This is truly deep, both politically and methodologically. I have been doing regressions during the 55 years since the book Ansell refers to was published. My best fitting model predicting the survival of democracy conditions it on per capita income and the number of past peaceful partisan alternations in office. The model fits like a glove, regardless of the estimators and time periods. And it predicts that the probability of democracy collapsing in the US today is 1 in 1.8 million country-years. Hence, something is obviously wrong and I am at a loss. King and Zheng have a paper in which they argue that history is a good guide to the present only if the conditions do not change much. But which conditions did change drastically? Why Trump now?
The big challenge for political science - at least the parts studying modern democracy - is that you're studying an incredibly recent phenomenon. Even just looking at 'highly developed countries' there are still plenty of states with people who were born before de facto full-franchise democracy.
Plenty of natural sciences are observational but there's normally something you can do to get more data that isn't "look into cryogenics".
All of which is to say that I'm pro regression in political science and anti regression in actual politics.
The hope is that politicians are willing to name the problems, and actually talk and listen to people about how they are affecting their lives. Then one hopes they use the work of social sciences and other experts to make a genuine effort to address them. I learned a military acronym recently OODA, observe, orient, decide, act. It’s active, but not thoughtless. A young woman with schizophrenia stabbed a child on the street in Halifax NS where I live. A couple of years ago I met a young man doing landscaping work at a neighbour who had brought his brother with schizophrenia to work with him because he was having a bad episode and he was afraid to leave him at home with his father who also had schizophrenia. His mother had left them because she couldn’t take it anymore which had precipitated his brother’s episode. Curious if you learned anything in that hospital that could help with the mental health crisis, which is also part of our homeless crisis. Maybe subject for another post. This one was very interesting.
It is notable that the people who profess to be 'liberal' are the ones who have a problem with you giving a platform to someone whose views they do not share.
You are correct that Trump creates his own reality for his followers to believe in. The reason that experts and the "reality based community" can be so easily disregarded is that human value judgments are entirely subjective and cannot be determined by experts. This subjectivity, which is fundamental to all human perception, can't be escaped and it leaves room for the craziest and most idiotic ideas to gain acceptance. We are all trapped in our own minds and those minds can only perceive things from our own point of view which can be swayed by charismatic autocrats, messianic psychopaths and any fashionable viewpoint that may sweep through our communities. The experts and reality based communities have no answer for that. Lunacy is not susceptible to reason. That is how every crazy utopian ideology from Nazism to communism and every crazy religion to voodoo has always spread around the world.
This is truly deep, both politically and methodologically. I have been doing regressions during the 55 years since the book Ansell refers to was published. My best fitting model predicting the survival of democracy conditions it on per capita income and the number of past peaceful partisan alternations in office. The model fits like a glove, regardless of the estimators and time periods. And it predicts that the probability of democracy collapsing in the US today is 1 in 1.8 million country-years. Hence, something is obviously wrong and I am at a loss. King and Zheng have a paper in which they argue that history is a good guide to the present only if the conditions do not change much. But which conditions did change drastically? Why Trump now?
The big challenge for political science - at least the parts studying modern democracy - is that you're studying an incredibly recent phenomenon. Even just looking at 'highly developed countries' there are still plenty of states with people who were born before de facto full-franchise democracy.
Plenty of natural sciences are observational but there's normally something you can do to get more data that isn't "look into cryogenics".
All of which is to say that I'm pro regression in political science and anti regression in actual politics.
The hope is that politicians are willing to name the problems, and actually talk and listen to people about how they are affecting their lives. Then one hopes they use the work of social sciences and other experts to make a genuine effort to address them. I learned a military acronym recently OODA, observe, orient, decide, act. It’s active, but not thoughtless. A young woman with schizophrenia stabbed a child on the street in Halifax NS where I live. A couple of years ago I met a young man doing landscaping work at a neighbour who had brought his brother with schizophrenia to work with him because he was having a bad episode and he was afraid to leave him at home with his father who also had schizophrenia. His mother had left them because she couldn’t take it anymore which had precipitated his brother’s episode. Curious if you learned anything in that hospital that could help with the mental health crisis, which is also part of our homeless crisis. Maybe subject for another post. This one was very interesting.
It is notable that the people who profess to be 'liberal' are the ones who have a problem with you giving a platform to someone whose views they do not share.
Well indeed. As the comment above suggests, for many people Gove simply cannot be listened to.
Respecting people does not require that we give non-citizens the vote.
You set yourself up.
I would say _improvement_ is possible. A lower-case liberal can accept that human beings are imperfect.
Very good indeed, thank you
You are correct that Trump creates his own reality for his followers to believe in. The reason that experts and the "reality based community" can be so easily disregarded is that human value judgments are entirely subjective and cannot be determined by experts. This subjectivity, which is fundamental to all human perception, can't be escaped and it leaves room for the craziest and most idiotic ideas to gain acceptance. We are all trapped in our own minds and those minds can only perceive things from our own point of view which can be swayed by charismatic autocrats, messianic psychopaths and any fashionable viewpoint that may sweep through our communities. The experts and reality based communities have no answer for that. Lunacy is not susceptible to reason. That is how every crazy utopian ideology from Nazism to communism and every crazy religion to voodoo has always spread around the world.
Great article, thank you.
My attempt to put some proper names to New Zealand political institutions that I hope will be of interest:
https://www.nzinitiative.org.nz/reports-and-media/reports/demystifying-the-state/?1
Tony
Really enjoyed this!
Are you serious in your description of Gove? He suggested the IDF should get the Noble Peace Prize:
https://www.thejc.com/opinion/the-idf-should-be-nominated-for-the-nobel-peace-prize-xmppkld8