Rodger A. Payne's Blog

Congratulations Nayef Samhat (update)

2013-05-18T11:04:00.000-04:00

I learned last night that my (sometimes) coauthor Nayef Samhat is departing Kenyon College, where he has served as Provost since 2009, to become President of Wofford College.

Congratulations, Nayef!

Here's a video interview from Wofford:

And this is the press release.

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Could Google Rig an Election?

2013-05-17T23:43:00.001-04:00

Research psychologist Robert Epstein, a former editor of Psychology Today, has coauthored a study with Dr. Ronald E. Robertson of the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology, on this question called “Democracy at Risk.” It is slated for presentation at this year’s meeting of the Association for Psychological Science:

In a double-blind, controlled experiment, web pages and search engine results from an actual election were presented to three groups of eligible voters. In two of the groups, rankings favored one candidate or the other. Preferences shifted dramatically toward favored candidates, with 75% of subjects showing no awareness of the manipulation. In a second experiment, voter preferences again shifted in the predicted direction, and the proportion of people who were unaware of the manipulation was increased by slightly altering the rankings to mask the favoritism. In a third experiment, a more aggressive mask was used to hide the manipulation, and no subjects appeared to be aware of it, even though voter preferences still shifted in the predicted directions. We conclude (1) that the outcomes of real elections—especially tight races—could conceivably be determined by the strategic manipulation of search engine rankings and (2) that the manipulation could be accomplished without people being aware of it.

Based on his reading of the work, Evan Leatherwood (Associate Director for Communications at Fordham University’s Schwartz Center for Media, Public Policy, & Education) concluded in the May 6, 2013 edition of The Nation: "insiders at a dominant search engine (at the moment, Google) could, if they chose, covertly pick members of Congress and even the president. What’s more, says Epstein, it is perfectly legal for a search engine to behave this way."

Michael Fischer, a professor of computer science at Yale, agrees that there is cause for concern. “To the extent that somebody wants to build a politically biased search engine, they are certainly capable of doing that,” Fischer says. “We don’t have any way of knowing what biases, if any, the search engines we currently use have, and this is a concern not just for elections, but for all areas of our democracy.”

Much of the rest of the article discusses the First Amendment implications of regulating search engines. Leatherwood favors a public and transparent search engine that does not take advertising dollars.

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Inequality Watch: China's Billionaires

2013-05-05T11:28:00.000-04:00

Peter Kwong, professor of Asian-American studies at Hunter College, had an interesting piece about corruption and economic inequality in China in The Nation, April 22, 2013. Unfortunately, the article is behind a paywall. In any case, this is the most striking data referenced by Kwong:

Party officials and their family members have reaped the spoils of China’s prosperity and amassed unbelievable riches, creating a deeply polarized China. There are 251 billionaires in the country today, compared with only fifteen six years ago; 0.4 percent of China’s families own over 70 percent of its wealth.

In China, the economic elite are also the political elite. While political elites are wealthy in many nation-states -- even in democracies -- the concentration of wealth by Chinese national leaders is striking:

In 2012, there were more than 500 corporate CEOs in the National People’s Congress out of a total of 2,987 delegates. The top seventy members of this body are worth $89.8 billion. In contrast, the worth of all 535 members of the US Congress, the president, his cabinet and the nine Supreme Court Justices is only $7.5 billion.

As Kwong notes, the twin problems of inequality and corruption in China could prove destabilizing:

The mere fact that the Chinese are discussing their problems in terms of the French Revolution is momentous: it seems to imply that they see China today as resembling France in 1789, when public disgust with the regime’s corruption and decay led to revolution. Chinese people from all walks of life—intellectuals, professionals, laborers and farmers—have been agitating for political reform and demanding, at the very least, a constitutional government and the rule of law. Yet this is exactly what the one-party system cannot accede to, even though without real reform, the Communist Party’s future looks bleak. If it eventually collapses—which now seems a real possibility—China faces a daunting challenge: without a viable opposition group, trained and ready to take power and govern, the country will almost certainly slip into anarchy.

I've previously noted that China's political legitimacy is built upon its sustained record of economic growth. That success has brought hundreds of millions of people out of extreme poverty. However, as China becomes wealthier and more overtly corrupt, more-and-more people are likely to notice the misbegotten concentration of political and economic power at the very top. And that could be explosive.

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Hardy House Auction 2013 in Chicago

2013-04-26T22:36:00.000-04:00

I forgot to post this pic the other day when I wrote about the auction:

2013 Auction, Chicago, IL
Credit: Rich Puszczewicz

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2013 Bolts from the Blue

2013-04-20T18:12:00.000-04:00

For the 25th consecutive year, I'm competing in the Hardy House fantasy baseball league. Our auction draft was held last Saturday, April 13, in Chicago. Two owners participated by phone and another had a proxy bidder, but the rest of us enjoyed the auction, some local beer, and pizza.

As a reminder: the league has 12 teams and uses American League players exclusively to accumulate statistics in various hitting and pitching categories. For 22 years, we tabulated results in the traditional 8 categories (HR, RBI, SBs, Batting Average, Wins, Saves, Earned Run Average and ratio/Walks-plus-Hits per Inning Pitched), but in the hot stove period prior to the 2011 season we voted to dump BA in favor of On Base Average. Also, we added runs scored (R) for hitters and strikeouts (K) for pitchers.

