Category: Political Science
New Cato blog
Michael Cannon, David Boaz, and Will Wilkinson are among the early posters, here is the link. By the way, here is a Cato paper on George Bush’s constitutional record.
Jean-Francois Revel dies
It has been a tough week for writers, here is one obituary. Here is Wikipedia. Here is a review of his essay on why Europeans hate Americans. Revel was probably the most important conservative French thinker of the last thirty or forty years; his writings on food and gastronomy also repay the effort of study.
The Great State of Northern Virginia
Competitive federalism has many advantages. Citizens can move to communities that better reflect their preferences for public goods, they can vote with their feet, thereby penalizing poorly performing governments, and they can serve as a salutary example for others by trying out new ideas in governing.
Yet, in 1789 the United States had 13 states and four million people. If the number of states had grown as fast as the number of people or if
we in the United States had about the same amount of federalism as do
the contemporary Swiss we would today have about 1000 states.
I think we need more states. If 1000 sounds extreme why is 50 the magic number? And why is 50 the magic number when the population is 150 million as when it is 300 million?
James Buchanan (my colleague not the one who was President) once asked, "Who will join me in offering to make a small contribution to the Texas Nationalist Party? Or to the Nantucket Separatists?" I side with Jim, in saying sign me up!
The Fox News Effect, revisited
Earlier today I reported on a "new" study of how Fox News influences voting patterns; the authors concluded:
We find a significant effect of the introduction of Fox News on the vote share in Presidential elections between 1996 and 2000.
On Wikipedia, however, you can find this link, to a May 2005 version of the paper, by the same authors. (An alert reader, "MN," pointed me to this.) Then the authors concluded:
We find no significant effect of the introduction of Fox News on the vote share in Presidential elections between 1996 and 2000.
Hmm…there is much to be said for changing your mind. Given my motivated dentist and my forthcoming trip to Chicago, I don’t have the time to get to the bottom of this discrepancy, but comments are open in case you can explain how and why the two papers differ. I am glad I titled that earlier post "Fox News Seems to Matter".
Addendum: Mark Thoma had noted the same a few days ago.
Fox News seems to matter
Does media bias affect voting? We address this question by looking at
the entry of Fox News in cable markets and its impact on voting.
Between October 1996 and November 2000, the conservative Fox News
Channel was introduced in the cable programming of 20 percent of US
towns. Fox News availability in 2000 appears to be largely
idiosyncratic. Using a data set of voting data for 9,256 towns, we
investigate if Republicans gained vote share in towns where Fox News
entered the cable market by the year 2000. We find a significant effect
of the introduction of Fox News on the vote share in Presidential
elections between 1996 and 2000. Republicans gain 0.4 to 0.7 percentage
points in the towns which broadcast Fox News. The results are robust to
town-level controls, district and county fixed effects, and alternative
specifications. We also find a significant effect of Fox News on Senate
vote share and on voter turnout. Our estimates imply that Fox News
convinced 3 to 8 percent of its viewers to vote Republican. We
interpret the results in light of a simple model of voter learning
about media bias and about politician quality. The Fox News effect
could be a temporary learning effect for rational voters, or a
permanent effect for voters subject to non-rational persuasion.
Here is the link and paper.
War & Peace & War
The core theses of this book are straightforward:
1. Some societies face multiethnic frontiers, and they respond by developing higher levels of cooperation. You have to bind together to clear out and kill those Indians.
2. Eventually the result is empire.
3. Empires decay. They wallow in luxury and the preconditions behind their previously high levels of cooperation go away.
4. The ability to cooperate is the key variable in human history.
So argues Peter Turchin — a professor of ecology — in his recent War & Peace & War: The Life Cycles of Imperial Nations. Imagine Jared Diamond’s method extended into the formation of empires and the origins of war, with a dose of Hari Seldon, and you have this book.
In addition to the broader theses, Turchin takes on why Europe stayed disunited after the collapse of the Carolingian Empire (disunity was the default setting), why the eastern and western parts of the Roman Empire took such different courses (the Eastern Empire was largely a new creation), why the fall of the Roman Empire has earlier roots than you think (the frontier changed in nature), and why the Russians have been so obedient to tyrannical rulers (egalitarian structures, combined with a frontier). The author does not shy away from bold claims, nor does he give much attention to possible counterexamples; try his other books for further support but don’t expect your doubts to be resolved.
