Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Blurred Visions--A Cram Course in Modern International Relations Theory

In its November/December 2010 issue Foreign Affairs magazine marks the twentieth anniversary of the end of the Cold War with a brilliant analysis by Richard K. Betts (Director of the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University and Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations) of what arguably are the three most important books on international relations theory published in the last two decades.  They are The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama (Free Press, 1992),  The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order by Samuel P. Huntington (Simon & Schuster, 1996) and The Tragedy of Great Power Politics by John J. Mearsheimer (Norton, 2001).  I highly recommend Betts's essay which can be found here.  It should be required reading at schools of public affairs such as the one I attended.


Additional reading (this will NOT be on the test):  Check out "A Reading List for the Twenty-First Century" in the same issue of Foreign Affairs.  It's a list of sixteen books, each one recommended by a 'name' in international relations.


Helpful reading tip:  If you read on your computer screen but find all of the ads distracting and the white background a strain on the eyes, then try out Readability.  It's a widget you install on your computer.  It can reformat an article to eliminate the clutter and adjust the fonts and background color for more comfortable reading.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Government: It IS broke, let's fix it!

Back in February CNN and Opinion Research published results of a poll revealing that 86% (plus or minus 3%) of the American public thought that the system of American government was broken.  The good news was that 81 out of the 86% believed that the problem could be fixed.  I suspect that if the poll were taken today the results wouldn't be much different.  The sad thing is that virtually no one is talking publicly about changing the system.  Sure, the electorate put the Republicans back in charge of the House and left the Ds with a paper thin majority in the Senate. But despite the turbocharged fury of some of the new law makers, there is virtually no serious talk about how the system of government could be improved.  Indeed many of the newbies would consider even the contemplation of systemic reform to be heresy or even unconstitutional.  The GOP Pledge to America could have been a place to begin such a conversation, but it is full of foggy platitudes without an ounce of courage or concrete.  Neither does President Obama's remaining wish list of policy legislation contain any mention of systemic reform of governance.


Ironically both political parties have established institutes that promote democratic reform in other countries: the National Democratic Institute  and the International Republican Institute.  Both of these organizations are funded with taxpayer dollars through the National Endowment for Democracy.  Outside the US both organizations have sponsored some interesting experiments with new ways of public decision making.  But neither of their parent political parties seems to learned anything from these experiments.


There are thoughtful citizens who have interesting ideas.  One person who has wrestled with this problem for twenty years is James S. Fishkin, head of the Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford University. Professor Fishkin holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Yale as well as a second Ph.D. in Philosophy from Cambridge.  He and his collaborators have conducted Deliberative Polls in the US, Britain, Australia, Denmark, Bulgaria, China, Greece and other countries (including the great nation of Texas).  In September Time carried an article describing how the city of Zeguo in Zhejiang Province of China was experimenting with Fishkin's deliberative polling.


Earlier in the year I was optimistic that California would implement some new processes to achieve needed constitutional reform.  But once the state's budgetary gridlock was broken such reforms became unlikely.


No, I am not ready to start writing amendments to the Federal constitution to reorganize the legislative branch or the other two.  But I would like to see some experimentation at the state level.  Fishkin is not the only one with promising ideas.  If you are dissatisfied with the way government is working, don't get angry, get smart.  Get together with your friends and learn about new ideas for reform of governance and get organized to make them happen.  It won't be easy; there are too many vested interests and too many people who are afraid of change.  But it's worth the effort.


If you know of any interesting ideas, send them along and I will share them on the blog.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Podcasts

I admit it; I am addicted--not to a substance but to a service. Podcasting is an internet based service that syndicates periodic audio and video programs to subscribers.  There are podcasts about virtually any topic that you can imagine and most of them are free.  To subscribe you need a program that geeks call a podcast aggregator.  By far the most popular and easiest to use is iTunes which is free from Apple.  Using iTunes you can listen to or watch podcasts from your PC or Mac and you can transfer them to your iPod, iPad or iPhone.  If you have another type of mobile device, you’ll have to use a program other than iTunes.

I have listed below some of the podcasts that I find interesting.  The stars are my own simple minded ranking system.  I find listening makes time pass faster whether I am logging miles on the bus or the treadmill.

Let me know if you have favorites.

