By Tiffany Muller Exploiting Citizens United Thirteen years ago, the Supreme Court handed down the Citizens United v. FEC decision, one of the most disastrous decisions in the Court’s history. The case took two bad ideas and combined them–the idea that money equals speech and corporations are people. The Court effectively put a for sale... Continue Reading →
Xi’s Anti-Corruption Campaign Continues, But Its Motives Remain Misunderstood
By Christopher Carothers Xi’s Anti-Corruption Campaign At a Politburo meeting of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in early December, Chinese leader Xi Jinping signaled that his sweeping, now decade-long anti-corruption campaign would continue in his third term. This campaign—Xi’s signature domestic policy after coming to power in 2012—has continued to expand its scope in recent... Continue Reading →
Neil DeVotta on the Protests in Sri Lanka
Neil DeVotta is professor of politics and international affairs at Wake Forest University. His article "Sri Lanka's Agony" was published in this July's issue of Journal of Democracy. Become a Patron! As long as people are able to cast their ballot, irrespective of the illiberalism, irrespective of all these other shortcomings, democracy, at least from... Continue Reading →
Corruption is Transnational
Become a Patron! Central Asia and Transnational Corruption A theme of the podcast has become the blurred line between national and international politics. Ronald Deibert explained how autocrats use technology to repress opponents even after they flee their country. A few years ago Christopher Walker coined the term sharp power. Walker writes sharp power "involves... Continue Reading →
Bilal Baloch on Indira Gandhi, India’s Emergency, and the Importance of Ideas in Politics
Bilal Baloch is the Co-Founder and COO of Enquire, formerly GlobalWonks. He is also a non-resident visiting scholar at the Center for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of When Ideas Matter: Democracy and Corruption in India. We have core ideas that form a part of our worldview, but... Continue Reading →
Why Ideas Matter
Ideas and Political Decisions Political science almost always falls back into discussions of institutions and interests. The human element gets extracted from serious research, because it does not fit well into statistical analysis or spatial models. Instead, ideas and opinions become diminished into political interests. In other words, scholars largely assume ideologies do not evolve... Continue Reading →