blognetnews.com
» Econ

Daniel W. Drezner

  • Someone keep Fleet Street away from Bill Clinton

    So by now everyone knows that Bill Clinton thinks the American press corps is in the bag for Barack Obama. Indeed, I suspect that in their heart of hearts, more pundits and reporters like Obama than Clinton (though, as Chris Matthews pointed out a few weeks ago, what they really [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: June 04, 2008, 12:29am EDT

  • It rivals Buckley vs. Vidal, I tell you

    My latest bloggingheads diavlog is up. This one is with The American Prospect's Ezra Klein. Topic include Todd Purdum's Vanity Fair essay on Bill Clinton, why Ezra hates political science, and the state of public intellectuals in America. Go check it out (warning: the sound quality is a bit erratic)!!... [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: June 03, 2008, 9:49am EDT

  • So.... are the Clintons morons?

    James Fallows writes the following about Hillary Clinton's mindset in running against Barack Obama: The Clinton team doesn't worry about hurting Obama's prospects of winning in the fall, because they assess those prospects at zero. Always have. Obama might not win if he leads a bitterly divided party, but (in [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: June 02, 2008, 5:51pm EDT

  • The New York Times didn't ask me, but then again, that's why I have this blog

    The New York Times Book Review asked a bunch of writers which books they would recommend to the presidential candidates. Most of the submissions said more about the writer's politics than anything else, though I liked Gore Vidal's response best: I can only answer in the negative: I want them [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: June 01, 2008, 10:54am EDT

  • Monica Crowley's jet black pot

    On her blog, Monica Crowley disapproves of Scott McClellan's new tell-all book: [F]or someone who was once the president's confidante, someone he knew and trusted, someone who gave him the opportunity of a lifetime, to write a tell-all while that history is still being made, is not cool. There will [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: May 29, 2008, 5:54pm EDT

  • Al Qaeda is losing

    Last week, we sawquantitative evidence that terrorist tactics in general -- and Al Qaeda in partcular -- appears to be on the wane. This week, there's some qualitative evidence that Al Qaeda is losing, and losing badly, among its core constituency -- Muslims sympathetic to the cause of jihad.... [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: May 28, 2008, 2:07pm EDT

  • Speaking of karma....

    Appropos of my last post, it's worth remembering that five years ago western investors were fretting about the implosion of China's financial sector. In the here and now, you have this sort of gleeful comeuppance as reported by the FT's Jamil Anderlini: Western governments must strengthen their oversight of financial [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: May 28, 2008, 10:29am EDT

  • The blog post that writes itself

    From the Hollywood Reporter's Karen Chu: Sharon Stone, who last year was a guest of the Shanghai International Film Festival, now faces a boycott of her films in China after she suggested the devastating May 12 earthquake there could have been the result of bad "karma." Stone's remarks, made Thursday [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: May 28, 2008, 9:54am EDT

  • What made me laugh today

    If you read much about baseball on the web, you soon discover that Kansas City Star beat writer Joe Posnanski is someone who's worth reading. Posnanski proves this today in a hysterically funny tirade against those who worship at the feet of Derek Jeter -- not Jeter himself, but rather [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: May 27, 2008, 12:38pm EDT

  • Where should Hillary go?

    The New York Times' Carl Hulse and the Washington Post's Shailagh Murray and Paul Kane file similar reports: the notion that Hillary Clinton will downshift from presidential candidate to Senate Majority Leader or a similarly high-ranking position is complete fiction. To sum up: Clinton does not have a ton of [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: May 27, 2008, 10:11am EDT

  • There are crazy people everywhere

    Lots of people are fretting about the persistent and mistaken belief of some Americans that Barack Obama is a Muslim. [Not that there's anything wrong with that!--ed.] Over at his Politico blog, Ben Smith puts this 10% of mistaken Americans in perspective: [L]arge minorities of Americans consistently say they hold [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: May 27, 2008, 12:55am EDT

  • Are authoritative public intellectuals extinct?

    In his column today, David Brooks makes an provocative closing point: People in the 1950s used to earnestly debate the role of the intellectual in modern politics. But the Lionel Trilling authority-figure has been displaced by the mass class of blog-writing culture producers. Intriguingly, Brooks' observation echoes some of the [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: May 23, 2008, 10:22am EDT

  • Bloggingheads 911: Miami!!