My 2012 team finished 2nd, 4 points behind the championship squad (S1Ws). On the last Sunday of the season my team was in first place with only three days to play. In any case, the 2012 Bolts from the Blue again featured terrific starting pitching as the squad led the league in strikeouts, finished 2nd in WHIP, third in ERA, and 4th in wins. The team finished 3rd in saves as well. Offensively, the team had good power (2nd in HR and RBI), but was mediocre in other offensive categories (5th in 2 categories and 6th in the other).

Please note one roster quirk now in its sixth year: we use 10 man pitching staffs, but only 4 outfielders -- one fewer than the "normal" roto squad. We continue to believe that this better reflects roster management decisions that real baseball teams have made over the past 20 years. Again this year, we allowed the purchase of any player on an American League 40 man roster. After the auction, only players on 25 man active rosters or the major league Disabled List (DL) can be obtained. We did vote to allow teams to retain ownership of players sent packing to the National League. The recently implemented salary cap was modified so that it expires after the trade deadline. This means contending teams can spend their free agent cash in September.

The 2013 Bolts from the Blue (8 retained players in blue):

C Jason Castro (HOU) $9
C David Ross (BOS) $1
1B Billy Butler (KC) $27

2B Jose Altuve (HOU) $23

3B Mike Moustakas (KC) $18

SS Elvis Andrus (TEX) $23

MI Jurickson Profar (TEX) $9 (AAA)

CR Brett Lawrie (TOR) $23

OF Shane Victorino (BOS) $21

OF Nelson Cruz (TEX) $19

OF Matt Joyce (TB) $8
OF Mike Olt (TEX) $4 (AAA)
DH David Ortiz (BOS) $16

Hitting $201 (up $51 from last season, which is huge)

P Matt Moore (TB) $22
P Ervin Santana (KC) $7
P Wade Davis (KC) $3
P Alex Cobb (TB) $3
P Joe Blanton (LAA) $1
P Erasmo Ramirez (SEA) $1 (AAA)
P Jared Burton (MIN) $4
P Aaron Crow (KC) $3
P Casey Janssen (TOR) $5
P Glen Perkins (MIN) $7

Pitching $56 ($51 less than last year, also huge)

I kept Crow because he seems to be a potential replacement for KC closer Greg Holland if the latter should continue to falter as the Royals bullpen ace. I owned Holland last year and he was very wild in the early part of the season. He has struggled a bit in 2013 as well and Crow already earned an early save.

One team hoarded cash throughout the auction, which meant inflation was a bit lower than it might have been. Indeed, he never found a way to spend nearly $40. That would have been enough to purchase a superstar player!

I left $3 on the table, but I had saved some cash to purchase some slightly better players at the end of the auction to fill in my roster. As often happens, the guys I really wanted then went for too much money (or only qualified at positions I had already filled), so I ended up with several dime players instead of a couple that cost a bit more.

Andrus was on my 2011 and 2012 teams and I bought him again for a lower salary than he would have cost as a retained player. I have a lot of Ranger hitters (4) to go with a smattering of Red Sox (3), Rays (3), Twins (2), Jays (2) and Astros (2).

As usual, I bought or retained a large number of players from the KC Royals (5), the hometown-favorite team of my youth. I've got a good deal of confidence in Moustakas and especially Butler (a long-time favorite) as hitters. For the first time in years I also acquired some KC starting pitching.

Indeed, like the Royals, I'm hoping for a bounce back year from Santana -- and the decision looks good to-date as his performance across-the-board looks more like 2010 or 2011 than 2012. If you look at his splits, Santana had a fairly good run at the end of last season too. His ERA in August and September was about 3.65 and his K/bb ratio was 55/16 in about 60 IP. He was awful prior to last year's all star break.

To replace minor league players Profar, Olt, and Ramirez on my active roster, I bought MI Leury Garcia (TEX), OF Michael Taylor (OAK), and P Matt Thornton (CHX) for $1 each. I also nabbed DH/1B Nate Freiman (OAK) for $1 to replace the then-injured Ortiz and IF Ryan Roberts (TB) for $3 for Lawrie, who was also on the disabled list on Monday. Roberts will actually slot in for MI Profar for the long haul as the other injured offensive regulars have already returned. I will likely need a better outfielder very soon as Taylor is not playing very often.

You can find posts about the 2005, 2007 , 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012 auctions elsewhere on this blog.

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30 years ago today

2013-04-02T10:20:00.001-04:00

This happened:

That's a younger me, with Mark Gidley & the Larmon Trophy

It was a fine weekend.

Here's a link to the program book.

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2013 NCAA Tourney

2013-03-19T10:14:00.002-04:00

I'll post my bracket here in the next 48 hours. Meanwhile, I encourage readers to join me in the Yahoo! Sports Tournament Pick'em group, "Payne Twitter-Blog Followers": y.ahoo.it/8M1iywX0

I'm not sure if I have to provide more detailed sign-in information or not. The name of the private group is "Payne Twitter-Blog Followers" and the group slogan is "Good luck to Kentucky in the NIT." The group, which uses the standard Yahoo! scoring system, can be found among the various groups associated with Kansas. Rock chalk!

