Jay Ulfelder
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.
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
[edit]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]
References
[edit]- ^ a b Ulfelder, Jay (25 November 2010). "About". Dart-Throwing Chimp. Retrieved June 3, 2014.
- ^ "Jay Ulfelder". Retrieved June 3, 2014.
- ^ "Political Instability Task Force Home". Center for Global Policy. Retrieved June 3, 2014.
- ^ a b Comley, David (January 17, 2014). "Interview with Jay Ulfelder, Former Research Director at the Political Instability Task Force". Retrieved June 3, 2014.
- ^ "Dilemmas of Democratic Consolidation: A Game Theory Approach". Lynne Rienner Publishers. Retrieved December 4, 2020.
- ^ 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.
- ^ 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.
- ^ 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.
- ^ 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.
- ^ 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.
- ^ "Dart-Throwing Chimp". Retrieved December 4, 2020.
- ^ "A Multimodel Ensemble for Forecasting Onsets of State-Sponsored Mass Killing". SSRN 2303048.
- ^ Ulfelder, Jay (26 January 2015). "Promising Initial Results from a New Mass-Atrocities Early Warning System". SSRN 2568644.
- ^ "Welcome to Koto Analytics". 13 August 2020. Retrieved December 4, 2020.
- ^ "Plotting Zimbabwe's Post-Coup Trajectory". 13 August 2020. Retrieved December 4, 2020.
- ^ "Carr Center Fellows". Retrieved December 4, 2020.
- ^ Sengupta, Somini (March 22, 2014). "Spreadsheets and Global Mayhem". New York Times. Retrieved June 3, 2014.
- ^ Cowen, Tyler (March 15, 2014). "Crimea Through a Game-Theory Lens". New York Times. Retrieved June 2, 2014.
- ^ Cohen, Micah (April 6, 2012). "Reads and Reactions". New York Times. Retrieved June 3, 2014.
- ^ Fisher, Max (December 3, 2013). "Thailand has had more coups than any other country. This is why". Washington Post. Retrieved June 3, 2014.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Klein, Ezra (August 12, 2011). "A global political stress test". The Washington Post. Retrieved June 3, 2014.
- ^ "Jay Ulfelder". Foreign Policy. Retrieved June 3, 2014.
- ^ Ulfelder, Jay (February 11, 2016). "The World Isn't Less Free Than It Used to Be". FiveThirtyEight. Retrieved December 4, 2020.
- ^ Ulfelder, Jay (January 7, 2016). "It's Harder Than It Looks to Link Inequality With Global Turmoil". FiveThirtyEight. Retrieved December 4, 2020.
- ^ Ulfelder, Jay (November 8, 2012). "Why the World Can't Have a Nate Silver". Retrieved June 3, 2014.
- ^ Ward, Michael D.; Metternich, Nils (November 16, 2012). "Predicting the Future Is Easier Than It Looks". Foreign Policy. Retrieved June 3, 2014.
- ^ "Jay Ulfelder: Forecasting Conflict". April 28, 2014. Retrieved December 4, 2020.
- ^ Korte, Travis (February 28, 2014). "5 Q's for Social Science Forecasting Expert Jay Ulfelder". Retrieved June 3, 2014.
- ^ "Why Dictators Build Things That Crumble". YouTube. May 14, 2013. Retrieved December 4, 2020.