    What happens when Bloggingheads.tv has three planned diavlogs collapse at the last minute? Why, they break the glass and call on the most reliable media whore in the business -- and Megan McArdle!! Go check it out. Topics discussed include the recent Israel-Syria negotiations, the uber-lame-duckness of George W. Bush, [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: May 23, 2008, 12:41am EDT

  • I'm huge in Ontario.... huge, I say

    The Agenda with Steve Paikin is TV Ontario's equivalent of Charlie Rose...at least, that's what they tell me. Anyway, I participated in their show on "The International Order" earlier this week: The search for a new international order at a time of profound global change: Is the global system established [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: May 22, 2008, 9:14am EDT

  • A powerful incentive to fix the comments feature on this blog

    Longtime readers are likely aware that I've been relatively slow to fix the comments feature on the blog. Partly this was due to being distracted by the day job, partly because I enjoy the peace and quiet that comes with an end to comment spam. It appears that John McCain [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: May 21, 2008, 3:23pm EDT

  • May the United States continue to be blessed with incompetent and stupid adversaries

    The Human Security Brief has released its 2007 report. The headline findings: Challenging the expert consensus that the threat of global terrorism is increasing, the Human Security Brief 2007 reveals a sharp net decline in the incidence of terrorist violence around the world. Fatalities from terrorism have declined by some [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: May 21, 2008, 1:40pm EDT

  • Hillary Clinton's remaining political argument for staying in

    Over at The Plank, Josh Patashnik makes an argument about the limited appeal of both Obama and Clinton: [W]hat's become clear at the end of this primary season is that neither Democratic candidate's appeal is as wide as Democrats would prefer. It's difficult to project what will happen in November [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: May 21, 2008, 12:54pm EDT

  • Regarding Angelina Jolie, I'd like to deny the rough sex

    Tirdad Derakhshani has an article in today's Philadelphia Inquirer on celebrity activism in politics in which I'm quoted. It's worth a read, but alas, it appears that my quote was sexed up a bit: Drezner, whose 2007 book, All Politics Is Global, analyzes how globalization affects international power relations, said [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: May 21, 2008, 9:44am EDT

  • Your political quote of the day

    Ed Rollins: Today, if you’re not rich or Southern or born again, the chances of your being a Republican are not great.From George Packer's New Yorker essay.... [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: May 20, 2008, 12:52pm EDT

  • Op-ed - actual research for op-ed = blogswarm

    Further evidence that, "it might be the case that bloggers serve an even greater good by engaging in quality control of other public intellectuals." Bill Kristol in today's New York Times: On Tuesday night, while the G.O.P. Congressional candidate was losing in a Mississippi district George Bush carried in 2004 [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: May 19, 2008, 5:10pm EDT

  • Because it's been a while since this blog really angered feminists....

    Matt Yglesias approvingly links to this New York Times story by Lisa Belkin from a few days ago arguing that women ae shut out of science and engineering because of rampant sexism: In the worlds of science, engineering and technology, it seems, the past is still very much present. “It’s [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: May 19, 2008, 11:16am EDT

  • How John McCain is not George W. Bush

    Matt Bai's lead essay on John McCain's foreign policy vision in the New York Times Magazine is worthwhile reading. In contrast to the Times story of a few weeks ago that inaccurately painted McCain as dealing with a tug-of-war between foreign policy advisors, Bai actually gets some face time with [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: May 18, 2008, 10:40am EDT

  • A nice word for Mike Huckabee

    I've made it pretty clear that I'm not Mike Huckabee's greatest fan. That said, I do think he's a decent human being, and liked this apology: During my speech at the NRA a loud noise backstage, that sounded like a chair falling, distracted the crowd and interrupted my speech. I [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: May 17, 2008, 3:28pm EDT

  • Are market forces emerging for pundits?

