We had three more prospectus presentations today.
Paul is going to compare different cases in which a government has declared the use of some drug to be an epidemic. He wants to know how the government acted in these cases. For instance, did it treat drug use as a crime or as a public health problem? He strongly suspects that the answer is correlated with race.
Aaron is basically persuaded by Achen and Bartels and wants to pursue the implications of their view on two levels. On the individual level, he wants to explore whether the truth of a realist theory of politics has any bearing on the question of what it means for a public official to be a good representative. Does it mean accurately reflecting the wishes of the people who voted for you or does it mean doing what is best for your constituents, whether they know it or not? On the structural level, he means to explore whether electoral districts with multiple representatives might do a better job of making democracy, as it actually is, work.
Finally, Adrian is going to use some pretty nifty mathematical tools to reduce racial segregation in schools.