So, Newsweek has had this "Special Election Project" running for some time, where reporters were embedded with the campaigns and their reports embargoed until after election day. They seem to have unearthed some gems, including this one from our 44th President:
So when Brian Williams is asking me about what's a personal thing that you've done [that's green], and I say, you know, "Well, I planted a bunch of trees." And he says, "I'm talking about personal." What I'm thinking in my head is, "Well, the truth is, Brian, we can't solve global warming because I fucking changed light bulbs in my house. It's because of something collective."
Collective, eh? Socialismo o Muerte! Seriously though, I'm very happy this guy is going to the White House. So on behalf of all of use at FTB, I'd like to congratulate Barack Obama for being the first recipient of the Chase Utley Award for Excellence in Dropping the F-Bomb.
Showing posts with label DoPo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DoPo. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Monday, May 5, 2008
Differing methods of interest group capture
Becker and Posner have posts up this week about the whys and wherefores of agricultural subsidies. Becker, in particular, notes that agricultural subsidies are the rule in wealthy countries, and therefore we shouldn't be blaming subsidies on uniquely American institutions, such as the disproportionate power of small states in the Senate or the position of Iowa in primary politics. He also compares the agricultural subsidies in rich nations to agricultural taxes in poor nations, and concludes that what's going on can be attributed to the power of small, comparatively rich interests groups (first-world farmers and third-world urbanites, respectively) to manipulate the government into privileging them at the expense of large, comparatively poor interest groups.
This is all well and good, and certainly true to some extent, but I think the analysis fails to deal with a key point, which is that governments in poor countries tend to be less stable than governments in rich countries, and are thus much more vulnerable to violent overthrow. Since the seat of the government is in the cities, and because cities are naturally more volatile due to high population density (and perhaps due to other factors such as weaker family structures and demographic differences, i.e. more young, unmarried, riot-prone men) this gives third-world urbanites a level with which to capture the state that is not based on being a small, rich interest group.
It seems to me that, historically, the factors that Becker points out are more important, as countries were better able to control their populations and keep the poor from migrating into the cities. Now, however, as the poor continue to move from rural areas into urban ones, the threat of violence becomes a larger concern.
As an added and unrelated bonus, this is the best thing I've read today (hit tip to Marc Ambinder).
This is all well and good, and certainly true to some extent, but I think the analysis fails to deal with a key point, which is that governments in poor countries tend to be less stable than governments in rich countries, and are thus much more vulnerable to violent overthrow. Since the seat of the government is in the cities, and because cities are naturally more volatile due to high population density (and perhaps due to other factors such as weaker family structures and demographic differences, i.e. more young, unmarried, riot-prone men) this gives third-world urbanites a level with which to capture the state that is not based on being a small, rich interest group.
It seems to me that, historically, the factors that Becker points out are more important, as countries were better able to control their populations and keep the poor from migrating into the cities. Now, however, as the poor continue to move from rural areas into urban ones, the threat of violence becomes a larger concern.
As an added and unrelated bonus, this is the best thing I've read today (hit tip to Marc Ambinder).
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Gender and incumbency, or: girl-on-girl political action
An interesting pattern I noticed in the 2006 midterm elections is that women seem to run disproportionately against other women. More precisely, it seems that female incumbents face female challengers more often than male incumbents face female challengers.
Being the intrepid social scientist that I am, I dug up this paper on the subject, which confirms my suspicions: they report that women are both more likely to seek the opposition nomination and more likely to be the opposition candidate when the incumbent is female as opposed to when the incumbent is male.
What the paper does not do a very good job at is figuring out why this happens, although they do offer several hypotheses. One possibility is that this is a deliberate strategic decision on the part of parties, to try to neutralize a perceived gender advantage on the part of the incumbent. Another is that it might be a strategic decision on the part of the individual candidate: if a woman has won office, women should be more inclined to run for office. And, most simply, it may just be that some congressional districts will randomly have a high concentration of female politicians, and that those districts will clearly both be won more often by women and contested more often by women.
Shooting from the hip, I would say that the first hypothesis (which was my initial thought when I observed this anecdotally) is the least convincing: if we think that men are at a real or perceived disadvantage facing women in a general election, one would imagine we would see a lot more women in Congress. Occam's Razor inclines me towards the last hypothesis, but I believe getting the true story from the statistics will require a little "persuasion" with an instrument or two. I'll keep you posted on my progress.
Edit: Link now goes to paper.
Being the intrepid social scientist that I am, I dug up this paper on the subject, which confirms my suspicions: they report that women are both more likely to seek the opposition nomination and more likely to be the opposition candidate when the incumbent is female as opposed to when the incumbent is male.
What the paper does not do a very good job at is figuring out why this happens, although they do offer several hypotheses. One possibility is that this is a deliberate strategic decision on the part of parties, to try to neutralize a perceived gender advantage on the part of the incumbent. Another is that it might be a strategic decision on the part of the individual candidate: if a woman has won office, women should be more inclined to run for office. And, most simply, it may just be that some congressional districts will randomly have a high concentration of female politicians, and that those districts will clearly both be won more often by women and contested more often by women.