    I presented my paper on public intellectuals and the blogosphere earlier today, and received some very useful feedback. One particularly interesting point in response to my paper is that while my paper focused on bloggers as public intellectuals, it might be the case that bloggers serve an even greater good [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: May 16, 2008, 2:45pm EDT

  • My first take on sovereign wealth funds

    I have an article in the latest issue of The American entitled, "The Sovereigns Are Coming!" The main point: No question, the growth of SWFs puts advocates of open capital markets in a quandary. During debates over what to do with the Social Security trust fund a few years ago, [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: May 15, 2008, 3:00pm EDT

  • It's not like the Year of the Boar was all that great either

    In the wake of a deadly Chinese earthquake, The Associated Press reports that China has not had a great few months: China hoped 2008 would be a yearlong celebration, a time to bask in the spotlight of the upcoming Beijing Olympics. Instead, the Year of the Rat has also brought [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: May 13, 2008, 2:32pm EDT

  • Your book review of the day

    Robert Farley reads Strobe Talbott's The Great Experiment so you don't have to: To sum up, if you have trouble sleeping but can't get another prescription, check out The Great Experiment. If not, avoid it like the plague.... [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: May 13, 2008, 1:47pm EDT

  • But, but, but.... what will Mickey Kaus and Lou Dobbs have to complain about now?

    The Washington Post's N.C. Aizenman reports on how the large wave of immigrants coming to the United States over the past three decades have adapted. Turns out, the answer is -- more quickly than one would expect: In general, the longer an immigrant lives in the United States, the more [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: May 13, 2008, 12:20pm EDT

  • Blogs, public intellectuals and the academy

    For the millions thousands close relatives who are interested in my musings on the state of public intellectuals in America, you can read a draft of "Public Intellectuals 2.0" which I'll be presenting at a conference later this week at Boston University's Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs. While [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: May 13, 2008, 9:42am EDT

  • Please tell me this is a very late April Fool's joke

    I've een cautiously optimistic that John McCain would choouse a Ron Paul -type Republican (minus the conspiratorial bigotry) since the Huckabee wing of the party is much less likely to vote for Obama. Now James Pethokoukis reports the following on his Capital Commerce blog: Mike Huckabee, the former governor of [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: May 12, 2008, 2:11pm EDT

  • Hillary Clinton's inexcusable bigotry

    So I see that this quote from Hillary Clinton is now making the blog rounds: "I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: May 08, 2008, 4:54pm EDT

  • So Tuesday was a pretty good day....

    Earlier this week I received official word that I've been promoted to full professor, after a remarkably transparent and stress-free process. So how does it feel? Pretty damn good. After all, this happened just two and a half years years after the late unpleasantness. Despite that, it happened before I [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: May 08, 2008, 1:39pm EDT

  • The best commencement address you'll never hear

    Tis the season for commencement addresses. In the Los Angeles Times, P.J. O'Rourke provides advice you're unlikely to hear elsewhere. My favorite bit: Here we are living in the world's most prosperous country, surrounded by all the comforts, conveniences and security that money can provide. Yet no American political, intellectual [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: May 08, 2008, 12:48pm EDT

  • Some final thoughts on Hillary Clinton

    In the wake of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign being declared effectively dead by one and all, it is worth reflecting on what she gained by staying in the race for the past two months and change. Primarily, she managed to graft Bill Clinton's reputation as the indefatigable fighter who can [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: May 07, 2008, 11:36am EDT

  • America's awesome influence over the G8

    From today's Financial Times: Dan Price, the international economics official at the White House National Security Council, said the Group of Eight rich countries must ?lead by example?. Mr Price, one of the key officials preparing for the July G8 summit in Japan, told the Financial Times that the group [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: May 06, 2008, 12:38am EDT

  • Hillary Clinton's contribution to the all-purpose excuse genre

    To date, this blog has observed the political innovation of the All-Purpose Excuse -- the signature line that can be used to justify anything. Two examples: 1) "If we don't do it, the terrorists will win." 2) "If we don't do it, the Republicans will do it in the fall." [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: May 05, 2008, 9:49am EDT

  • What I said at the London conference

    Is summarized in https://blogs.princeton.edu/globalforum/2008/05/panel-6-the-global-economy.htmlthis blog post. And I might have been the most upbeat person on the panel!... [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: May 02, 2008, 11:38am EDT

  • Why I'll be mute this week

    I'm in London for the latter half of this week attending a Global Leadership Forum conference entitled America and the World Beyond 2008: Future Challenges and Possibilities. The campaign panel was certainly not boring -- for me, the entertaining highlight was when Peter Wehner unironically compared John McCain to Pericles [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: May 01, 2008, 7:54am EDT

  • Bitter academics, tenure, torture, and pie

    These are all topics for conversation in my latest diavlog with Megan McArdle. Go check it out! For a dissent on the pie-throwing question, click here. Apparently I'd understand it -- if only I had a soul.... [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: May 01, 2008, 7:50am EDT

  • A real policy difference. Yippee!!

