Public support is a key resource that modern presidents have typically sought for themselves and their policies. They seek to leverage public opinion to garner support in Congress. New presidents, basking in the glow of victory, often assume that they can move the public. After all, they have just won […] Read more »
Public scholars have an obligation to be honest
… If you’re reading this post, you probably know that political scientists have been trying to communicate with the broader public about politics, a movement that has been building for several years. … This post is a preliminary effort to lay out some of the principles involved in doing responsible […] Read more »
Trump is not a European-style populist. That’s our problem
Mabel Berezin, Cornell University Two days after the U.S. presidential election, Marine Le Pen – the leader of the right wing French National Front – tweeted out congratulations to Donald Trump. During a controversial BBC interview that aired a few days later, Le Pen summed up how she believes the […] Read more »
Why Trump could be a popular president
… To understand why Trump’s Carrier stunt succeeded, it’s worth turning to a 1964 political science classic, Murray Edelman’s The Symbolic Uses of Politics. The takeaway lesson is that in politics, clear symbolic actions are often more important than results (which are often ambiguous or unclear). As long as Trump […] Read more »
Book Review: What is Populism? by Jan-Werner Müller
Populism is a hot topic of which there is no shortage of analysis. By combining theoretical rigour with his knowledge about the empirical realities of populism, Jan-Werner Müller nevertheless manages to add some important and so-far neglected points in What is Populism? He organises his book around three questions, the […] Read more »
Is Donald Trump a Threat to Democracy?
Donald J. Trump’s election has raised a question that few Americans ever imagined asking: Is our democracy in danger? With the possible exception of the Civil War, American democracy has never collapsed; indeed, no democracy as rich or as established as America’s ever has. Yet past stability is no guarantee […] Read more »