Shooting from the hip, I would say that the first hypothesis (which was my initial thought when I observed this anecdotally) is the least convincing: if we think that men are at a real or perceived disadvantage facing women in a general election, one would imagine we would see a lot more women in Congress. Occam's Razor inclines me towards the last hypothesis, but I believe getting the true story from the statistics will require a little "persuasion" with an instrument or two. I'll keep you posted on my progress.
Edit: Link now goes to paper.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Weekly Reader: Great Speeches Edition
In the wake of Barack Obama's speech on racism in America, [Text] [Video] the only thing on which most pundits agree is that it was courageous and honest. There's a lot of "it's good, but will it get them off their tractors?" speculation going around, but rather than indulging our baseless opinions (never fear, Michael Gerson is on the job) we'll link to some of the other speeches it's being compared to. We'll also throw in a couple of other fantastic speeches that you probably haven't read but really should.
Martin Luther King, Jr: "Why I am Opposed To The War In Vietnam" [Text]
Robert Kennedy: "Statement on the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr."
Robert Kennedy: "Challenge to GDP"
Above all, I'd recommend MLK's Vietnam speech. The echoes of our own times that flow through his words are striking. Beyond that, his uncompromising and consistent moral vision is at the heart of liberalism and a remarkable contrast to the role that Christianity has played in our national politics recently.
I'd also like to point out Ed Kilgore's article on Obama and His Church, which delves into the relationship between Trinity UCC and the community and highlights some of the differences regarding the role of the church in white and black life.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Sovereignty and Anarchy
While the internet isn't hurting for intellectually dishonest pontifications on the subject of international relations, there's surprisingly little actual discussion of the fundamentals of IR and foreign policy. We at FTB suspect there is a shocking level of ignorance of these basic ideas among both the major editorial writers and their readership. Thus, we get Thomas Friedman's intellectually hard-hitting bubble theory of history capped by his SUCK. ON. THIS. approach to foreign policy. Honestly, we can't even mock his interview because he spends 2+ minutes rambling about a wall-hopping, talking, metaphysical bubble that he wants to beat to death with a stick. Watch it, and think back on those heady days of the 1990's when everyone thought terrorism was groovy and OK.
Unfortunately, the academic side of IR is produced and consumed by a tiny audience. The members of the academic community aren't ignorant of the screeds that fill our nation's newspapers, but prefer to take a hands off approach and surrender that territory to the dread Krauthammer and the foolish Friedman. Of course, our aged protestant grandmother taught us that if you surrender the pulpit you don't get to complain about the sermon. In that spirit, and embracing the style of our earlier Dr. Doom vs. Voltron analysis, we present a couple of central tenets of IR theory:
Sovereignty
So, back in 1648 Europe decided that the Thirty Years War wasn't the ripping good time everybody thought it would be. After all, there are only so many times you can set a Catholic/Protestant on fire before someone decides to set you on fire and then it becomes old hat rather quickly. One of the important outcomes of the Peace of Westphalia was that it established the principle of territorial integrity, which, vastly simplified, says "this area is France, in France the French sovereign says what's what, and those flippin' British don't get a say in our internal affairs." Pretty straightforward, right? Well, there was a long period of time when the Catholic Church was running around telling people how they could run their principalities, excommunicating rulers, and whatnot. Henry VIII notably took exception to this state of affairs, with sexy results.
So that's more or less what we have now. We can tell France that we don't like their labor practices and that they'd be a lot richer if they spent less time sipping wine and smoking and more time working. But, in the end, the French get to look at us cockeyed, take a long drag from their Gauloises and maybe nibble a bit of gruyere. Because that's how the French do, and in France nobody except the French gov't gets to say otherwise. Even then, it doesn't always work out so well.
Anarchy
Now, this isn't your great-grandaddy's anarchy. It doesn't have anything to do with Bakunin or McKinley's assassination. Instead, it's a fundamental characteristic that arises when you have a system of sovereign states. In IR jargon, anarchy simply means that there's no world government with the obligation to address the crises that crop up in the world.
Again, this wasn't always the case. Back in the day, you could whine to the Pope that a particular prince or king was embarking on an unjust course of action, and the Pope would duly threaten to excommunicate the sovereign in question. In those days, excommunication was a hassle. Your nobles would immediately start plotting your downfall, and if someone happened to put a knife in you, your soul went straight to hell. The Pope had the power to proclaim a general truce in Europe (frequently so that everybody could send their soldiers to die in the Holy Land). One upside of being Pope is that nobody can excommunicate you, so it wasn't long before a few enterprising Popes figured out that they could have a war anytime they felt like it. To bring this tangent full circle, it was this lack of accountability that led to a lot of the bad blood (and real blood) during the Reformation, which led to the 30 Years War, which led to the Peace of Westphalia.
Anyway, there's no world government and you can't whine to the Pope anymore. We IR nerds refer to this state of affairs as "anarchy." These two concepts have implications we'll explore in another entry, after we talk about cooking and the Yankees for a while.
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