Joshua Tucker

In this exciting new version, the value of the properties go down once you buy them and the bank has no money…. [Cross-posted at The Monkey Cage]

I was lecturing about transitions to democracy today, and I mentioned that my colleague Adam Przeworski has argued that no country with a GDP above $6,000/per capita that becomes a democracy has later lost its status as a democracy. I noted that this was one of the few iron rules of politics that political scientists […]

[Cross-posted at The Monkey Cage]

For those of you looking for a potential break from all Iowa, all the time at some point today, I want to suggest a very thoughtful piece on Putinism by NYU Law Professor Stephen Holmes in the London Review of Books on how we ought best to interpret the current status of Putinism in Russia. […]

As the world digests the deaths of Vaclav Havel and Kim Jong-Il, an interesting and unresolved questions is raised for observers of politics: how much influence does any one person ever really have over the evolution of politics in a country, a region, or even the whole global political systems? From our earliest days in […]

I have an op-ed on Al Jazeera English in which I propose two different ways of thinking about recent events in Russia, both of which are based on theoretical arguments I have put forward in academic journals (see here and here) in recent years. One focuses on the ability of fraudulent elections to serve as […]

Insider trading in Congress is back in the news, this time because Congress is trying to set up more stringent regulations against it. The reason: Almost all of the 173 House members cosponsoring the legislation signed on following a 60 Minutes broadcast last month reporting that congressional lawmakers can enrich themselves through investments without fear […]

One of the ways to get a handle on the current Egyptian elections is to try to compare them to the first set of post-communist elections. Some similarities are immediately apparent. Turnout is high. The forces of the “Old Regime” are apparently doing badly. But perhaps more illustrative, however are the following differences: First, the […]

For your viewing pleasure, from cartoonist Ted McCagg: [Cross-posted at The Monkey Cage]

Princeton political scientist Nolan McCarty applies research by political scientists to the unfolding story of whether members of Congress have benefited from insider trading: A recent 60 Minutes segment and a new book claim that members of Congress from both parties have benefited financially from inside information obtained in the course of their legislative duties.  […]