Some of the sentences scare me: "Cliodynamics predicts complex dynamical behavior for historical empires, with shorter cycles embedded within longer cycles, and so on [sic]."
If you judge a book by its vulnerability to criticism, this one makes for easy pickings. But Tolstoy wasn’t crazy, Ibn Khaldun is more important than you think, and Turchin will tell you why. Recommended, especially for those who like fearless and speculative minds.
Rating the Millennium Challenge Corporation
Lord Kelvin said "If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it." He’s right which is one reason the explosion in measurement in development economics and foreign aid is so important. Reagrding the latter the Millennium Challenge Corporation awards aid to countries that perform well on a set of variables such as political rights, civil liberties, the costs of starting a business, trade policy and other variables. It’s important that most of these variables are measured by outside organizations and not the countries getting the aid.
How well has the MCC worked? In a new paper Doug Johnson and Tristan Zajonc find that candidates for MCC aid improve their performance to a greater degree on more indicators than similar control countries. Johnson and Zajonc have a great graph which illustrates one of their research designs. The first panel is candidate and control countries before the MCC when we would not expect many differences, the second panel is the same countries after the MCC was put in place when we would expect the MCC to have an incentive effect on candidate but not control countries, the last panel subtracts the differences in the second panel from the differences in the first to arrive at the difference-in-difference estimate – most of the gains are positive and fairly large.
We do not yet have any evidence that improvement on the indicators will improve growth or reduce poverty but at least we are measuring, the first to step to improving.
Will we attack Iran?
Matt Yglesias links to some who see an imminent attack. Daniel Drezner offers commentary as well. Here is Seymour Hersh.
The core economic issue is this: in the midst of a "chicken" game, which verbal cues should lead you to conclude that things are going well (poorly) for your side? Alas, I don’t know a good treatment of this problem, whether theoretical or experimental.
Under one view, there is no correlation between rumors and real plans. Disregard the rumors.
Alternatively, you may view current rumors as orchestrated. But you might infer the probability of an attack as less likely. The rumors could be an attempt to scare Iran and thus they are a substitute for attacking. A true intent to attack might do better as a (relative) surprise. Of course Iran knows this reasoning also, so why should orchestrated rumors succeed?
Another scenario: perhaps our government is anti-rational, perhaps by the nature of bureaucracy. In this view, the rumors are orchestrated, we usually do what makes no sense, so that means an attack is coming.
How about this? We make lots of noise, hoping to scare Iran. If the noise doesn’t work (which it won’t) then we might feel we must attack, having put our credibility on the line. Fred Kaplan argues that a tough public stance locks us in; we should instead be letting Teheran receive secret signals that we mean business. The lock-in effect is a danger. But don’t assume a (supposedly) secret signal is better; it costs little to send and it might be regarded by the Iranians as a trick, again to be ignored.
What do the betting markets say?: Over at www.tradesports.com, the implied probability of a U.S. or Israeli attack before December is running about 20 percent (look under "Current Events"). For before March 07 it is running about 25 percent. These numbers are up from a few weeks ago.
The bottom line: We will not win this game.
Against Transcendence
Deirdre McCloskey gave the inaugural James M. Buchanan Lecture last week, The Hobbes Problem: From Machiavelli to Buchanan. It was a good start to the series, eloquent, learned, and heartfelt. McCloskey argued that the Hobbesian programme of building the polis on prudence alone, a program to which the moderns, Rawls, Buchanan, Gauthier and others have contributed is barren. A good polis must be built upon all 7 virtues, both the pagan and transcendent, these being courage, justice, temperance, and prudence but also faith, hope and love (agape).
In the lecture, McCloskey elided the difficult problems of the transcendent virtues especially as they apply to politics (I expect a more complete analysis in the forthcoming book). Faith, hope, and love sound pleasant in theory but in practice there is little agreement on how these virtues are instantiated. It was love for their eternal souls that motivated the inquisitors to torture their victims. President Bush wants to save Iran…with nuclear bombs. Faith in the absurd is absurd. Thanks but no thanks.
