistance is a form of political action that relies on the use of nonviolent resistance by ordinary people to challenge a particular power, force, policy or regime. Civil resistance operates through appeals to the adversary, pressure and coercion: it can involve systematic attempts to undermine or expose the adversary's sources of power. Forms of action have included demonstrations, vigils and petitions; strikes, go-slows, boycotts and emigration movements; and sit-ins, occupations, constructive program, and the creation of parallel institutions of government.

Michael Don Ward was an American political scientist and academic. He was professor emeritus of political science at Duke University, an affiliate of the Duke Network Analysis Center, and the principal investigator at Ward Lab, a website that creates conflict predictions using Bayesian modeling and network analysis. He is the founder of Predictive Heuristics, a consultancy that does risk analysis for a variety of clients.

Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political status quo, and reductions in democracy, separation of powers, civil liberties, and the rule of law. Political scientists have created many typologies describing variations of authoritarian forms of government. Authoritarian regimes may be either autocratic or oligarchic and may be based upon the rule of a party or the military. States that have a blurred boundary between democracy and authoritarianism have some times been characterized as "hybrid democracies", "hybrid regimes" or "competitive authoritarian" states.

Criticism of democracy, or debate on democracy and the different aspects of how to implement democracy best have been widely discussed. There are both internal critics and external ones who reject the values promoted by constitutional democracy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coup d'état</span> Deposition of a government

A coup d'état, or simply a coup, is typically an illegal and overt attempt by a military organization or other government elites to unseat an incumbent leadership. A self-coup is when a leader, having come to power through legal means, tries to stay in power through illegal means.

Anocracy, or semi-democracy, is a form of government that is loosely defined as part democracy and part dictatorship, or as a "regime that mixes democratic with autocratic features". Another definition classifies anocracy as "a regime that permits some means of participation through opposition group behavior but that has incomplete development of mechanisms to redress grievances." The term "semi-democratic" is reserved for stable regimes that combine democratic and authoritarian elements. Scholars distinguish anocracies from autocracies and democracies in their capability to maintain authority, political dynamics, and policy agendas. Anocratic regimes have democratic institutions that allow for nominal amounts of competition. Such regimes are particularly susceptible to outbreaks of armed conflict and unexpected or adverse changes in leadership.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erica Chenoweth</span> American political scientist

Erica Chenoweth is an American political scientist, professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. She is known for her research work on nonviolent civil resistance movements.

The Integrated Crisis Early Warning System (ICEWS) combines a database of political events and a system using these to provide conflict early warnings. It is supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in the United States. The database as well as the model used by Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Laboratories are currently undergoing operational test and evaluation by the United States Southern Command and United States Pacific Command.

The Good Judgment Project (GJP) is an organization dedicated to "harnessing the wisdom of the crowd to forecast world events". It was co-created by Philip E. Tetlock, decision scientist Barbara Mellers, and Don Moore, all professors at the University of Pennsylvania.

The Simon-SkjodtCenter for the Prevention of Genocide (CPG) is a center affiliated with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. It was started in 2013 and grew out of the work of the Committee on Conscience. Their consultants include Jay Ulfelder, former director of the Political Instability Task Force.

Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) is a non-profit organization specializing in disaggregated conflict data collection, analysis, and crisis mapping. ACLED codes the dates, actors, locations, fatalities, and types of all reported political violence and demonstration events around the world in real time. As of 2022, ACLED has recorded more than 1.3 million individual events globally. In addition to data collection, the ACLED team conducts analysis to describe, explore, and test conflict scenarios, with analysis made freely available to the public for non-commercial use.

Philip Andrew "Phil" Schrodt is a political scientist known for his work in automated data and event coding for political news. On August 1, 2013, he announced that he was leaving his job as professor at Pennsylvania State University to become a full-time consultant. Schrodt is currently a senior research scientist at the statistical consulting firm Parus Analytical Systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Democratic backsliding</span> National decline in democracy

Democratic backsliding is a process of regime change toward autocracy in which the exercise of political power becomes more arbitrary and repressive. The process typically restricts the space for public contest and political participation in the process of government selection. Democratic decline involves the weakening of democratic institutions, such as the peaceful transition of power or free and fair elections, or the violation of individual rights that underpin democracies, especially freedom of expression. Democratic backsliding is the opposite of democratization.

Benjamin Andrew Valentino is a political scientist and professor at Dartmouth College. His 2004 book Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th Century, adapted from his PhD thesis and published by Cornell University Press, has been reviewed in several academic journals.