    The New York Times' John Broder reports on a genuine, honest-to-goodness policy disagreement among the Democratic presidential candidates: Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton lined up with Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, in endorsing a plan to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: April 29, 2008, 10:17am EDT

  • What did GDP ever do to deserve this?

    One of the more invidious comparisons analysts like to make is to compare the size of something with a country's gross domestic product. An old warhorse of political economy/anti-corporate types, for example, is to say that the sales of multinational corporations exceeds many countries GDP. This is true but irrelevant [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: April 29, 2008, 10:03am EDT

  • The world is in deep, deep trouble

    Forget everything I've said defending public intellectuals. I've just seen Foreign Policy/Prospect magazine's latest list of the top 100 public intellectuals. Rather than quibble with the definition/ranking methodology, let's take the list as gospel. This is the graphic that scares me: If political scientists -- perhaps, God forbid, American political [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: April 25, 2008, 11:35am EDT

  • How Chinese nationalists are like blog commenters

    John Pomfret makes the connection: I've never really been able to take China nationalism that seriously. It's like some of the comments on my blog. There's no shortage of passion but it's also curiously skin deep. It's often a foil for anti-government feelings, employed by Chinese who are actually fed [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: April 25, 2008, 11:31am EDT

  • This is funny? Really?

    Look, I like ripping into Thomas Friedman as much as the next blogger -- but I can't agree with Matt Yglesias that the following video is "funny": This is the kind of thing that accomplishes the following: A) It makes some people who dislike Friedman very happy; B) It makes [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: April 25, 2008, 10:43am EDT

  • The most comforting thing I've read about Obama today

    Michael Crowley has an essay in The New Republic on whether a President Obama would actually withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq. The key paragraph: The truth is Obama has no secret plan for Iraq. Interviews with nearly two dozen foreign policy and military experts, as well as Obama's campaign advisers, [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: April 24, 2008, 11:56am EDT

  • The dirty little secret of academia

    Over at Crooked Timber, Ingrid Robeyns considers the merits and demerits of part-time employment in the academy. She's doubtful that, as a model, it can work for those who wish to balance work and non-work activities (parenting, etc.): But my biggest doubt whether part-time work is such a splendid idea [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: April 24, 2008, 9:08am EDT

  • The Chinese response to the Olympics protest

    In my last post on the Olympics brouhaha, I voiced some concern about how the mass Chinese public would react to protests and statements of concern from the West. Over the weekend, we stated to see the blowback, as CNN reports: Protests against Tibetan independence have continued Sunday in several [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: April 23, 2008, 11:17am EDT

  • Looking for a non-pander

    Today, both Democratic candidates decided, "Hey, you know what would be a good idea? Complete and total pandering on the non-existent relationship between vaccines and autism!" Of course, in doing this, they were merely following John McCain's lead. Still, it's days like this when the major party candidates for president [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: April 23, 2008, 12:21am EDT

  • All purpose excuses

    A few months ago, I observed the following all-purpose excuse used by many conservatives in a bloggingheads episode: If I did [insert perfectly reasonable and ethical act here], the terrorist win. After ruminating on this Josh Marshall post, I now believe I have found an all purpose excuse for liberals: [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: April 21, 2008, 4:30pm EDT

  • I'm behind on my shameless self-promotion

    Last week's conference, combined with the start of Passover, has caused me to get behind in the self-promotion department. My latest commentary for Marketplace was last Friday, and discussed the Oakland A's and Billy Beane five years after the publication of Moneyball: The popularization of sabermetrics has left Beane with [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: April 21, 2008, 4:03pm EDT

