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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...
A Bit More about Theory in Historical Political Economy
Cross-posted from Broadstreet, a blog devoted to historical political economy. As Volha mentioned in her post on Monday, she, Eugene Finkel, and I are working on something—a review of the field of historical political economy for an audience of political scientists. As part of that process, I have been thinking about the role of theory in HPE. Sean Gailmard’s recent...
Sean Spicer is no Joseph Goebbels
Donald Trump's first full day in office was marked by an all-out assault on the press. Standing in front of the CIA's memorial wall, the president called journalists "the most dishonest human beings on earth" and made false claims about the size of...um, the crowds at his inauguration. White House press secretary Sean Spicer continued the theme, telling reporters...
History, Variously Defined
If you read my last post, you know that I've been busy moving. That, at least, is my excuse for not writing up some thoughts earlier on the first annual Summer Workshop in the Economic History and Historical Political Economy of Russia, held in Madison in late May. For three days, we had economists, historians, and political scientists in town...
1989
November 9, the day the Berlin Wall came down. I was watching CNN with my friends in Ann Arbor. It must have been early evening, as there was live video of young people on the wall—singing, crying, drinking champagne. I remember thinking at the time that this was a once-in-a-lifetime event, that I should scrape together enough...
What’s Next for the Study of Nondemocracy?
I'm back from a stimulating workshop on autocracy at Indiana University. Regina Smyth, Armando Razo, and Michael Alexeev have some exciting plans to institutionalize the study of nondemocracy at IU, and as part of the planning process they asked Konstantin (Kostya) Sonin and me to provide some perspective on the field. Armando joined us for a freewheeling discussion at...
Novyi god
Cross-posted from Broadstreet, a blog devoted to historical political economy. What is the New Year’s holiday? For many Americans, it is an opportunity to stay up late, to take a day off work, to watch some football, to resolve to do better. And that’s in a good year. It is no surprise that a 2011 poll found that few ranked...
I’m Moving
For every one of the sixteen years I have held a Ph.D., I have been a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Beginning with my seventeenth year, I will be at the University of Chicago, with a joint appointment in the Department of Political Science and the Harris School of Public Policy. It is a bittersweet moment. I...
Serendipity
My paper with Paul Dower, Evgeny Finkel, and Steve Nafziger on “Collective Action and Representation in Autocracies” is out in the most recent issue of the APSR. It’s the latest installment in a project on reform and rebellion in Imperial Russia that, for me, never would have happened had I not ventured into the library stacks during my first...
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...