Again, I don't know if you need a password to join, but you may need a Yahoo! account.

Update: Actually, it seems like you can sign in with your Facebook or Google account -- without a password for the group.

This is my bracket for the blog group. I picked Kansas to win the tourney in a different one for ESPN.

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Sustainability at UofL

2013-03-14T12:45:00.000-04:00

For many years now, I've been involved with sustainability initiatives for the University of Louisville. Back in 2007, for example, I became a university member of a Utility Regulations, Policies and Procedures Subcommittee of the Climate Change Committee working under the Partnership for a Green City. We produced a Climate Action Report in 2009 for the city of Louisville.

I was also listed as a member of the Education and Outreach Subcommittee, but I honestly didn't attend many of their meetings. The Education group included many individuals who had already worked with the Honors program to develop a number of new classes on campus. I taught on Honors seminar on "The Geopolitics of Climate Change" in fall 2007 and then used that class to reorient my regular Political Science course on Global Ecopolitics.

While serving as Acting Department Chair in 2007-2008, I joined with Barbara Burns (chair of Psychology at the time) and a number of other interested faculty and staff at UofL to form the A&S "Green Team." We met regularly to discuss initiatives that are now often taken for granted at the University: a vastly improved recycling program, energy conservation measures, a free bike program, etc. We talked a great deal about behavioral programs, but limited resources precluded implementation of many of them. Still, we helped conduct multiple programs on climate change, promoted simple energy conservation measures, audited energy use in 700 A&S offices, created a model green dorm room, etc. The Green Team's “12 by 12” energy conservation plan aimed at reducing energy use by 12% in 2012 from a 2006 baseline.

Most importantly, under the leadership of Barb Burns, Russ Barnett, Joy Hart, and other members of the A&S community, the group helped pressure the University to create a Sustainability Council. Barb Burns was the first chair of that group and I succeeded her as head of the "Green Team" in 2009. The A&S group continued to meet for about a year or so, but it quickly became apparent that the need for the group had been largely met by the Sustainability Council. University-wide budget cuts forced A&S into some difficult budget cuts and the Green Team suffered for it.

In any case, virtually the entire leadership group for the Green Team became members of the Sustainability Council. I was named to the Sustainability Council and its Administration, Finance, and Outreach Committee in 2009 -- a group that I have chaired since fall 2012. In a related development, I served next on the Provost's Ad Hoc committee on Socially Responsible Investing. We produced a document recommending a number of specific changes in the University's money management, but the followup has been slow in coming.

This January, however, the Operations Committee reported some of the University's major successes:

A long-term project to save energy at UofL is outpacing its original goals, according to a progress report released last week. Belknap Campus fuel use dropped 48 percent while electricity and water use dropped 27 and 31 percent, respectively, from their annual usage before the project started...

The reported energy savings is from 2011, the first full year after workers installed more efficient lighting; updated heating, cooling and ventilation systems; and found ways to cut water consumption in 71 campus buildings and outdoor areas. The overall reduction in energy use has trimmed the greenhouse gas emissions emitted on Belknap Campus by an annual 53 million pounds — an amount equal to removing 4,400 cars from the road for a year, Siemens officials said.

Though those documented gains are attributed almost exclusively to a service contract with Siemens Industries, at least some of those energy savings should be credited to behavioral initiatives promoted by the A&S Green Team. Of course, there is room for more to be done. The University aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020 and wants to be carbon-neutral by 2050.

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Lynyrd Skynyrd on Guns

2013-03-11T08:00:00.000-04:00

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Saturday: College Hoops Checkup

2013-03-10T10:54:00.000-04:00


Louisville-Notre Dame, March 9, 2013; Photo credit: Jason Gainous

I managed to attend five University of Louisville basketball games this season -- home games versus Syracuse (a tough loss), Marquette, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Notre Dame. In the two games last week, the home Cardinals essentially destroyed their opponents with smothering defense and timely shooting. In Saturday's game, the Cards atypically didn't even attempt a three-point field goal in the first 7 or 8 minutes of the game. Instead, they took the ball inside and made easy baskets.

It is very difficult to return to the Final Four, but this year's Louisville team seems to have the ability (thanks largely to that terrific defense).

Meanwhile, Kansas got walloped in a road game at Baylor. I didn't see the game, but based on my halftime check-in, it appears the defense completely broke down in the second half. Oh, and KU seemed to have rare foul trouble. Kansas too could return to the Final Four, but that's hard to write on the heels of their worst loss since 2006.

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Johnny Cash on Guns

2013-03-04T23:56:00.001-05:00

Cash would have been 81 last week.

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Oscar films

2013-02-23T23:55:00.000-05:00

Photo credit: Noel Y.C. on Flickr

The Oscars are going to be televised tonight and my wife and I have been busy watching nominated films and acting performances since the beginning of the year. Regular readers may recall that I didn't actually see any of the films nominated for best picture during the 2012 calendar year. Until 2013, I didn't see any of the nominated acting performances either.

During 2012, I did see "Skyfall," which was nominated for a handful of technical or musical awards and "The Avengers," which received one such nomination. "Moonrise Kingdom," the best 2012 film I watched during the eligibility year, received a well-deserved writing nomination.