  • A random elitist question

    Given the media firestorm over Obama's "bitter" statement, and given the overwhelming commetariat consensus that this episode would hurt Obama in the polls, and given the polling results clearly indicating this not to be the case in either Pennsylvania or across the country, what can be inferred? A) Gun-toting, small-town [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: April 16, 2008, 12:04pm EDT

  • I'm going to be a little busy this week

    Blogging will be be light for the next two days, as I'll be running a conference here at the Fletcher School on the Past, Present, and Future of Policymaking: 2007 marked the 60th anniversary of the founding of the State Department?s Policy Planning Staff. This agency, housed in the State [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: April 16, 2008, 9:06am EDT

  • The oldest theme in the business

    I'm beginning to wonder if there's a cognitive tic in my system that causes me to "not get" Jacob Heilbrunn's published output. Last month I was puzzled by Heilbrunn's assertion that Samantha Power represented a vanguard of angry Democrat foreign policy mavens. This month, Heilbrunn has an essay in World [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: April 15, 2008, 9:50am EDT

  • Trade politics and embarrassing biographical details

    You can hear me talk about the merits, demerits and politics of the proposed free trade agreement with Colombia on PRI's Fair Game with Faith Salie. As an added bonus, embarrassing biographical details of your humble blogger are revealed at the very end of the discussion. UPDATE: Wow, I had [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: April 15, 2008, 12:46am EDT

  • Through the prism of history, it's the "quiet diplomacy" of the Bush administration that will stand out

    I see that NSC advisor Stephen Hadley doesn't think much of a boycott of the opening ceremonies of the Olympics: It would be a "cop-out" for countries to skip the opening ceremonies at the Beijing Olympics as a way of protesting China's crackdown in Tibet, President Bush's national security adviser [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: April 14, 2008, 9:37am EDT

  • Hmmm... maybe Hillary

    The New York Times ran two stories today that don't make me feel all that confident about the likely major party nominees. The McCain story, by Elizabeth Bumiller and Larry Rohter, ostensibly writes about a tug of war between McCain's realist and neoconservative foreign policy advisors. The story tries to [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: April 10, 2008, 11:36pm EDT

  • Thoughts on the Colombia trade deal

    Kevin Drum and Matthew Yglesias have posts up on the free trade agreement with Colombia and wonder whether it's worth all the trouble it's going to create. Let's respond! Kevin's post boils down to the following facts: a) Trade contributes somewhat to rising inequality and stagnant wage growth at the [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: April 10, 2008, 9:52am EDT

  • Like Jon Stweart, I have the sense of humor of an eight-year old

    Forgive me, Jock:... [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: April 09, 2008, 5:58pm EDT

  • Glenn Greenwald's rage against the machine

    Remember when I said earlier this week that, "Glenn Greenwald might be a good blogger/collumnist, but he's not that great at social science"? I apologize -- I was clearly in error. Replace "good" with "simplistic and Jacobin" and replace "not that great at social science" with "not aware of the [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: April 08, 2008, 10:28pm EDT

  • So what's going to happen to the U.S. in Iraq?

    I ask this and many other quesions of Juan Cole over at bloggingheads.tv. Go check it out!... [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: April 08, 2008, 9:11pm EDT

  • Does a Beijing boycott make sense?

    In the wake of Olympic torch havoc, Hillary Clinton has called for George W. Bush to boycott the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Steve Clemons thinks this is a really bad idea: [S]he is out of bounds and reckless when calling for the weight of the [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: April 08, 2008, 9:52am EDT

  • There are rules to using "Far From Over"

    Via Eszter Hargittai, I see that sociologist Brian Donovan has devised an innoavative and fun way to broadcast the fact that the University of Kansas has granted him tenure: My only critique: first rule of Staying Alive: you can't play a song from from Staying Alive without including at least [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: April 07, 2008, 4:36pm EDT

  • You can't blame the media for everything

    Glenn Greenwald is getting a lot of play with this post, in which he says the following: In the past two weeks, the following events transpired. A Department of Justice memo, authored by John Yoo, was released which authorized torture and presidential lawbreaking. It was revealed that the Bush administration [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: April 07, 2008, 12:43pm EDT

  • Trade destroys jobs....inside the betway

    Freer trade doesn't lead to much job loss in the real economy -- but the effects of trade in the world of presidential campaigns can be devastating: Mr. [Mark] Penn, who has kept his job atop the global PR giant Burson-Marsteller to the chagrin of other officials in the Clinton [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: April 07, 2008, 9:03am EDT

