Whether you do normative or empirical or quantitative research, much of that research is both related to political science and effective altruism. (If you are wondering if your research qualifies, see our list below of research areas that connect both fields.)
Nicholas Emery (EA UCLA leader and UCLA political science PhD student) and Mahendra Prasad (EA UC Berkeley leader and Berkeley political science PhD candidate) are planning to organize sessions and events at APSA, the largest annual meeting of political scientists in the US.
APSA 2021 is scheduled for September 30th-October 3rd 2021 in Seattle, by which time it is expected normal in-person meetings would have resumed safely.
If you are unfamiliar with APSA, read the summary of APSA proposal options. To increase your probability of acceptance, email Mahendra Prasad mrprasad@berkeley.edu with your proposal (that connects politics and EA) no later than January 3rd, 2021.
Mahendra and Emery will give advice on (1) editing your proposal and (2) which divisions or related groups to submit to in order to maximize your likelihood of acceptance. (Mahendra has had a proposal accepted at every APSA since 2016, but we cannot guarantee APSA will accept your proposal.) By January 7th, 2021, Emery or Mahendra will email you with guidance, and they will help shepherd your proposal until it is submitted by or before January 14th, 2021, which is the APSA deadline.
If your proposal is accepted, we will apply to the Centre for Effective Altruism (and perhaps other organizations) to help cover your travel and board expenses. (Note: Though we will try, we cannot guarantee funding.)
We will also try to organize mixers at APSA to encourage researchers (who do political science research related to EA) to get to know each other and collaborate, as well as give political science researchers unfamiliar with EA the opportunity to learn more about EA and find potential research collaborations.
Important Deadlines
January 3, 2021: Email mrprasad@berkeley.edu with your proposal. Please title your proposal email “My APSA Proposal”
January 7, 2021: You will receive a response from Nicholas or Mahendra
January 14, 2021: Current deadline to submit proposal to APSA
If you have any further questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to email Mahendra or Nicholas.
Research areas connecting effective altruism and political science
This is a non-comprehensive list.
- Algorithmic game theory
- Animal welfare
- Artificial intelligence
- Biological epidemics/warfare
- Climate change
- Computational modelling
- Decision theory
- Existential risks
- Extreme poverty & inequality
- Economics
- Forecasting
- Formal modelling
- Game theory
- Global catastrophic risks
- Global priorities research
- Great powers conflict minimization
- Institutional decision making
- Intergenerational governance
- Mechanism design
- Multiagent systems
- Moral uncertainty
- Nuclear disasters/warfare
- Political/economic/social philosophy
- Politics for the long term (e.g., longtermism)
- Quantitative methods (e.g., causal inference, machine learning, etc.)
- Social choice
- Value alignment