In any case, based on my 2013 efforts to see the 2012 contenders, I'm going to rank-order the films and acting performances. Obviously, this is my completely subjective perspective -- and not an ideal way to think about art. Plus, I can only rank the performances I watched. That is a big limit since I failed to see four of the Oscar-nominated Best Picture nominees and missed "The Master" when it was in town (it comes out on DVD this week).

Note that these are not my predictions about winners in each category. Go to Intrade if you want predictions. Spoiler Alert: "Argo" is a strong favorite ("Lincoln" was a heavy favorite until "Argo" started winning awards), along with Daniel Day-Lewis and Steven Spielberg for their contributions, plus Louisville's Jennifer Lawrence.

Best Picture

Argo **
Zero Dark Thirty (post-Oscar viewing, March) **
Django Unchained **
Lincoln **
Silver Linings Playbook **
Beasts of the Southern Wild

Actor

Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln)
Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook)

Actress

Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook)
Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty)
Quvenzhané Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild)

Actor in a Supporting Role

Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained)
Robert DeNiro (Silver Linings Playbook)
Alan Arkin (Argo)
Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln)

Actress in a Supporting Role

Sally Field (Lincoln)
Jacki Weaver (Silver Linings Playbook)

Directing

David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook)
Steven Spielberg (Lincoln)
Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild)

** I saw these films in the theater.

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Life on Russian Roads

2013-02-20T11:52:00.000-05:00

Did you see last night's episode of "The Daily Show"? This segment was one of the most hilarious ever:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

"Tank!"

The "Benny Hill" video/audio tribute near the end is definitely worth the wait.

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Billy Beane

2013-02-12T21:20:00.002-05:00

I trekked across the state border tonight to see Oakland A's General Manager Billy Beane speak at Indiana University Southeast. Beane had been invited to deliver the keynote address for the annual Sanders Speaker Series.

The format was interview style rather than lecture. Local writer and academic Marty Rosen (yes, Neal (if you ever read this space anymore), that Marty Rosen) sat next to Beane on stage and asked engaging questions for about an hour -- and then they opened it up to audience members.

Beane proved to be an entertaining and intelligent guest for this sort of event.

The questions were diverse, triggering Beane to reveal his favorite baseball films of all time (Pride of the Yankees, The Natural and Field of Dreams -- Beane is a self-described baseball romantic, at least as a fan), his most memorable trading experiences as GM (the 1999 mid-season trades), his appreciation for Baseball Prospectus and their former employee Nate Silver, the influence of the 1993 Phillies offense on his baseball thinking, and the background story for this unusual convergence of thinkers.

One member of the audience asked Beane what kind of statistical metrics teams were using "behind the scenes" that fans didn't know about. He replied by referencing an old SNL skit that he has likely noted on many similar occasions (paraphrasing). A reporter at a press briefing asks a U.S. military general: "Sir, what would be the one piece of information that would be most dangerous for the Iraqis to know?"

Good stuff.

By the way, Beane pointed out that 2013 is the 10th anniversary of Moneyball. Devoted blog readers may remember my own take on Beane's early years.

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Sorry, Wrong Number?

2013-02-09T23:56:00.003-05:00

Just in case anyone has the wrong idea about the role of the U.S. military in global politics, outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta offered a simple reminder last week. From ABC News:

"The United States military is not and should not be a global 911 service capable of arriving on the scene within minutes to every possible contingency around the world," Panetta told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Put differently, don't call us, we'll call you.

This comment from Panetta reminded me of a similar one made by Bill Clinton's first Secretary of Defense, William Perry:

I've said before, and I will say it again, the U.S. Army is an Army. It is not a Salvation Army. We're not in the business of providing humanitarian relief.

I quoted a similar statement from Perry back in 2004. However, I also noted that when Perry offered this pithy turn of phrase, he typically outlined circumstances when the U.S. military could provide humanitarian assistance.

When do we decide it is important to do that? What are the exceptional cases?

First of all it has to be a catastrophe of large proportions. That was true two years ago, during this cholera thing -- 5,000 people a day were dying. It appears to be true today in the refugee problem in Rwanda and Zaire. Secondly it has to be something where the United States military forces have something unique that they can provide. Two years ago we were the only organization that had the combination of airlift, water purification equipment and engineers that could get in and solve that problem in time. So we did. And finally, it has to be an operation which is acceptably low risk, and in which we have an exit strategy.

All of those have applied to operations where we send forces to assist in humanitarian operations. Those are the criteria that we would be applying to any humanitarian operation which we get involved in Africa.

Presumably, the Obama administration would agree with this, by and large.

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Out of Print

2013-02-01T10:17:00.003-05:00

As I noted about a year ago, advertisers have spent the past decade or so abandoning print media in favor of the internet. The data from 2012 suggest the trend is worsening -- mostly to the benefit of Google:

A new study from Statista has revealed that Google (GOOG) is making more advertising revenue than the entire U.S. print media combined. The Internet giant has raked in slightly more than $20 billion in ad revenue in the first six months of 2012, while the U.S. print media industry has generated just less than $20 billion as a whole.

“Google, a company founded just 14 years ago, makes more money from advertising than an industry that has been around for more than a hundred years,” Statista notes.

