Analysis: Latest Reports from The Washington Posts ‘Monkey Cage’

Obama thinks he hasn’t gotten credit for a growing economy. He’s right.

In a long New York Times magazine piece on Obama’s economic legacy, Andrew Ross Sorkin begins with this: Two months ago, across an assembly-room table in a factory in Jacksonville, Fla., President Barack Obama was talking to me about the problem of political capital. His efforts to rebuild the U.S. economy from the 2008 financial […]

How Western aid enables graft addiction in Ukraine

Over the past 25 years, Western donors have funneled billions of dollars into post-communist Ukraine, with two main goals: helping the country build a self-sustaining, competitive market economy, and laying the legal and regulatory groundwork for a law-governed state. April 14 saw the appointment of yet another government dominated by insiders from Ukraine’s discredited post-communist […]

Corruption is not new to Brazil, so why is it threatening the presidency now?

Ronald Reagan was famously called “the Teflon president” for his ability to deflect scandals that might have sunk his popularity. So why couldn’t Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff tap into this same protection? Following the lower house’s overwhelming vote on April 17 to impeach Rousseff, Brazil’s government sits on the brink of collapse. An onslaught of […]

Why is Hillary Clinton doing worse among whites now than in 2008? Racial attitudes.

At first glance, the results from last week’s Democratic presidential primary in Pennsylvania appear to be strikingly similar to the last time Hillary Clinton ran for president. Nearly the same percentage of Pennsylvania primary voters supported her in both 2008 and 2016: 54.6 percent and 55.6 percent, respectively. But while her aggregate vote tallies may […]

Has the American military fallen behind?

One of the prominent themes in this year’s presidential primaries is the state of the American military. In his April 27 foreign policy speech, Republican front-runner Donald Trump summed up the majority view of the GOP: [W]e have to rebuild our military and our economy. The Russians and Chinese have rapidly expanded their military capability, […]

2016 should be winnable for Republicans. But can they win with Trump?

In January 2014, I wrote a post called “The Democratic Party’s uphill path to 270 electoral votes in 2016.” I noted that, contrary to some conventional wisdom, the broader fundamentals of the presidential election actually favored the GOP. This is still correct. In a forthcoming article, Lynn Vavreck, Michael Tesler and I estimate a simple statistical […]

The E.U.’s financial rules should have stopped the euro crisis. Why didn’t they?

European Union member states, either bilaterally or jointly, have provided bailouts to five euro zone countries since 2010. Other authors here in the Monkey Cage have looked at the broad lessons from the euro crisis, but why was the E.U. system unable to prevent the crisis in the first place? There were rules, lots of rules […]

Will it be Clinton or Trump in November? Here’s what’s wrong with most predictions.

Almost certainly, after the July nominating conventions, the Democratic presidential nominee will be heavily favored to win the general election. (The “almost” leaves room for a dark horse candidate to win a contested convention.) What do the fundamental models say? That’s despite the fact that if you relied on ordinary forecasting — “fundamental models,” built on […]

How can al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula be defeated?

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) went “on the run” 10 days ago as UAE-supported military forces closed in on the city of Mukalla, AQAP’s de facto capital in eastern Yemen. Saudi state media celebrated a mass annihilation of fleeing AQAP fighters. In reality, the evidence from the ground was more complex. According to my […]

Here’s how the U.N. is working to stop terrorists from getting weapons of mass destruction

The past year’s national security news has been dominated once again by terrorism.  Terrorist attacks in Paris, Mogadishu, Istanbul and Brussels — to name just a  few — have been carried out by increasingly violent groups like Al-Shabaab, Boko Haram and the Islamic State. While those attacks have been horrific, security experts fear the fallout […]

What the heck happened during Ireland’s recent election?

The United States isn’t the only country in which, despite an economic recovery, the political system is being turned upside down by an anti-establishment public mood. Voters in Ireland appear similarly disenchanted, to judge from the general election held at the end of February, which resulted in an unprecedentedly fragmented Dáil Éireann (the Irish Parliament). After ten weeks […]

No, it’s not new that some working-class and poor whites vote Republican

A trope of political journalism is to wonder why many lower-income voters prefer the Republican Party despite its more conservative economic policies. For example, here’s Jelani Cobb last week in the New Yorker: Ever since Ronald Reagan’s Presidency, progressives have pondered why working-class and poor whites vote Republican, against their own interests. It may well […]

A surprising number of Americans dislike how messy democracy is. They like Trump.

Donald Trump’s candidacy – or more to the point, his substantial and sustained public support — has surprised almost every observer of American politics. Social scientists and pundits note that Trump appeals to populists, nativists, ethnocentrists, anti-intellectuals and authoritarians, not to mention angry and disaffected white males with little education. But few have noticed another […]

Think all the political excitement in Brazil is at the national level? Think again.

In April, Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies voted to impeach President Dilma Rousseff (Workers’ Party, PT) halfway through her second term, by a final tally of 367 to 137. There’s more to this story than the final tally. Media coverage has focused largely on the spectacle of the session, whether the process is legitimate, […]

Can civil rights law stop racial discrimination on AirBnb?