  • Because The Atlantic is trying to diversify beyond Ivy League bloggers

    I'll be guest-blogging over at Megan McArdle's Atlantic blog for this week. The comments section there actually works, so blogging at this site will likely be minimal during this time period.... [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: March 31, 2008, 1:05am EDT

  • Your American foreign policy quote of the day

    I attended an ISA panel featuring several academics who had occupied high-ranking positions in the Bush administration. My take-away quote from a former policy planning director: Six years after 9/11, we still don't have a grand strategy.... [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: March 27, 2008, 11:00pm EDT

  • Should IR scholars expose themselves?

    Blogging will be light over the next few days, as your humble blogger racks up additional frequent flyer miles attends the International Studies Association annual meeting in San Francisco. In honor of ISA, here's the following academic-y post: Over at Duck of Minerva, Charli Carpenter is blogging about the motives [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: March 25, 2008, 2:03pm EDT

  • What's the worst movie ever?

    Alex Massie links to a Joe Queenan essay in the Guardian. Queenan takes advantage of the opportunity to review The Hottie and the Nottie to ponder the elements of the worst films of all time: To qualify as one of the worst films of all time, several strict requirements must [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: March 24, 2008, 3:45pm EDT

  • Note to self: do not bring short-shorts to Paris

    Elaine Sciolino bids a fond farewell to one of the best sinecures in journalism -- the Paris desk of the New York Times. Sciolino is a fine reporter/observer, and is not afraid to reveal the following embarrassing anecdote: Don?t Wear Jogging Clothes to Buy a Pound of Butter Rules govern [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: March 23, 2008, 1:32pm EDT

  • Dumbest poll ever

    I certainly think public opinion matters in the formulation of policy -- and that, over the long term, foreign policy leaders ignore the public at their peril. That said, this Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) poll/press release might be the dumbest f@#$ing thing I've ever seen: In sharp contrast [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: March 22, 2008, 10:04am EDT

  • The decline and split of the west?

    Another day, another online article. The topic of my latest Newsweek column is whether the West -- i.e., American and Europe -- can still act as the global policy leader. I'm not optimistic: America and Europe face political, economic and demographic challenges to their longstanding primacy. This is a delicate [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: March 21, 2008, 3:00pm EDT

  • Drezner predicts the political future!

    Me, last Tuesday: I should add that, based on what I've heard while here [with Bill Richardson], it's pretty damn obvious that Richardson would like to endorse Obama.The New York Times, today: Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who sought to become the nation?s first Hispanic president this year, plans [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: March 21, 2008, 9:20am EDT

  • Because the Nixon Center likes to make mischief

    My light sparring with Danielle Pletka apparently intrigued a lot of people in Washington. As a result, I have a short piece at the National Interest online about the foreign policy divide withi the GOP between realists and neoconservatives: This year's presidential campaign has highlighted the divide in Democratic foreign-policy [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: March 20, 2008, 1:58pm EDT

  • Walking the accessibility tightrope

    The New York Times' Stephanie Rosenbloom writes about the trend of professors revealing more of their souls online: It is not necessary for a student studying multivariable calculus, medieval literature or Roman archaeology to know that the professor behind the podium shoots pool, has donned a bunny costume or can?t [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: March 20, 2008, 9:52am EDT

  • The realist tradition in American public opinion -- published

    A few years ago, I responded to a Patrick Belton post at OxBlog thusly: [There is] a thesis that I've been cogitating on for the past few months: despite claims by international relations theorists -- including most realists -- that the overwhelming majority of Americans hold liberal policy preferences, it [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: March 18, 2008, 8:54pm EDT

  • The New York Times goes Vizzini on "deterrence"

    This blog has an occasional series on "Vizzini" moments. Thanks to YouTube, we can now explain it through a brief video mash-up: It now appears that Eric Schmitt, Thom Shanker, and the editors at the New York Times do not know what the word "deterrence" means: In the days immediately [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: March 18, 2008, 8:42am EDT