Books
✩✩New York Times Book Review--weekly discussion with authors and reviewers about newest releases and literary trends. http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/podcasts/bookupdate.xml

NPR: Books Podcast--NPR book reviews, news and author interviews.  Not published on a regular schedule http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=510283

New York Review of Books--Interviews, lectures, readings and more from the staff and contributors of The New York Review of Books. Not published on a regular schedule.  http://feeds.feedburner.com/nybooks-podcasts

Business
✩✩✩Weekend Business--Mostly interviews with authors of articles in the Sunday Business section of the New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/podcasts/weekendbiz.xml

Harvard Business IdeaCast--From Harvard Business Publishing http://hbsp.libsyn.com/rss

Knowledge@Wharton Interviews--the online research and business analysis journal of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. They haven’t been adding new material as often recently. http://feeds.feedburner.com/KnowledgewhartonInterviews

✩The Invisible Hand: Management, Economics and Strategy for the Thinking Person--Chris Gondek interviews authors of books about management and strategy. http://feeds.feedburner.com/theinvisiblehandpodcast/bOjc

MIT Press Podcast--Interviews with the authors of books currently being published by MIT Press. http://feeds.feedburner.com/MITPodcastIT

Social Innovation Conversations--Educational podcasts on social entrepreneurship, environmental sustainability, philanthropy, corporate social responsibility   http://feeds.conversationsnetwork.org/channel/siconversations

Economics
✩✩EconTalk--Prof Russ Roberts of George Mason University discusses economics issues and other topics that interest him with a range of like minded conservatives.  Sometimes too one-sided but usually enjoyable. http://www.econlib.org/library/EconTalk.xml

✩Peterson Perspectives: Interviews on Current Issues--Peterson Institute research staff offer their analyses of current economic and political events in brief interviews. The Peterson Institute for International Economics is a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan research institution devoted to the study of inter http://feeds.feedburner.com/Peterson-Perspectives.xml

✩✩Martin Wolf--the Financial Time's chief economics commentator reads his weekly column.  Wolf is probably the best economics writer working in English.  His podcasts are very tight.  I often have to go back to the written version to unpack what he has said, but it is worth the effort.  Occasionally he dives into some issue particular to the UK that is of less interest, but you can always skip that. http://podcast.ft.com/rss/17/

✩✩✩London School of Economics: Public lectures and events--Audio recordings from LSE's programme of public lectures and events.  Huge amount of great material and often extends way beyond economics. Howard Davies talking about the Chinese financial system is unequalled as is Danny Quan on China’s economy. http://www.lse.ac.uk/resources/podcasts/rss/publicLecturesAndEvents.rss

History, Culture, Miscellany
✩✩Great Lives/BBC Radio 4--Biography series exploring the greatest people who ever lived. Matthew Parris interviews an eminent guest and an expert to reveal the truth behind their history heroes. http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/greatlives/rss.xml

✩✩✩In Our Time With Melvyn Bragg/BBC Radio 4--The history of ideas discussed by Melvyn Bragg and guests including  Philosophy, science, literature, religion and the influence these ideas have on us today. http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/iot/rss.xml

✩✩✩The New Yorker--Weekly reading of major articles and reviews from The New Yorker.  Extremely well produced with professional readers. Available by subscription from Audible.com which is a great source of downloadable recorded books. http://feeds.audible.com/rss/subs/p/PE_NYER_000001/e/28001a17451a15/c/mp332

✩✩NPR: Fresh Air Podcast--Almost daily Terry Gross interviews important public figures from all domains. http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=13

✩NYT Tech Talk--The latest tech news and Internet trends from New York Times technology writers. http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/podcasts/techtalk.xml

✩PRI: Selected Shorts Podcast--It's story time for adults with PRI's short story series. http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=510202

✩✩RSA Events: Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA)--Lectures and panel discussions on a wide range of topics put on by an organization more than 250 years old. http://www.thersa.org/rss/rsa-audio/

Science Times--A roundup of the topics addressed in the week's New York Times Science section http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/podcasts/scienceupdate.xml

✩✩TED Talks--These are video podcasts of presentations by (usually) fascinating people at the big TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference in Silicon Valley and some regional TED conferences.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/TEDTalks_video

This American Life--weekly podcast of the radio show "This American Life." First-person stories and short fiction pieces. Hosted by Ira Glass, from WBEZ Chicago Public Radio. http://feeds.thisamericanlife.org/talpodcast