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Herbert Hoover’s Attempt to Discipline American Finance—And What It Reveals About Congress’ Outbound Investment Screening Mechanism
Driven by anxiety over China, the United States is tentatively embracing economic planning and constraints. The most recent example of this tendency is a system, currently debated by Congress, to monitor and regulate U.S. investments abroad. This “outbound investment screening mechanism” would halt a transaction that “shifts or relocates” particular U.S. capabilities to a “country…
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Engagement or Competition? The View from Washington
This is an early draft of a piece I was contributing to for work. The final piece took a rather different direction, so I wanted to share this. Introduction: On December 11, 2001, China was admitted to the World Trade Organization (WTO), the culmination of an American-supported process that opened China to global investment and…
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Three Posts from Work
Again, I’ve been slow to write anything here. Instead, here are a few pieces I’ve written with my boss at my new work: On the new European trade strategy and what it means for the future of WTO reform: https://www.cfr.org/blog/europe-and-prospects-wto-reform On the climate implications of China’s Belt and Road–and what the United States has to…
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Two pieces written for work
In lieu of a personal piece, below are two pieces I wrote (with colleagues) for work, The first is about COVID-19 and its potential impact on the presidential transition . You can find that here: https://presidentialtransition.org/pandemic-impact-transition/ The second is a piece about the political appointees converting to full-time civil service positions, something that people get…
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Transition and Campaign Clashes
This was a memo I wrote that summarized the relationships between presidential campaigns and their transition teams in the modern era. I thought it was a good synthesis of each president’s effort and set the stage for a larger analysis my work eventually did.
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Bernie vs. The Blob
This was written, as is probably obvious, when Bernie Sanders looked like he had a chance to be the Democratic nominee. That is obviously no longer the case. However, I think the basic contention that the left has to think more carefully about bureaucracy if it is going to be successful at policy making, is…
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Lessons from the 1932 Transition
A memo I wrote at work that I was fairly happy with Lessons from the 1932 transition Summary The following are some of the key lessons from the 1932 transition that are applicable to today: The Transition Period Is Shorter Now: Roosevelt had four months, while Biden has just 78 days. The Federal Government is…
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The Purpose of Intervention
Another book review, this time from the fall. Martha Finnemore’s 2003 book, The Purpose of Intervention, offers an incisive look at why states decide to conduct military interventions, and how patterns of military intervention have changed over the past 200 years. Perhaps less useful to scholars interested in the specifics of issues like R2P,…
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Review of Scientific Cosmologies and International Order
Review I wrote for class. I don’t think it captures all or even most of my thoughts on this complicated book but I thought it was decently written. Review: Allan, Bentley B. Scientific Cosmology and International Orders. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Bentley Allan’s book Scientific Cosmology and International Orders offers a powerful theoretical framework…
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Sexual Politics of the Future
Edit: It looks like I was right. Here and here Democrats should not be surprised if their nominees are faced with false rape or sexual assault accusations in the near future. A Republican Party that has convinced itself that Democrats have weaponized sexual assault and are fabricating claims of misconduct will feel forced to retaliate in kind.…
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a blog about politics 