  • Good gossip from Brussels

    The following ten tidbits have been picked up while attending the 2008 Brussels Forum: 1) At the opening session -- taped by the BBC -- the participants were asked to say something for a microphone check. Konstantin Kosachev, the chairman of the Duma's International Affairs Committee, said, "the Russians are [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: March 16, 2008, 8:55am EDT

  • Watch me sing for my supper

    My small role in the 2008 Brussels Forum can be viewed in streaming video by clicking here. My favorite part -- correcting the German EU Commissioner about Schumpeter.... [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: March 15, 2008, 8:43pm EDT

  • Sign #472 that relative American power is on the wane

    Overheard on the flight to Brussels from Washington, DC: a flight attendant explaining why the plane was so crowded: It's the Europeans. They're all flying over here now because the dollar is so cheap. We're the new Mexico now.... [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: March 14, 2008, 8:16am EDT

  • Yes, I am a big ol' conference whore this week

    Blogging will be light over the next few days, as I'll be attending the 2008 Brussels Forum. This year I've been promoted from attendee to moderating a panel entitled, "Who Will Write the Rules of the Global Economy in the 21st Century?" For my mother loyal and faithful blog readers [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: March 13, 2008, 10:57am EDT

  • Final thoughts about rogue states

    A few jet-lagged final thoughts about the conference on rogue states I attended yesterday: 1) There was unanimous agreement that the term "rogue states" was pretty stupid as a category. 2) The most amusing moment for me was when AEI's Danielle Pletka accused me of being on the far left [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: March 12, 2008, 10:00am EDT

  • Live-blogging Bill Richardson

    The Governor of New Mexico is delivering the keynote address at the conference on "U.S. Foreign Policy Toward Rogue States: Engage, Isolate or Strike?" that I'm attending. Let's live-blog it!! 11:30 PDT: First superficial impression: Richardson looks much better in person than on television. Even the beard works. Opens with [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: March 11, 2008, 3:39pm EDT

  • We are experiencing technical difficulties

    Comments have been down for a few days due to killer comment spam. Hopefully this problem will be resolved within 24 hours.... [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: March 11, 2008, 1:38pm EDT

  • Your quote of the day

    For anyone with libertarian instincts, Virginia Postrel's post about John McCain makes for disturbing reading. The key sentence: McCain is an instinctive regulator who considers business a base pursuit. I was fortunate enough to chat with Virginia yesterday, and during the chat, an interesting question arose: if McCain is an [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: March 11, 2008, 1:34pm EDT

  • Reversing Clausewitz

    In a Reuters story on Barack Obama declining Hillary Clinton's premature offer of a VP slot, we get to this priceless bit of spin by Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson: Obama took note of Clinton's repeated attacks and said the vice president's primary role would be to take over if the [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: March 10, 2008, 7:42pm EDT

  • March (and February... um, January too) books of the month

    So far, 2008 has been a slow year for book club posts -- a fact that has not gone unnoticed in your humble blogger's mailbag. I, for one, blame this on a combination of heavier-than-usual travel and severe a bitter infighting within the blog staff [F$%& you!!--ed. No, f%$# you!.] [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: March 09, 2008, 6:08pm EDT

  • Yet another Clinton scandal

    From Mark Leibovich, "No Longer in Race, Richardson Is a Man Pursued," New York Times, February 23, 2008: Early this month, Mr. Clinton called Mr. Richardson and insisted on seeing him face to face. Mr. Richardson said he could not make it unless Mr. Clinton came down to New Mexico [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: March 09, 2008, 3:13pm EDT

  • What's the difference between a scholar and a reporter?

    James Traub has a cover story in today's New York Times Magazine, "The Celebrity Solution," that's all about celebrity activism in global philanthropy and peacebuilding: Stars ? movie stars, rock stars, sports stars ? exercise a ludicrous influence over the public consciousness. Many are happy to exploit that power; others [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: March 09, 2008, 11:26am EDT

  • Sui generis, anyone?

    Jacob Heilbrunn has a truly odd post up about Samantha Power, in which he claims the following: [N]o matter how ill-conceived they may have been, Power?s bellicose words aren?t an aberration. Instead, they highlight the adversarial style of a new generation of Democratic foreign-policy mavens who have more in common [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: March 08, 2008, 3:23pm EST

  • The Scheiber effect?