Here's what the trend looks like in a graph:

Back in 2000, I believe my household subscribed to at least 10 different magazines. However, No Depression folded nearly five years ago. The American Prospect was a biweekly, became a monthly (published 10 times per year), and is now a (thick) bimonthly. Most other magazines we receive have dropped the total number of issues published per year or reduced their content. Utne Reader jacked up subscription prices to a level that made each bimonthly issue cost about $6. We dropped it.

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Steve Earle on Guns

2013-01-27T21:57:00.002-05:00

"Devil's Right Hand" off "Copperhead Road."

I cannot believe that the CD was released in 1988 -- 25 years on. I listened to the first three Steve Earle records very, very frequently. The first two, I had purchased on vinyl and this was one of my first CDs.

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Cameron on Democracy

2013-01-24T14:45:00.003-05:00

David Cameron; Photo credit = Foreign Press Association in London on Flickr

Have you read British PM David Cameron's address to the United Nations General Assembly, delivered September 26, 2012? In the speech, Cameron reminds the global audience that he is "a Liberal Conservative, not a Neo-Conservative." He continued:

I respect the different histories and traditions that each country has. I welcome the steps taken in countries where reform is happening with the consent of the people. I know that every country takes its own path. And that progress will sometimes be slow.

Thus, he offers a hopeful reading of developments following the so-called Arab Spring and calls for the United Nations and the Security Council to support the "building blocks of democracy," which he defines most simply as "fair economies and open societies." In another section of the speech, he elaborates that the building blocks also include "the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law, with the majority prepared to defend the rights of the minority, the freedom of the media, a proper place for the army in society and the development of effective state institutions, political parties and wider civil society."

By making this claim, Cameron offers an implicit critique of the former George W. Bush era, when elections and democracy were often equated. Here's a snipped from a Bush speech in 2005, delivered as Iraqis were about to hold an election:

We are living through a watershed moment in the story of freedom. Most of the focus now is on this week's elections -- and rightly so. Iraqis will go to the polls to choose a government that will be the only constitutional democracy in the Arab world.

In Cameron's words, however, "democracy is not – and never has been – just about simply holding an election. It is not one person, one vote, once." Think about the endurance of Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan, and the longstanding U.S. claims about how his election represents democracy for Afghanistan.

Despite making these arguments about elections, Cameron demonstrates progress after the Arab Spring primarily by pointing to election results:

First of all, there are those who say there has been too little progress, that the Arab Spring has produced few tangible improvements in people’s lives. This isn’t right. Look at Libya since the fall of Gaddafi. We have seen elections to create a new Congress...

As we saw so inspiringly in Benghazi last weekend, they are taking to the streets in their thousands, refusing to allow extremists to hijack their chance for democracy. The Arab Spring has also brought progress in Egypt where the democratically elected President has asserted civilian control over the military, in Yemen and Tunisia where elections have also brought new governments to power and in Morocco where there’s a new constitution – and a Prime Minister appointed on the basis of a popular vote for the first time. And even further afield, Somalia has also taken a vital step forward by electing a new President.

By the way, Bush's most famous speech about democratization, his Second Inaugural address, never mentioned the words "ballot," "election," "vote" or "voting." Remember the theme of that speech? Cameron's fairly extensive discussion of religion focuses on the compatibility of Islam and democracy.

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International Organizations and Power

2013-01-23T17:30:00.002-05:00

Though we missed the print deadline for the 12-volume International Studies Encyclopedia (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), Nayef Samhat and I completed our essay "International Organizations and Power" some time ago. I just learned this week that it was recently published in the online edition of the work sometimes known as the ISA Compendium. The project was completed with the cooperation of the International Studies Association leadership and membership.

Apparently, the Payne and Samhat (2012) piece may also appear in a future hard-copy supplement to the encyclopedia. Meanwhile, I'd like to see an electronic copy of the piece. My institution does not subscribe, the one-year of free access granted to ISA members expired, and Wiley-Blackwell has not yet sent me a copy.

As ISA members know, all ISA publications are now "published" electronically and regular membership does not include hard copies of the journals. Thus, it is possible that this piece will never appear anywhere other than in this online form. I guess I'm comfortable with that, but it would be better if more scholars and students had easy access. The piece might be useful for a class...

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A Democratic Majority?

2013-01-22T10:39:00.001-05:00

Photo Credit: WhiteHouse.gov

Yesterday, Democrat Barack Obama was inaugurated for his second term as U.S. President. His party, in fact, has won at least a plurality of the votes in five of the past six presidential elections. On average, Democrats have received about 4.5 million more votes than Republicans in every presidential election since George H.W. Bush won decisively in 1988. Was that the end of the Reagan era?

The Democratic party has also controlled the U.S. Senate since the 2006 midterm elections. Indeed, in the fifteen years between January 2001 and January 2015, Democrats will have controlled the Senate for all but four and one-half years. That's roughly two-thirds of the years to-date of the twenty-first century.

Republicans currently control the U.S. House of Representatives, but this is thanks largely to gerrymandering and quirks of political geography. Democratic candidates in the 2012 elections received one million more votes than did Republicans. Indeed, FairVote.org has estimated that Democrats were actually preferred roughly 52-48% by the electorate in the most recent elections. The Democrats controlled a majority of the House from January 2007 until January 2011, which means they have won a meaningful majority of votes cast in three of the past four congressional elections.

