Blog: The Monkey Cage

Political scientist Andrea Campbell in Foreign Affairs (ungated): In proposing all these options, from reducing spending to raising revenue, policymakers are confronting the reality of U.S. fiscal policy: compared with its counterparts among the advanced nations, the United States’ tax system collects little revenue, poorly redistributes that money across the population, and is mind-bogglingly complex. […]

As the sociologists play bingo at their national conference, we are planning for another great tradition: the second annual APSA soccer game, 9:00 a.m. Saturday, September 1. The likely location is the great lawn of Woldenberg Park (unless a local recommends otherwise).  Whether you are a retired pro or just looking to get a run in, please […]

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy I was on MSNBC’s “The Cycle” yesterday, trying not to look as much like a zombie as I do above and also talking a bit about some of the data from the first chapter of The Gamble, which is called “The Hand You’re […]

Lynn Vavreck and I are pleased to announce that the first two e-chapters of our book on the 2012 presidential election are now available.  You can find those chapters here and here.  They are available for free.  The book’s website is here. The book is called The Gamble: Choice and Chance in the 2012 Presidential […]

I am part of a proposed panel for the 2013 South by Southwest entitled “How Partisan Media Contributes to Healthy Politics.”  Here’s the description: The rise of new media, from Facebook and Twitter to The Huffington Post and The Daily Caller, has allowed consumers of news to ignore anything that challenges their prior beliefs. Purveyors […]

From Jeff Smith.  More here.

A new paper from Lawrence Broz uses formerly disclosed information to show that the Fed’s global lending patterns fit the interests of global U.S. banks just fine. He then analyzes a vote in Congress on a bill that would reduce the Fed’s confidentiality permanently. All but one Republican favored the bill (Robert Turner was the odd one […]

I am looking forward to reading Richard Arenberg and Robert Dove’s new book, Defending the Filibuster, which comes out tomorrow.  Niels Lesniewski’s preview in Roll Call provides a glimpse of some of the authors’ arguments.   First, they oppose what many call “reform-by-ruling,” or altering Senate rules by majority vote at the start of a Congress.  […]

I am pondering banning laptops and tablets from my classroom. The upsides of this are obvious: avoiding the distractions that come with Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, and all the other wonderful things the internet has to offer. Research rather unambiguously shows that small distractions (such as checking e-mail) lead to considerable drops in levels of concentration […]

This is a guest post by Brown University political scientist Michael Tesler.  For more on his work, see this Slate piece. ***** Race has recently taken center stage in the presidential campaign.  From Joe Biden’s suggestion that a Romney-Ryan presidency would re-enslave African-Americans, to some liberal commentators’ contentions that the Romney campaign is using racial […]