Everyone knows that it’s illegal for a hotel such as a Marriott or a Hilton to refuse you a room because of your race. But what about someone who temporarily rents out their own apartment on Airbnb? May he refuse to rent to someone of a particular race? If two people want to rent out […]

Can Google Trends predict referendum elections?

Predictions of U.S. presidential elections gets a lot of attention, and rightly so. You can typically get a pretty good state-by-state forecast based on the rate at which people have voted for Democrats and Republicans in the past, along with updates based on national political and economic trends. But how about one-off elections such as […]

Black Sabbath, ‘N.I.B.’: The Week In One Song
Based on comments from earlier this week, this would probably be Ted Cruz’s official campaign song if John Boehner had his way.

The most under-appreciated fact of the election: Americans feel good about the economy

In an election season about voter anger, one important thing is underappreciated: voter optimism. And in particular, optimism about the economy. “Wait, what?” you may be thinking. Isn’t the election defined by the country’s “economic blues“? Isn’t the election being shaped by “anger over a ‘failed economy’“? This is not the full story. Or even […]

Trump and Sanders aren’t blazing new trails. Populism has run through U.S. politics for a very long time.

Populism is hard to ignore in the current primary elections. Donald Trump, the self-described political outsider, is promising to “make America great again” by defending the people against Washington insiders, whom he portrays as self-interested, corrupt and incompetent. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont touts his track record as a longtime advocate of working people, ready […]

Here’s why Jakarta doesn’t push back when China barges into Indonesian waters

A China Coast Guard vessel rammed a Chinese fishing boat free in March after Indonesian authorities had seized it for illegal fishing off the Natuna Islands, Indonesia’s northernmost territory in the South China Sea. The Indonesian patrol let the Chinese ships go, as has been the case in similar incidents. Peaceful management of the area […]

36 years after Zimbabwe’s independence, the country faces these 4 big questions

On April 18, Zimbabwe celebrated 36 years of independence. The hashtag #1980SoFarSoGood touted the accomplishments of ZANU-PF, the country’s governing party since 1980. Disgruntled citizens countered with the hashtag #1980SoFarFromGood, a digital protest against the ailing economy and political infighting dominating the country since the late 1990s. The perspectives of ZANU-PF’s supporters and opponents vary […]

Donald Trump can’t change the Republican Party by himself

One of the most common responses to the question “What Does Trump Mean?” seems to consist of speculation that Trump is poised to provoke a wholesale redefinition of the policy agenda and popular base of the Republican Party, threatening both its national electoral fortunes and its status as the political home of the American conservative […]

Here’s one way to prevent election violence in Africa

Which nations’ elections will involve violence? According to our research, in Africa the answer depends — at least in part — on four factors: how strongly democracy has taken root, what kind of electoral system is in place, whether large ethnic groups are kept out of power and how much the nation is plagued by […]

A Dutch court said Russia doesn’t have to pay Yukos’s investors. Will Russia have to pay anyway?

In 2014, an international tribunal decided Russia had unlawfully expropriated the Yukos oil company — and owed $50 billion to Yukos shareholders. Last week, a Dutch court found that, no, Russia doesn’t have to pay. Here’s the big catch: International investment law is so complicated that Russia might have to pay anyway. Russia is experiencing […]

Yes, Bernie Sanders has a foreign policy vision. Here are its three central ideas

From both sides of the aisle, Sen. Bernie Sanders’s foreign policy views have been consistently mischaracterized. A few weeks ago, Washington Post syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote a piece called “The Four Foreign Policies” in which he contrasted what he called Sanders’s “pacifism” with the “unilateralism” of Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, the “mercantilism” of […]

How to understand the complicated history of ‘go back to Africa’

The pejorative phrase “Go back to Africa” made news last month when hurled at protesters at Donald Trump rallies. At the canceled rally on the campus of the University of Illinois–Chicago on March 11, protestor Jedidiah Brown was irate after he was allegedly told to “go back to Africa” by a Trump supporter. A natural-born […]

This research shows that vice presidential candidates actually do win votes in their home states

Although the Democratic and Republican primaries aren’t over, the question of who the presidential nominees will select as running mates is already receiving considerable attention. One key question is whether vice presidential nominees actually help the ticket win voters in the nominees’ home states. And if so, is this advantage large enough to actually make […]

Here’s why so many people join Boko Haram, despite its notorious violence

Just over two years ago, the extremist Islamist group Boko Haram became infamous worldwide for kidnapping nearly 300 Nigerian schoolgirls, most of whom are still missing today. However, within the Lake Chad Basin region, a region straddling Nigeria, Chad, Niger, and Cameroon in West Africa, Boko Haram already was widely known for the brutality it […]

How Iranians’ use of an app is changing politics and civil society

As the Green Wave cascaded into the Iranian Green Movement during the summer of 2009, outside observers rushed to claim the demonstrations as their own. They declared the unfolding crisis to be the “Twitter Revolution,” an updated model of velvet revolution enabled by the new social media, the status update and the tweet replacing the […]

Who should Trump and Clinton pick as running mates? This research says it doesn’t really matter.