Why mention these facts? Well, it is interesting how quickly political reality can change. Remember when some pundits and insiders were predicting a "durable" majority position held by the Republican Party?

That alleged majority was built largely on the Republican control of the south and the exurbs. To get a taste of the era, consider the following analysis that I found while going through old drafts of posts that were never posted on this blog. The piece was written by Ronald Brownstein in the February 2006 issue of The American Prospect. The columnist was reviewing four contemporary books about the South and American politics:

The South now furnishes the decisive votes for Republican control of the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the White House. Outside the South, Democrats still hold the advantage in the competition on all three fronts. But the Republican dominance of the South has grown so pronounced that it swamps the Democratic strengths elsewhere and provides the GOP with its margin of majority for both Congress and the White House.

Consider the Senate. In the 11 states of the old Confederacy plus Oklahoma and Kentucky -- the generally accepted political definition of the South -- Republicans hold 22 of the 26 Senate seats. In the rest of the country, Democrats control seven more Senate seats than the GOP....

The same is true in the House. Outside the South, Democrats hold a 152-140 edge in House seats....The imbalance is even more pronounced in the race for the White House. In 2000, Al Gore won just over 70 percent of the Electoral College votes at stake outside the South. But George W. Bush narrowly won the White House because he swept all 165 Electoral College votes in the 13 southern states. Four years later, John Kerry won 68 percent of the Electoral College votes outside the South. But Bush won because he again swept the 13 Southern states -- this time worth 168 Electoral College votes after population growth measured in the 2000 Census.

In my review of the 2004 presidential election results, I noted some "ongoing demographic changes" that were already influencing voting patterns in Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Virginia. I described these as a "good sign for Democrats for 2008 and beyond," even though they had just experienced their most disappointing election of the past quarter century.

I suspect, somewhere, Republican analysts are looking at the most recent voting and demographic data in an effort to find some pathways to victory in 2016.

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Argo: Spoiler Alert

2013-01-14T12:07:00.003-05:00

I saw "Argo" yesterday and then searched around briefly to see how much the story was embellished. If you haven't seen the film and don't want to know the answer to that question, stop reading. NOW.

The film tells a great story about the CIA and the Canadian government helping 6 Americans from the U.S. embassy in Tehran escape Iran in 1980, months before the ~50 kidnapped hostages were freed.

The BBC has the details about the film's accuracy. :

Argo's final scenes are superbly tense, as the six [embassy escapees] make it onto the plane by the skin of their teeth. The CIA had given them false departure documents for which, of course, there were no matching arrival forms.

The big climax is a heart-pounding chase down the runway as gun-toting members of the Revolutionary Guard try to stop them taking off.

"Absolutely none of that happened," says Mark [Lijek, one of the escapees] .

"It's true there could have been problems with documentation - it was our biggest vulnerability.

"But the Agency had done its homework and knew the Iranian border authorities habitually made no attempt to reconcile documents.

"Fortunately for us, there were very few Revolutionary Guards about. It's why we turned up for a flight at 5.30 in the morning; even they weren't zealous enough to be there that early.

"The truth is the immigration officers barely looked at us and we were processed out in the regular way. We got on the flight to Zurich and then we were taken to the US ambassador's residence in Berne. It was that straightforward."

Lijek also says that the location scouting scene in the Grand Bazaar never happened.

Put differently, a very large portion of the film's drama was manufactured to make for more entertainment. This does not bother me, but many viewers will probably treat the film as Truth.

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2020 Presidential Election: A Blue Blowout?

2013-01-07T01:37:00.000-05:00

Photo credit: Troy McCullough (Idle Type)

Last Friday, Congress certified the 2012 Electoral College results and Barack Obama was officially reelected by a tally of 332 to 206. Unofficially, the Associated Press counted the number of individual votes the candidates received in nationwide balloting. In the AP's final election result, Obama got 51.1% of the vote, while Mitt Romney received 47.2%.

Many analysts have already highlighted the startling vote percentages Barack Obama achieved in 2012 among Latino and Asian voters. Here's how the Boston Globe framed it on November 9, 2012:

Exit polling by The New York Times showed Asian-Americans voted for Obama over Romney 73 percent to 26 percent, after backing him against John McCain 62 to 35...

Obama’s 47-point advantage among Asian-Americans on Election Day was bigger than his edge among Latinos, 44 points, or women, 11 points.

In 2008, Obama beat John McCain among Latinos by about two-to-one: 67% to 31%. Romney managed to win only 27% of the Latino vote in 2012, while Obama won 71%. That's a bit better than 2.5 to one.

Given demographic changes, Latinos are expected to be an even greater electoral force in the coming decades. In 2010, there were about 50 million Hispanics living in the US, or about 13% of the population. By 2030, the numbers will be 78 million and they will comprise almost 22% of the population.

Asian-Americans are the fastest growing ethnic group in the US. There were just over 17 million Asian-Americans counted in the 2010 census, constituting 5.6% of the population. If the last decade's population growth holds up, there will be more than 25 million Asian American in the US in 2020. The US government forecasts 20 million Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders living in the US by 2020. By 2050, they are expected to make up nearly 10% of the US population.

