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Last Lecture
It is a tradition at UW for faculty to attend the last lecture that a colleague gives before retirement. Today it was our turn to send off Byron Shafer, Hawkins Chair of Political Science and author of numerous books on American politics—most recently, The American Political Pattern: Stability and Change, 1932-2016.1 Byron's lecture centered on this monograph's thesis that...
Not According to Plan
David Bordwell—the William Riker of film studies—writes: It’s a commonplace of film history that under Stalin (a name much in American news these days) the USSR forged a mass propaganda cinema. In order for Lenin’s “most important art” to transform society, cinema fell under central control. Between 1930 and 1953 a tightly coordinated bureaucracy...
The Illegitimate President
Russian intervention in the 2016 presidential election is the stain on Donald Trump’s presidency that will not go away. Trump will emerge from January’s inauguration viewed as an “illegitimate” president by large segments of the American population. But what does it mean to lack legitimacy? And does it matter? Any discussion of legitimacy begins with Max Weber, of course, and...
What Would a Russian Invasion of Ukraine Mean for Russia?
My Chicago colleague Zhaotian Luo and I weigh in over at the Monkey Cage blog: Putin is Gambling His Future—and Russia's.
Generational talent
Alexei Navalny is dead, murdered by the man whose corruption and brutality he dared to contest. — How is it, I sometimes hear from friends or relatives here, that in a country of 300 million we cannot find some more talented person to run for president? This, I believe, misunderstands the nature of politics. True political talent is extraordinarily rare. It...
What Joe Biden Could Learn About Reform from Tsar Alexander II
Joint with Eugene (Evgeny) Finkel. Cross-posted from Broadstreet, a blog devoted to historical political economy. Climate change, racial equity, immigration, healthcare: Joe Biden has a lot on his plate beyond bringing the pandemic to an end. In possession of the narrowest of majorities in the House and a ten-seat deficit in the Senate on all business that can be filibustered,...
Trump’s Win, Putin’s Loss
Nice catch by Max Trudolyubov, who notes that the Kremlin may have mixed feelings about Donald Trump's victory. As Konstantin Sonin and I discussed a couple of weeks ago, Trump's campaign rhetoric of a rigged system played right into Putin's hands. The goal of Kremlin propaganda is not to convince Russians that their elections are free and fair—they know...
The Rise of the Bullies
So, it's looking like the establishment will have its revenge on Trump. Trump is no Hitler in an important respect: he has no party of his own, just the one that he seized during the election, and so he is reliant on Republican regulars to staff the federal government. That's not a happy outcome for progressives—it is important to emphasize...
What Trump Knows (apropos of Korea, Putin, and Charlottesville)
Donald Trump is a little man who knows one big thing: the power of political rhetoric lies in not sounding like other politicians. He is not the first to understand this—Bill Clinton won the Democratic nomination in 1992 by playing against (1980s Democratic) type—but few have honed the tool to such perfection.During the presidential campaign, this furthered two goals....
The Parable of Vladimir Meciar
I received a message this morning from a friend unable to start the day, so in despair was she over recent events. My response was curt: "Get out of bed and write a check to the ACLU. Then find a protest to join or a refugee center where you can volunteer. This is no time to be defeatist. This...