Classes

This workshop on spatial data analysis will be held at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science on 20 January 2010. The workshop is designed as a crash-course in key concepts and methods, with an emphasis on implementation and applications of spatial analysis for social science research. It covers basic data management and visualization, spatial autocorrelation, spatial weights, point pattern analysis, geostatistics, and spatial regression. Each section is followed by an exercise in R, in which participants will implement the techniques and models discussed in the slides.

Slides

• Applied Spatial Statistics in R

Project Files

• R Code + All Datasets
• Guide to Map Projections in R

This workshop on spatial data analysis was prepared for Ryan Enos’ GOV 2525 “Political Geography” course at Harvard University. The workshop is designed as a crash-course in key concepts and methods, with an emphasis on implementation and applications of spatial analysis for social science research. It covers basic data management and visualization, spatial autocorrelation, spatial weights, and spatial regression. Each section is followed by an exercise in R, in which participants will implement the techniques and models discussed in the slides.

To get started, (1) download and install R (http://cran.r-project.org/), (2) download the zip archive (see below) and extract the files into a working directory.

If you’ve never used R, this basic tutorial may be helpful: http://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/R-intro.pdf

The slides can be accessed through the links below.

A guide to common projections and the proj4 syntax in R is also attached.

• R Tutorial: Code and Data
• R Tutorial Slides 1
• R Tutorial Slides 2
• R Tutorial Slides 3
• Guide to Map Projections in R

Head Teaching Fellow (Course Head: Stephen M. Walt)

This course explores the causes of war. It examines the different theories that have been devised to explain organized violence between states (or groups seeking to control a state), and evaluates these competing theories by exploring several major conflicts of the past 100 years: World War I, World War II, the Cold War, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the recent wars in the Persian Gulf. The course also considers the phenomenon of ethnic conflict, the implications of nuclear weapons and the question of whether large-scale war is becoming “obsolescent.”

Teaching Fellow (Course Head: Robert H. Bates)

Comparative analysis of political economy of development drawing on case studies from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America.

Teaching Fellow (Course Head: Robert H. Bates)

Growth and development imply a transformation in the politics and economics of nations. How does this transformation take place? What economic forces and political struggles propel it? Drawing on anthropology, political science, and economics, the course explores the process of urbanization, state formation, war-making, and development.

Teaching Fellow (Course Head: Sumeeta Srinivasan)

This course introduces Geographical Information Systems and their applications. GIS is a combination of software and hardware with capabilities for manipulating, analyzing and displaying spatially referenced information. The course will meet two times a week. Every week, there will be a lecture and discussion as well as a laboratory exercise where students will work with GIS software on the computer.