    Four and a half years ago, Noam Scheiber wrote a cover story for The New Republic about Howard Dean's great new political machine and how it was going to transform politics. The piece was beautifully written, utterly convincing, and -- of course -- wound up overhyping the Dean phenomenon just [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: March 07, 2008, 8:26am EST

  • That's an.... interesting interpretation of recent economic history

    Robert Lighthizer has an op-ed in today's New York Times that essentially argues that conservatives have a long tradition of trade protectionism that John McCain should embrace: Free trade has long been popular with liberals, and it remains so with liberal elites today. The editorial pages of major newspapers consistently [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: March 06, 2008, 8:17am EST

  • Faculty recruitment at Oklahoma is going to be a bitch

    The New York Times' Randal C. Archibold writes about a proposal in the Arizona state legislature to make campus life more interesting: Horrified by recent campus shootings, a state lawmaker here has come up with a proposal in keeping with the Taurus .22-caliber pistol tucked in her purse: Get more [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: March 05, 2008, 9:51pm EST

  • Identity politics and the irony of the 2008 campaign

    MoDo's column about identity politics in the Democratic Party today actually got me thinking. Particularly this part: Dianne Feinstein onto the Fox News Sunday-morning talk show to promote the idea that Hillary should not be forced out, regardless of the results of Tuesday?s primaries, simply because she?s a woman. ?For [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: March 05, 2008, 8:34am EST

  • Open Super Tuesday II thread

    Me, I'm just going to watch some episodes of House on the DVR for the next few hours, but the rest of you feel free to comment away on tonights primary results. I can't resist one thought, however. Howard Fineman blogs "Win or lose, pressure on Clinton to exit will [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: March 04, 2008, 8:22pm EST

  • Pick my fake memoir title!!

    The New York Times' Motoko Rich reports on the latest memoir scandal: In ?Love and Consequences,? a critically acclaimed memoir published last week, Margaret B. Jones wrote about her life as a half-white, half-Native American girl growing up in South-Central Los Angeles as a foster child among gang-bangers, running drugs [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: March 04, 2008, 8:59am EST

  • Principled criticism -- and bureaucratic politics -- at the UN

    Frances Williams reports in the Financial Times that one arm of the UN is criticizing another arm of the United Nations: In a speech to the opening of a four-week session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, [UN Secretary General] Ban [Ki-Moon] questioned whether the council was ?fully [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: March 04, 2008, 8:41am EST

  • The three rules to understanding Canadian-American relations

    In the wake of Canadian memos flying about on what exactly Obama's chief economist told a Canadian consular official, Noam Scheiber asks a befuddled question: What is it with these Canadians? Are they running some sort of entrapment operation up there? Why do they keep trying to torpedo Democratic candidates? [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: March 03, 2008, 1:51pm EST

  • Those naïve Brits

    Via Andrew Sullivan, I see that the London Times' Sarah Baxter gets face time with Barack Obama. Some fascinating nuggets come out: Obama is hoping to appoint cross-party figures to his cabinet such as Chuck Hagel, the Republican senator for Nebraska and an opponent of the Iraq war, and Richard [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: March 03, 2008, 8:40am EST

  • What's the best expeience to be president?

    That's the topic of my latest commentary for NPR's Marketplace. Here's how it closes: As a management question, the problem with being the president is that one cannot anticipate what important issues will arise in the future. No one thought terrorism would be the paramount foreign policy problem during the [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: March 01, 2008, 12:25am EST

  • Sovereign wealth fund = greater transparency?

    A common lament about sovereign wealth funds is their lack of transparency -- no one knows their investment strategy. The chart below -- cribbed from a Standard Chartered report summarized by the FT's Martin Wolf -- makes this visually clear: It's generally assumed that a chief source of this opacity [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: February 29, 2008, 2:38pm EST
← demography.matters.blog Newmark's Door →

Blog Info:
Daniel W. Drezner

» http://www.danieldrezner.com/blog/

Categories

BNN Traffic Index

Alexa: 3,638,890
-1,138,308

Compete: No data
0

Quantcast: No data
0

BNN Traffic Index: -1,138,308

BNN Authority Index

Technorati: 0

Google: 0

BNN Authority Index: No data

» Subscribe to the Daniel W. Drezner feed