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I’m beginning a new project at Stanford/CDDRL called “The Governance Project.” The intention is to focus on conceptualizing and measuring governance, and applying those measures to two specific countries, China and the United States. The beginning point of the project is definition of governance that excludes the degree to which governments are either democratic or subject to a rule of law that constrains the executive. The reason for this is simple: it seems obvious to me that countries can be better or worse governed regardless of whether they are liberal democracies or not.
A few of us who were elected in the mid-1970s saw a tidal wave coming in the form of two historic revolutions: globalization and information. What we needed was a national policy to manage the shift of our economic base from traditional manufacturing industry to the new information technologies. That was, or should have been, the task of progressive liberals. Instead, liberals have taken refuge in a New Deal cathedral that the highly experimental Franklin Roosevelt would have been the first to escape.
Debunking The Atlantic‘s alarmism over genetically modified foods.
“Liberals need to be shaken,” says Jonathan Haidt. They “simply misunderstand conservatives far more than the other way around.”
Henry Miller’s fiction is today known for its lurid depictions of women as sex objects, but this 1970s-era critique is just one among many takes on the mercurial writer. Charting Tropic of Cancer‘s path from ban to best-seller reveals the cultural critic to be a most unreliable narrator.
President Obama is fond of quoting Abraham Lincoln, and this year’s State of the Union address was no exception. Then as ever, he deploys Lincoln’s words to make the precise opposite point than originally intended.
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Kim Jong-il is dead. Does the succession of his son Kim Jong-un present a moment for tougher sanctions, hard containment, more robust engagement, or continued patience and caution? North Korea watchers from China, Japan and the U.S. State Department game out short- and long-term solutions to the DPRK conundrum.
Books
Declinism's Fifth Wave
Waves of declinist sentiment have continually rippled through the American consciousness. Tom Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum's That Used to Be Us shows us why today’s declinists may have hit the mark closer than ever before, but, like all good prophets, they also show us a path out of perdition.
Books
Essaying Epstein
Some say the essay belongs at the "kid's table" of literary genres. Undaunted, master essayist Joseph Epstein has deftly deployed the form to explore humanity—from its virtues (ambition, friendship) to its vices (envy, snobbery, and gossip). Whatever his subject, Epstein's good-natured humor marks a distinctive mode of cultural self-reflection.
Books
Sky King
Martin Van Creveld thinks that airpower is in irreversible decline, even though many remain unshaken in their faith in its capacity to win wars on the cheap. The Age of Airpower is a lively history of warfare, but ultimately misguided. Even as Pentagon budgets fall prey to the new mood of austerity prevailing in Washington, airpower still has an important role to play.
Music
Elvis Lives!
When talented performers become cultural icons, their music often becomes subsumed in the cult of personality. We tend, for example, to think of Elvis as a revered symbol or the butt of jokes about outlandish jumpsuits and blue-haired old ladies. It's high time someone help us get past Elvis-as-kitsch and answer the real question about him: Was he any good?
Retroview
Francis Parkman's Indian Problem
Francis Parkman’s vivid books on France and Britain’s travails in North America have surprising relevance to two overarching conflicts in political discourse today: government regulation of the economy, and responses to terrorism.
