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The media and financial markets are abuzz over the decision of the Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou’s decision to hold a referendum on whether to approve the current EU bail out plan for Greece and its many conditions for reform and austerity in Greece (see for example here, here, and here). While most attention is […]

According to Chris Wilson, there are two versions of the report of the Occupy Wall Street poll from so-called hack pollster Doug Schoen. Here’s the report that Azi Paybarah says that Schoen sent to him, and here’s the final question from the poll: And here’s what’s on Schoen’s own website: Very similar, except for that […]

Will the recent recognition of the country by UNESCO lead to full membership in the General Assembly?

My new post at 538 discusses a forthcoming paper by political scientists Joseph Uscinski and Arthur Simon.  They argue that certain kinds of previous experience, including military service and tenure as the governor of a large state, are associated with “presidential greatness,” as gauged by surveys of historians.  “Washington outsiders,” by contrast, fare poorly. The […]

John gives some reasons why viewers of the political scene might think that congressional Republicans are more disciplined than their Democratic counterparts, even if this isn’t really so. I’d like to give one more big reason based on recent history. When Barack Obama became president, congressional Republicans implemented a solid No strategy and were successful […]

In our continuing series of election reports, we are pleased to welcome the following post-election report from Theresa Reidy of University College Cork: ******************** Michael D Higgins was elected the ninth President of Ireland on Saturday, 29 October 2011 with over one million votes. Higgins was the candidate from the Labour Party, the second largest […]

In our continuing series of election reports, we welcome political scientists Natalia C. Del Cogliano and Mariana L. Prats with the following post-election report on last week’s Argentinian elections: ******* The fact that this report could largely have been written two months ago right after primaries were held is a reality we cannot avoid. Is […]

Most people think of social welfare policies as ones that aim to help people with low or moderate incomes, but the largest entitlements in what I call the Submerged State conglomeration of policies channeled through the tax code and subsidies to private organizations—benefit especially high income households. The three submerged policies that are most costly […]

A Monkey Cage reader and long-time affiliate of Washington public interest groups asks: Do public interest groups influence policy decisions?  For an answer, I asked two political scientists who study interest groups: Dara Strolovich, the author of Affirmative Advocacy, and Matt Grossmann, the author of the forthcoming Not So Special Interests.  Here is their post: Categorizing groups as representing […]