Unless Republicans can increase their appeal to these demographic groups, they are in for more electoral disasters. Republican election strategist Ed Gillespie pointed out in January 2012 that his party would be in big trouble by 2020 if even 2008 voting patterns held:

“If the Republican Party nominee in 2020—just two elections after this one--gets the same percentage of the white, African-American, Hispanic and Asian-American vote, according to current projections the Democrat will win the White House by 14 percentage points.”

In the policy realm, Vice President Joe Biden already predicts that the Republican party will recognize the reality and cooperate with Democrats to pass immigration reform in the new Congress.

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America's Enemies

2013-01-06T11:54:00.000-05:00

This weekend, I'm spending some time preparing for my graduate seminar on international politics. As many IR scholars do, I typically begin with realism in order for the students to wrap their minds around some of the discipline's core ideas: states, interests, power, threats, security, etc.

Many IR theories position themselves vis-à-vis realism in order to critique, deconstruct, etc.

One obvious problem: realists tend to focus on great power competition and we seem to be in an age that lacks that feature of international politics. In any case, the American public certainly seems to think so. Last February, Mother Jones reported these interesting results of a recent Gallup survey:

Less than a quarter of respondents think that China is America's greatest enemy. The general public is not alone, of course, as John Mearsheimer, perhaps the most prominent academic realist, has long lamented the fact that policymakers fail to treat China as a serious foe.

I'm using the label "threat inflation" for this post because I'm far from convinced that the realists are correct. China and the US have some competing interests, but it also seems pretty clear that they also share many interests and are essentially partners in many endeavors.

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Books of 2012

2012-12-31T23:41:00.000-05:00

Photo credit: Phil Moore

As I have annually since 2005, I am posting a nearly complete list of books I read in the preceding year.

Allow me to repeat the groundrules: I will not list books that I reviewed, unless those reviews were published. In my academic job, I reviewed a number of books for a committee that will award $100,000 to a work that exhibited the best "ideas for improving world order." However, none of those books are listed here except for the winning entry. I read it as a member of the Final Selection Committee.

Of course, since I'm an academic, I read multiple chapters and large sections of many books pertinent to my research and teaching. However, I'm not going to list those here unless I read them cover-to-cover. Save for the books I use in class or read for review, I often skim over some portions even of outstanding books. It's a time/efficiency issue.

So, what did I read this year, mostly for pleasure? (Some of the recommended books include a link to Powell's books; the blog receives a 7.5% commission on sales that begin via these links).

Non-fiction

Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict by Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan.

Slouching Towards Fargo by Neal Karlen

The Big Short by Michael Lewis

Our Enemies and US by Ido Oren

It Ain't over 'til It's over The Baseball Prospectus Pennant Race Book by Baseball Prospectus writers.

Additionally, I read just about every word in Baseball Prospectus 2012, but not in cover-to-cover fashion. It was edited by King Kaufman and Cecilia M. Tan.

Of these non-fiction books, most were worth reading. The Chenoweth and Stephan book quite deservingly won the 2013 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. I blogged about it at the Duck of Minerva. Slouching Towards Fargo is an excellent book about minor league baseball, with a good deal of commentary about celebrity culture since Daryl Strawberry and Bill Murray play prominent roles in the tale.

The Big Short is a pretty good book by Michael Lewis on the 2008 financial collapse. He found some financial analysts who saw it coming -- and profited from it by "shorting" the investments that others were buying.

Ido Oren's book should be read by every Political Science doctoral student as it provides an excellent history of the discipline's early political influences.

I was disappointed by t he relatively dry BP Pennant Race Book. A few chapters were excellent, but too many featured dull writing.

Fiction

Gun, With Occasional Music by Jonathan Lethem.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif

Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card

White Butterfly by Walter Mosley

Yesterday's Spy by Len Deighton

Diamonds are Forever by Ian Fleming

Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith.

Ubik by Philip K. Dick

Keep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell

Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

God Save the Child by Robert B. Parker

Man with the Getaway Face by Richard Stark (Donald Westlake)

Road Dogs by Elmore Leonard

Heaven's Prisoners by James Lee Burke

The Long Lavender Look by John D. MacDonald

The End of the Affair by Graham Greene

Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Next by Stieg Larsson

Watchmen by Dave Gibbons and Alan Moore

A Drink Before the War by Dennis Lehane

The Dark Tunnel by Ross MacDonald

Killing Castro by Lawrence Block

Last Call for Blackford Oakes by William F. Buckley

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk.

In most years, I place the best works of literature at the top of the list, then the remaining genre fiction. The least entertaining are then listed last in each section. I abandoned this approach for 2012 for obvious reasons. First, though Palahniuk's Pygmy is not genre fiction, I really disliked it and needed to list it last.

In contrast, Lethem's Gun with Occasional Music seems like genre fiction, but it encompasses two significant genres: science fiction (think Philip K. Dick) meets detective story (think Raymond Chandler). In any case, I enjoyed the book very much and already recommended it to others.