Since we can’t agree on the transcendent virtues injecting them into politics means intolerance and division. Personally, I’d be happy to see the transcendent virtues fade away but I know that’s
unrealistic. The next best thing, therefore, is to insist that the transcendent virtues be reserved for civil society and at all costs be kept out of politics. The pagan virtues alone provide room for agreement in a cosmpolitan society, a society of the hetereogeneous.
Of course, in all this I follow Voltaire:
Take a view of the Royal Exchange in London, a place more venerable
than many courts of justice, where the representatives of all nations
meet for the benefit of mankind. There the Jew, the Mahometan, and the
Christian transact together, as though they all professed the same
religion, and give the name of infidel to none but bankrupts. There
the Presbyterian confides in the Anabaptist, and the Churchman depends
on the Quaker’s word. At the breaking up of this pacific and free
assembly, some withdraw to the synagogue, and others to take a glass.
This man goes and is baptized in a great tub, in the name of the
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: that man has his son’s foreskin cut off,
whilst a set of Hebrew words (quite unintelligible to him) are mumbled
over his child. Others retire to their churches, and there wait for the
inspiration of heaven with their hats on, and all are satisfied.If one religion only were allowed in England, the Government would
very possibly become arbitrary; if there were but two, the people would
cut one another’s throats; but as there are such a multitude, they all
live happy and in peace.
Inconvenient questions about immigration
MR readers will know I hold a relatively cosmopolitan stance, sympathetic to immigration, including the immigration of low-skilled labor. But notice the tension with Milton Friedman’s classic stance that businesses should maximize profit only, without regard for broader social concerns. If businesses have this liberty to behave selfishly, why do not governments? Similarly, cannot a mother give priority to her child, rather than selling it to save ten babies in Haiti? Why should governments be the unique carrier of cosmopolitan obligations?
I see a few possible stances:
1. Randall Parker thinks Western governments should be be elitist, nationally selfish, and determined to maximize national average IQ.
2. Perhaps government holds special obligations. Robert Goodin argued that government should be utilitarian while other institutions pursue selfish concerns. But where does this dichotomy come from, and still, why should the concerns of a government stretch past its citizenry?
3. Peter Singer and Shelley Kagan believe that all entities, whether collective or individual, should take the most cosmopolitan view possible. For Singer this includes the consideration of other species. Few people are willing to live the implications of this.
4. We have not (yet?) found a universally correct perspective from all vantage points. We have public obligations, private obligations, and no clear algorithm for squaring the two. We nonetheless can find local improvements consistent with both, or which do not greatly damage our private interests. Freer immigration, even when costly, is one of the cheapest and most liberty-consistent ways of addressing our (admittedly ill-defined) obligations to others. But surely those obligations are not zero. This implies, by the way, that Friedman’s maxim is not strictly accurate.
Note that libertarians are often extreme nationalists when it comes to foreign policy ("Darfur is no concern of ours") but extreme cosmopolitans when it comes to immigration.
My views are closest to #4. Our inability to fully embrace cosmopolitanism is a central reason why the case for open borders is not more persuasive. Many people hear the cosmopolitan call and sense, instinctively, that something is wrong. But when we view the argument in explicitly economic terms — what is the best way of satisfying marginal obligations which are surely not zero? — the case for a liberal immigration policy is stronger.
The Tullock paradox: why is there so little lobbying?
…the economist Thomas Stratmann has estimated that just $192,000 of contributions from the American sugar industry in 1985 made the difference between winning and losing a crucial House vote that delivered more than $5 billion of subsidies over the five subsequent years.
That is one example of many. Our government controls trillions, but lobbying expenditures are a small fraction of gdp. One explanation, which Tim cites, is that our government is not for sale. This is true for most major programs, such as social security. Voters have the dominant say.
But how about the details of smaller policies? Why aren’t the benefits of those redistributions exhausted by lobbying expenditures? My preferred explanation involves competition. In principle, more than one coalition is capable of winning a political game. If your winning coalition demands too high a bribe from interest groups, you will be undercut by another coalition able to deliver the policy for less. Government is not a unitary agent. This also helps explain, by the way, why democracy is stable rather than wracked by intransitive cycling. If you just write down different voting profiles, it appears any winning coalition can be outdone by another (at least for a multi-dimensional policy space). But if you add differential costs of organization to the mix, and make collecting the votes part of an explicit but imperfectly contestable market, you are much closer to getting a unique or near-unique outcome.
