Gang Fang's Blog

The three I’s to consider when examine an political event

Interests, Ideals and Institutions

The sign of a weak state and the sign of a weak political party

The sign of a weak state: An inability to collect tax

the sign of a weak political party: Individuals are at the forefront and they look after for themselves.

The logic of referendum politics

A referendum focus on a single issue, vs. a general political platform is typically about a bundle of issues. Making people/voters focus on a single issue creates blind spots and people miss the bigger picture, which in turn miss second order effects that could be more consequential.

The two most consequential movements happened in the 20th century’s USA are the civil rights movement and tax cuts.

Tax cuts turned the American government from a tax funded government into a debt funded government. And that has created the massive deficit the US is experiencing and the current debt ceiling problem.

Neoliberalism (Washington Consensus) vs. Neoconservatism

Neoliberalism has three basic components:

1. Free trade
2. Deregularization
3. Privatization of public assets

Even tho the Washington Consensus sounds pejorative, it has produced efficiency gains in some cases, take the privatization of water supply in Bolivia by the San Francisco’s company Bechtel.

Neoconservatism combine conservative ideas with interventionist and assertive foreign policy positions. Neoconservatives often advocate for an assertive American leadership in global affairs, and a proactive approach to promoting democracy and American values abroad.

The commonality between them is their shared belief in free-market principles.

What are the major forces in the post cold war period that have contributed to the decline of the US-led unipolar world order?

This is the key question to answer for this lecture.

Democracy especially in the US is turning into a “segmented democracy”

Given things like the Common Interest Developments (CID) is becoming more and more popular. People who only talk to like-minded others have a higher chance of becoming more extreme because through the process they reinforce their common viewpoints.

Changing media context

Political speech is not about institutionalized arguments over policies but rather mobilizing your own supporters.

Leadership requirements under the context of a successful negotiation leading to a democracy

I find this one useful and interesting for a few reasons: firstly, the definition of leadership is very concrete and the professor backed that up with examples. Secondly, it’s defined in a context that is usually notoriously difficult but produces drastically better outcomes if success is obtained. So I think this could be borrowed as a blueprint and apply elsewhere. Also, I realized this definition aligns most with my impression of leadership.

• Unusual appetite for risk
• Good strategic judgment
• Empathy

Who were the Neoconservatives and what was the neoconservative dream?

• Roots in pre-WWII left criticism of the USSR
• 1960s and 1970s rollback proponents & liberal hawks in the cold war
• Post-cold war proponents of global spreading of capitalism and US-friendly democracy
  • These people conflated democracies and pro-US regimes

The cost of the Iraq War

• US casualties
• Iraqi casualties
• Economic cost: $1.9 to 3 trillion
• Massive demonstration of American weakness
• Loss of moral high ground on the global stage

The new deal didn’t end the depression. The war economy did.

Three perspectives on regulation

1. The technocratic theories of regulation ignore the ways in which power, politics and ideology shape outcomes
2. profit-seeking regulation: assumes that state asset is a unique asset: legal coercive powers and groups that can use it for profit will
3. Consumer/voter oriented regulation: politicians need votes (from consumers) and financial contributions (from firms), leading to tradeoffs. But, voter attention is often intense but intermittent.

4 factors that caused the mortgage crisis

• American dream of home ownership
• Securitization of subprime mortgage market
• Behaviors of banks: they didn’t do their due diligence because mortgage could be sold and traded.
• Politics: politicians pushed private sectors to loan to minority loan takers as a way to fulfill their American dream, even tho they had bad credit background.

Aftermath of the mortgage crisis

The US government didn’t do much to help homeowners, even tho they bailed out the big banks. John Geanakoplos thinks troubled homeowners should be the primary focus instead, but that creates moral hazard and made it difficult for the bad debt to be written down, which economically would have been beneficial to all players.

Why do people type homeownership to the American dream?

• appreciating asset
• forced savings
• long-term employment insecurity

These all turned out to be not what people generally believe and homeownership doesn’t actually provide these benefits.

How did we get from the euphoria and optimism at the end of the Cold War to the politics of fear and resentment that has swept much of the democratic world since 2016?

• Geopolitical arrogance & uncritical embrace of the neo-liberalism at home and Washington consensus abroad
• Failure to take account of the long-term changes in national and global political economies

4 paths that could have been different:

1. NATO expansion after the Cold War
2. Management of geopolitical crises and humanitarian intervention: unilateralism
3. Business matters because the alternative system, communism, has gone away
4. The strategies of left political parties at home