"Obviously, there's no sense in denying that... conforming to the predominant Democratic view on abortion policy will aide an elected official's efforts to rise within party ranks."

Huh? Any evidence for this? Just going with my gut, it seems like the probability any given Democratic leader is pro-life is approximately equal to the fraction of Democratic politicians who are pro-life.

It's possible my perspective is colored from being from Massachusetts, where we have a respectable number of pro-life Catholic Democrats in politics, and we've had a few rise to major leadership positions both in the state and in Congress.

About the only thing I've observed is a lack of visibilty. Many pro-life Democrats do not go out of their way to advertise their positions. Furthermore, they usually do not try to use their leadership position to push pro-life position.

Posted at June 26, 2006 7:32 AM in response to Mmm...Facts

My definition is something like:

1. Nations are kinda like people.

2. Like people, nations kinda have rights, like right to exist, right to self-defense, a right to trade, etc.

2b. In particular, nations have a right to self-determination, as long as they do not interfere in the business of others. Kinda like a Millsian personal autonomy proviso. Hence the "liberal"

3. These rights are defined by (international) laws, which are enforced by (international) institutions. Hence the "institutional"

So I guess I go one step further then DD - I always thought of liberal institutionalism as explicitly rejecting democracy promotion and the like, at least internally to governments. It's about national rights and a kind of "rule of law for nations" not within nations.

Also to be clear, liberal institutionalism has very little to do with domestic liberalism. You could be a liberal egalitarian domestically and a realist internationally or an authoritarian domestically and a liberal institutionalist internationally - in fact, alot of the normative value of liberal international is a dream of how to achieve world peace when some nations are run democratically while others are run in an authoritarian manner.

For the record, however, I think liberal internationalism, both my version and DDs version are terrible as both positive and normative theories, so I hope I haven't set them as a strawman in my definition.

Posted at May 17, 2006 2:13 PM in response to Tools and Aspirations

My view is this. Making up some numbers, the probability you laugh at Colbert, given you are feel the system needs to be reformed in some significant way, is about 70%. The probability you laugh at him, given that you are a Tool of the Man, part of the Establishment, etc. is about 30%. So we can use Bayes rule, based on what your prior beliefs about whether someone is a tool, to update your new beliefs about their attitudes. Now individual by individual, you can't make any hard conclusions. A liberal might watch Colbert and honestly not find him funny. Seeing Justice Scalia laugh does not convince me that he is a progressive. But taken in an aggregate, seeing the correspondents fail to laugh has provided some evidence that on average, the white house correspondants really are deferential to authority, establishment types.

And stuff like Cohen's piece just keep adding to the evidence.

Posted at May 11, 2006 3:05 PM in response to Colbertgate Resolved

To reduce illegal immigration directly you can either throw more money at the problem, or be more loose with the proceedures. The latter method doesn't really help incentives (since some innocents get sweeped up in the process, diluting the incentive to play by the rules)  When I hear the word "crackdown" that's what I think of - looser proceedures.

Posted at April 6, 2006 12:06 PM in response to Why Not Both?

On paper, what neoclassical theory would predict is that the employee would be paid X + Y - epsilon, epsilon > 0 , and so the employer and/or the consumer pockets the epsilon. The epsilon is the implicit subsidy to employers and consumers.

What Max claims is that in practice, epsilon seems to be essentially zero, or even has thwe wrong sign. One of the first things one should learn in economics is you should never take the on-paper models too seriously, especially if data is available that contradicts the model.

Posted at March 31, 2006 1:22 PM in response to Krugman Gets It

"But that's your choice and the choice of the state of California. If California decided to actually not give up its levee money to help New Orleans, that would be a valid choice wouldn't it?"

Well, what's the relevent we? Is it state-by-state? nation by nation? county by county? town by town? Or how about race? Or social class? Or how about every individual for himself?

In my mind, the two natural "we's" are "me only" or "everyone on earth." It does strike me as a bit wierd to have self-sacrificing egalitarian concerns for everyone in a nation but no concern for anyone outside. I have no problem with choosing one's own interests. I have no problem with universal egalitarianism. Even a value like  maximizing the prestige and power of the United States (which is NOT the same as maximizing the welfare of the worst off American) has a certain appeal. But half-assed selective egalitarianism based on arbitrary boundaries puzzles me.  Proposals to disregard the welfare of non-Americans just makes me inclined to disregard the welfare of EVERYONE but myself. And appeals to patriotism makes me inclined to disregard the welfare of poor Americans and think about maximizing American power or territory or prestige or such.

 "They seem to be arguing that we have no right as a country to choose our own interests over the interests of others. If we do, it's somehow immoral."

I would distiguish rights from morality. I would argue that the country has the right to ignore the interests of aliens, but doing so might very well be immoral under certain circumstances. Just because one has the right to do something (without, say, interference from any outside party), does not mean its morally best to do that thing. Or even feasible.   

Posted at March 31, 2006 4:32 AM in response to A Post-Patriotic Progressive Runs for Congress

Vast majority? Evidence? Some non-negligable fraction of Democrats in the public at least are realists or isolationists.

 I for one as a realist consider liberal internationalism about as suspsect as neoconservatism.

Posted at March 12, 2006 12:45 PM in response to Fukuyama Revisited

Jim: I think you missed a key assumption, that the goal is either to maximize the welfare of the worst off person, or maximize aggregate utility. If you don't believe that is the definition of "good policy" then of course Matt's normative discussion of distributive justice is irrelevent.

Dustin: You seem to maybe be mixing up normative goals with positive facts. A scientist (such as an economist) can only (try to) tell you what will happen, not what the "best" state of affairs will be. A philopher can only suggest reasonable rules for evaluating what states are the best. So the words of economists are worthless without philosphers, and consequentialist philosophers are worthless without the economists. Putting more stock in one or the other is irrelevent - you need both, they are not subsitutes for each other. (Unless you have an entirely nonconsequentialist theory of justice, in which case the economist's views would be irrelevent)

Posted at February 12, 2006 6:20 PM in response to Intergenerational Justice