Ideas in this post are drawn from a paper by Roger Congleton and Bob Tollison. Here is a recent paper on the same topic.
Does Nation Building Work?
Nation-building Military Occupations by the
United States and Great Britain, 1850-2000
Payne, James. 2006. Does Nation Building Work? The Independent Review. 10 (4).
U.S. Occupations
Austria 1945-1955 success
Cuba 1898-1902 failure
Cuba 1906-1909 failure
Cuba 1917-1922 failure
Dominican Republic 1911-1924 failure
Dominican Republic 1965-1967 success
Grenada 1983-1985 success
Haiti 1915-1934 failure
Haiti 1994-1996 failure
Honduras 1924 failure
Italy 1943-1945 success
Japan 1945-1952 success
Lebanon 1958 failure
Lebanon 1982-1984 failure
Mexico 1914-1917 failure
Nicaragua 1909-1910 failure
Nicaragua 1912-1925 failure
Nicaragua 1926-1933 failure
Panama 1903-1933 failure
Panama 1989-1995 success
Philippines 1898-1946 success
Somalia 1992-1994 failure
South Korea 1945-1961 failure
West Germany 1945-1952 success
British Occupations
Botswana 1886-1966 success
Brunei 1888-1984 failure
Burma (Myanmar) 1885-1948 failure
Cyprus 1914-1960 failure
Egypt 1882-1922 failure
Fiji 1874-1970 success
Ghana 1886-1957 failure
Iraq 1917-1932 failure
Iraq 1941-1947 failure
Jordan 1921-1956 failure
Kenya 1894-1963 failure
Lesotho 1884-1966 failure
Malawi (Nyasaland) 1891-1964 failure
Malaysia 1909-1957 success
Maldives 1887-1976 success
Nigeria 1861-1960 failure
Palestine 1917-1948 failure
Sierra Leone 1885-1961 failure
Solomon Islands 1893-1978 success
South Yemen (Aden) 1934-1967 failure
Sudan 1899-1956 failure
Swaziland 1903-1968 failure
Tanzania 1920-1963 failure
Tonga 1900-1970 success
Uganda 1894-1962 failure
Zambia (N. Rhodesia) 1891-1964 failure
Zimbabwe (S. Rhodesia) 1888-1980 failure
How to fight corruption
Football referees in Nigeria can
take bribes from clubs but should not allow them to influence
their decisions on the pitch, a football official said on
Friday.Fanny Amun, acting Secretary-General of the Nigerian
Football Association, said bribery was common in the Nigerian
game."We know match officials are offered money or anything to
influence matches and they can accept it," Amun told Reuters on
Friday…"Referees should only pretend to fall for the bait, but make
sure the result doesn’t favour those offering the bribe," Amun
said.
Here is the full story, and thanks to David (not Tom) Williamson for the pointer.
An underlying tension in libertarianism
On the one hand, [Charles] Murray says he wants to liberate citizens
from the welfare state so they can live life however they choose.
On the other hand, by liberating citizens from the welfare state,
he hopes to force them back into lives of traditional bourgeois
virtue.
Read more here. Many Swedes, of course, consider themselves highly individualistic, precisely for this reason.
Thanks to www.politicaltheory.info for the pointer.
Transparency vs. generality
The cause of classical liberalism as a really existing possibility for
political reform has been harmed by bundling free markets with a ban on
transfers. This package deal has influenced people who think justice
requires transfers to eschew free markets. If we had spent the last
forty years hammering away at liberal fundamentals like transparency
and generality instead of the natural right to not be taxed, our
society would now be closer to the free market, limited government
ideal.
That is from Will Wilkinson, commenting on Asymmetrical Information. I am personally a bigger fan of transparency than generality, noting that the two often conflict. What if only some people need helping? The best policy response won’t be perfectly general, nor should we force it to be.
Many fiscal conservatives argue that Medicare should be a welfare program and not for all old people. If you wish to argue that it must be universal to be adequately funded, you are giving up on transparency but holding on to generality.
Will’s paragraph makes me wonder whether value of transparency is, or ever can be, transparent.