Liberal Democracy

May 4, 2023

Democratizing Democracy: Is More Democracy Always Better?

By Jorge Rojas-Vallejos[*] Over the past decade, Chile experienced two monumental political reforms. Under the old rules, the country’s two main political blocks, Concertación (center left) and Chile Vamos (center right), jointly dominated congressional representation after the country’s return to democracy in 1990. Yet, they both spearheaded changes that weakened their political oligopoly. The…

July 6, 2021

Is Silicon Valley upending Democracy? w/Carles Boix

Beginning in the 1970s, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs commercialized a set of information and communication technologies that revolutionized almost all aspects of our lives. Personal computers, the internet, and smartphones created new industries such as digital platforms and cloud computing that continue to power advanced economies. Might the forces unleashed by these technologies undermine the post War…

June 15, 2021

Free Speech: an Instrumental Defense of the Marketplace of Ideas

This piece is forthcoming in “Divided we Fall” By Victor Menaldo Traditional defenses of free speech revolve around limiting the government’s ability to infringe on citizens’ expression and association. They also center on treating free speech as an unalloyed right, something sacrosanct, no matter the consequences. Here, I depart from this orthodox approach. On the…

February 7, 2021

Long and Menaldo on digital platforms & algorithmic amplification

In this piece, UW Political Economy co-founders James Long and Victor Menaldo think about this issue from first principles (in this case, market externalities) and consider potential solutions in light of tradeoffs and the quest to maximize social welfare, not score political points. https://venturebeat.com/2021/02/06/from-the-election-lie-to-gamestop-how-to-stop-social-media-algorithms-from-hurting-us/ While in the piece they voice skepticism about whether…

January 14, 2021

Impeaching Donald Trump Was a Good Idea, by Victor Menaldo

Was impeaching Donald Trump a good idea? If so, why? Yes. For several reasons. First, it is an entirely just response to his behavior. Second, it is perfectly legal, given that he (a) stoked an insurrection against a separate branch of government that led to several deaths and could have contributed to the injury…

January 9, 2021

What stops executives from brushing aside the pesky rulings of an antagonistic court?

From Menaldo and Webb Williams 2016: Judicial supremacy…means that the other branches of government will abide by the judiciary’s decision to nullify their acts. The judiciary, whether it take the form of a Supreme or Constitutional Court, is the final interpreter of the constitution. While the executive and legislative branches of government may also be…

What do we know about dictatorships?

What do we know about dictatorships? A lot, it turns out. They differ from democracies. They are usually characterized by irregular transfers of power between rulers. Smaller groups have greater political influence and power. A dictator’s supporters are wracked by rampant uncertainty about his intentions and, vice-versa, the dictator tends to mistrust the organizations that…

January 6, 2021

What are coups & auto-coups & where they’ve occurred in democracies

This post defines coups and auto-coups and identifies where they have occurred in democracies. A coup is a swift and irregular transfer of power from one executive to another where either force or the threat of force is used to install the new leader into office. It implies that the perpetrator has the support…

December 21, 2020

Forum Podcast – “Populist Economic Policy” with Magistro and Menaldo

Guests: Beatrice Magistro, PhD Candidate, and Professor Victor Menaldo, both from the Political Science Department at the University of Washington. In this episode, Beatrice Magistro and Victor Menaldo make the case that populist political actors pursue similar economy policies — no matter their professed ideological persuasion. Populist economic policies often produce disastrous outcomes, especially…

October 30, 2020

Forum Podcast: Beatrice Magistro on Economic Literacy

https://soundcloud.com/political-economy-forum-at-university-of-washington/9-beatrice-magistro-on-economic-literacy Guest: Beatrice Magistro is a PhD Candidate in the UW Political Science Department and a Fellow at the UW Political Economy Forum. In this episode, Nicolas Wittstock hosts UW PhD Candidate Beatrice Magistro. They discuss Beatrice’s dissertation on the relationship between financial and economic literacy and policy preferences in Italy and the UK….