The Hunger Games has proven to have mass appeal, but that doesn't diminish the accomplishment by Suzanne Collins. It is an engaging story. Hanif's work was marketed as literature, but it is a topical story about Pakistan's military.

The mass market books by Card, Mosley, Deighton, Fleming, and Highsmith were some of the most entertaining books I read this year. Card's Ender is a great character and is much more credible in this book than he was in Ender's Game. White Butterfly is an excellent crime book, I'd recommend it to anyone who likes the genre. Deighton was a master at the spy story and Yesterday's Spy is a strong work. I'm reading the Bond books in order and I believe Diamonds are Forever is the best one so far.

Thanks mostly to Bookmooch and PaperBack Swap, I continue to read books by a diverse group of (mostly) hard-boiled crime story writers. These authors typically develop a single main character across a long series of books: Parker's Spencer, Stark's Parker, John MacDonald's Travis McGee, Burke's Dave Robicheaux, Mosley's Ezekial Rawlins, Buckley's Blackford Oakes, and Brown's Robert Langdon. Most of them were worth reading, though Buckley was clearly out of steam and Brown was strictly beach-worthy. I also read some Sherlock Holmes short stories and read the initial Lehane book featuring Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro. Those were good too, though Lehane's book featured enough violence for three or four books.

The novels by Orwell, Greene, and Dick are not among their very best works, though some reader's really like Ubik. I found it the best of these books. Watchmen was interesting, but I certainly wouldn't rank it in the top 100 novels of all-time.

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Films of 2012

2012-12-30T23:44:00.000-05:00

Photo credit: Andrei Z on Flickr

As I note annually, I watch a lot of movies, though most are viewed on DVD (or from DVR recordings, or since August streamed from Netflix) on my television. Because I do not see that many new films in the theater, I cannot at year's end write a credible post on the best movies of 2012. After all, I have not yet seen many of the highly touted films released in late December. I will see them, of course. Eventually.

This year, I missed most of the summer blockbusters as well. For various reasons, I simply didn't watch all that many 2012 films.

In fact, many of the best films I saw this past year were older films on DVD/DVR/Netflix that I originally missed in the theaters -- or were late 2011 films I saw in the theaters during early 2012.

To make this abbreviated 2012 list, I scanned the top grossing movies of the year, as well as IMDB's most popular titles for 2012 and Movie Review Intelligence. In rank order of my preference, these were the best 2012 films I saw this year, so far as I can tell:

Moonrise Kingdom **
The Hunger Games **
Rampart
Arbitrage
Skyfall **

I think almost any film lover would enjoy these films. The list is topped by "Moonrise Kingdom," an engaging film that my wife and I saw on a scorching hot 4th of July day. I liked "The Hunger Games" more than I did any of the Harry Potter films. Indeed, I liked it so much that I borrowed the book from my daughters and enjoyed it too. Woody Harrelson is terrific in "Rampart," but he plays a bad cop. "Arbitrage" was not as good as last year's "Margin Call," but the story serves as a powerful metaphor for the Wall Street collapse of 2008. "Skyfall" was a very good Bond film, but not a great Bond film. It almost topped the next section of the list, but I kept it here as I have not yet seen any of the end-of-year Oscar contenders.

Indeed, the rest of the 2012 films I watched aren't ranked with much care, though the films near the top of this list are better than the ones near the bottom:

21 Jump Street
Jeff, Who Lives at Home
Friends with Kids
Bernie
Dark Shadows
Thin Ice
The Avengers
Haywire
The Grey
Men in Black 3

** I saw these films in the theater.

These films are entertaining, generally. If I was grading, I'd give most of them a C+ or B-. Then again, I tend to avoid films that the critics hate (thanks to Metacritic, and links on IMDB, the ratings are easy to find).

Here's the annual list of movies I intend to see in the future (hopefully in 2013): Amazing Spider-Man, Argo, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Bourne Legacy, Chronicle, Cosmopolis, Dark Knight Rises, The Dictator, Django Unchained, End of Watch, Five Year Engagement, Flight, Headhunters, Hitchcock, Hope Springs, The Impossible, Killer Joe, Killing Them Softly, Lawless, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Looper, The Master, Not Fade Away, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Premium Rush, Prometheus, Queen of Versailles, Ruby Sparks, Rust and Bone, Safety Not Guaranteed, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, Savages, Searching for Sugar Man, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, The Sessions, Silver Linings Playbook, Sleepwalk With Me, Ted, This is Not a Film, To Rome With Love, We Need to Talk About Kevin, West of Memphis, Your Sister's Sister, and Zero Dark Thirty.

Metacritic helped me form that list.

Keep in mind that I didn't get around to seeing many 2011 movies from last year's wishlist: Another Earth, A Better Life, Certified Copy, A Dangerous Method, Go Go Tales, Higher Ground, Hugo, The Interrupters, The Iron Lady, J. Edgar, Jane Eyre, Le Havre, Like Crazy, Lovers of Hate, Mysteries of Lisbon, Myth of the American Sleepover, Of Gods and Men, Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times, Point Blank, The Robber, A Separation, The Skin I Live In, Small Town Murder Songs, Terri, Tree of Life, War Horse, The Way Back, We Bought a Zoo, and Weekend.

Many of those 2011 films are on Netflix, so I'll probably get to them before winter ends.

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