References

  1. 1 2 Ulfelder, Jay (25 November 2010). "About". Dart-Throwing Chimp. Retrieved June 3, 2014.
  2. ↑ "Jay Ulfelder" . Retrieved June 3, 2014.
  3. ↑ "Political Instability Task Force Home". Center for Global Policy . Retrieved June 3, 2014.
  4. 1 2 Comley, David (January 17, 2014). "Interview with Jay Ulfelder, Former Research Director at the Political Instability Task Force" . Retrieved June 3, 2014.
  5. ↑ "Dilemmas of Democratic Consolidation: A Game Theory Approach". Lynne Rienner Publishers . Retrieved December 4, 2020.
  6. ↑ Ulfelder, Jay (2007). "Natural-Resource Wealth and the Survival of Autocracy". Comparative Political Studies . 40 (8): 995–1018. doi:10.1177/0010414006287238. S2CID   154316752 . Retrieved December 4, 2020.
  7. ↑ Ulfelder, Jay (2005). "Contentious Collective Action and the Breakdown of Authoritarian Regimes". International Political Science Review . 26 (3): 311–334. doi:10.1177/0192512105053786. S2CID   146144884 . Retrieved December 4, 2020.
  8. ↑ Ulfelder, Jay; Lustik, Michael (2007). "Modelling Transitions To and From Democracy". Democratization. 14 (3): 351–387. doi:10.1080/13510340701303196. S2CID   1633808 . Retrieved December 4, 2020.
  9. ↑ Ulfelder, Jay (2008). "International Integration and Democratization: An Event History Analysis". Democratization. 15 (2): 272–296. doi:10.1080/13510340701846343. S2CID   145193122 . Retrieved December 4, 2020.
  10. ↑ Chenoweth, Erica; Ulfelder, Jay (2017). "Can Structural Conditions Explain the Onset of Nonviolent Uprisings?". Journal of Conflict Resolution . 61 (2): 298–324. doi:10.1177/0022002715576574. S2CID   145798044 . Retrieved December 4, 2020.
  11. ↑ "Dart-Throwing Chimp" . Retrieved December 4, 2020.
  12. ↑ "A Multimodel Ensemble for Forecasting Onsets of State-Sponsored Mass Killing". SSRN   2303048.
  13. ↑ Ulfelder, Jay (26 January 2015). "Promising Initial Results from a New Mass-Atrocities Early Warning System". SSRN   2568644.
  14. ↑ "Welcome to Koto Analytics". 13 August 2020. Retrieved December 4, 2020.
  15. ↑ "Plotting Zimbabwe's Post-Coup Trajectory". 13 August 2020. Retrieved December 4, 2020.
  16. ↑ "Carr Center Fellows" . Retrieved December 4, 2020.
  17. ↑ Sengupta, Somini (March 22, 2014). "Spreadsheets and Global Mayhem". New York Times . Retrieved June 3, 2014.
  18. ↑ Cowen, Tyler (March 15, 2014). "Crimea Through a Game-Theory Lens". New York Times . Retrieved June 2, 2014.
  19. ↑ Cohen, Micah (April 6, 2012). "Reads and Reactions". New York Times . Retrieved June 3, 2014.
  20. ↑ Fisher, Max (December 3, 2013). "Thailand has had more coups than any other country. This is why". Washington Post . Retrieved June 3, 2014.
  21. ↑ Fisher, Max (January 28, 2014). "A worrying map of the countries most likely to have a coup in 2014". The Washington Post . Retrieved June 3, 2014.
  22. ↑ Klein, Ezra (August 12, 2011). "A global political stress test". The Washington Post . Retrieved June 3, 2014.
  23. ↑ "Jay Ulfelder". Foreign Policy . Retrieved June 3, 2014.
  24. ↑ Ulfelder, Jay (February 11, 2016). "The World Isn't Less Free Than It Used to Be". FiveThirtyEight . Retrieved December 4, 2020.
  25. ↑ Ulfelder, Jay (January 7, 2016). "It's Harder Than It Looks to Link Inequality With Global Turmoil". FiveThirtyEight . Retrieved December 4, 2020.
  26. ↑ Ulfelder, Jay (November 8, 2012). "Why the World Can't Have a Nate Silver" . Retrieved June 3, 2014.
  27. ↑ Ward, Michael D.; Metternich, Nils (November 16, 2012). "Predicting the Future Is Easier Than It Looks". Foreign Policy . Retrieved June 3, 2014.
  28. ↑ "Jay Ulfelder: Forecasting Conflict". April 28, 2014. Retrieved December 4, 2020.
  29. ↑ Korte, Travis (February 28, 2014). "5 Q's for Social Science Forecasting Expert Jay Ulfelder" . Retrieved June 3, 2014.
  30. ↑ "Why Dictators Build Things That Crumble". YouTube . May 14, 2013. Retrieved December 4, 2020.
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