Even with the Democratic and Republican Party presidential nominations yet to be decided, already we are hearing much speculation about the 2016 “veepstakes.” Not surprisingly, most of this speculation focuses on the usual factors considered to be electorally advantageous: geography (think home state) and demography (think gender and ethnicity). But much of what you’ve been […]

On immigration and trade, it’s Republican elites, not Donald Trump, who are out of step with party’s voters

The enduring appeal of Donald Trump to Republican voters has confounded the Republican establishment. Yet Trump understands Republican voters far better than the GOP elite does, in part because he recognizes where established leaders are out of touch with base voters. In 2014, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, an independent, nonpartisan think tank, conducted […]

Do we really need a new U.N. oceans treaty? Yes, and here’s why.

The oceans are in bad shape. The high seas — like the moon, outer space and Antarctica — can’t be claimed by any nation. They are “areas beyond national jurisdiction,” and therefore protecting them requires international cooperation. A new United Nations oceans treaty — Agreement on Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond […]

Why two islands may be more important to Egyptian regime stability than billions in Gulf aid

In Egypt, April 25 is Sinai Liberation Day, a holiday marking Israel’s 1982 withdrawal from the territory, which it occupied after the 1967 war. Usually, this day is a source of national celebration, but this year it was marred by tension, with security forces on high alert and citizens warned against participating in demonstrations. The […]

In the Netherlands, there is no rising tide of skepticism about the European Union

On April 6, the Dutch voted against accepting the association agreement between the European Union and Ukraine. Roughly one-third of the Dutch electorate went to the polls; of those voting, 61 percent voted no. This is the second time that the Dutch have voted no in an E.U.-related referendum. In 2005, a similar majority rejected […]

Why is Africa so poor while Europe and North America are so wealthy?

A few years ago, two economics professors, Quamrul Ashraf and Oded Galor, published a paper, “The Out of Africa Hypothesis, Human Genetic Diversity, and Comparative Economic Development,” that drew inferences about poverty and genetics based on a statistical pattern. The world’s most genetically diverse countries (using their measure of what counts as genetically diverse) are […]

Conservative professors live a closeted life. Here’s why.

HF — While not wanting to minimize the difficulties that conservative professors face in the academy, you also suggest that the right-wing critique of the academy is “overdrawn.” So what explains the low numbers of conservatives in many fields of the social sciences? JAS & JMD — There is little evidence to support the widespread […]

Prince, Live at the Capitol Theatre, 1982: The Week In One Gig
Prince, 1958-2016. RIP.

Austerity is undermining a common European identity. Will fascism result?

Many observers think that Germany’s regional elections in March were a harsh judgment on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s welcoming policies toward refugees. The right-wing AfD (Alternative for Germany) party, which campaigned against immigrants, gained seats across the country, becoming the second-largest force in one regional parliament. Meanwhile, in Brussels, police had to break up scuffles at shrines for the March […]

Who agrees with Bernie Sanders on Israel? Large numbers of Americans.

Rarely — if ever — has a presidential candidate been so publicly critical of Israeli policy toward the Palestinians as Sen. Bernie Sanders was last week during the CNN Democratic primary debate in Brooklyn. Media outlets seized the moment, with headlines such as “Bernie Sanders smashes the Israel status quo,” “Bernie Sanders just shattered an American […]

There are 4 reasons countries dissolve their parliaments. Here’s why Serbia did.

Serbians are headed to the polls, again. On Sunday, Serbian citizens will be voting for the tenth time since the reestablishment of a multi-party system in 1990. Only two elections (in 1997 and 2012) actually took place at the end of the normal four-year legislative cycle. In March, Serbian President Tomislav Nikolić dissolved parliament, calling […]

Time magazine’s national debt cover story isn’t just misleading. It’s mostly likely ineffective too.

Time Magazine just published a controversial cover story calling attention to the national debt. The story not only highlights the size of the debt ($13.9 trillion) but tries to personalize it: “Dear Reader: You owe $42,998.12.” This type of frame has been used many times to animate concern about the national debt. There are two […]

The Supreme Court asks its four questions on Obama’s immigration initiative. Well, two of them.

It’s been a busy week in executive politics, what with impeachment in Brazil and Hillary coming up Trumps in New York. But we shouldn’t lose sight of the Supreme Court’s most recent tour of the administrative state. The venue? The Obama administration’s controversial immigration initiative, in the form of U.S v. Texas. Recall that back in […]

This new book explains why so many Islamist extremists have studied engineering

Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog’s new book, “Engineers of Jihad: The Curious Connection between Violent Extremism and Education,” examines why a disproportionate number of Islamist terrorists and other right wing extremists appear to have studied engineering. I interviewed them over email about their new book. HF – The book’s major finding is that Islamist terrorists […]

Which country is the most frequent enemy in violent video games?

Video games are everywhere. Forty percent of U.S. adults own game consoles; many more play on their mobiles. According to some reports, most gamers are women. Digital games now rake in more annual revenues than movie box-office ticket sales. So are games affecting the way humans think about the world and about each other? Researchers have […]