Alasdair Roberts

For many people, the lesson from the assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 – and more broadly from the experience of the last four years – is that American democracy has become newly and dangerously fragile.
That conclusion is overstated. In fact, American democracy has always been fragile. And it might be more precise to diagnose the United States as a fragile union rather than a fragile democracy. As President Joe Biden said in his inaugural address, national unity is “that most elusi...

Is an FDR-style legislative blitz the best way forward in our present crisis?
In March 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt became president of a nation in crisis. He moved boldly, persuading Congress to adopt a barrage of laws within his first hundred days in office.
Roosevelt's initiative transformed American life. It also set a benchmark for every new president since. Before inauguration day, new presidents are pushed to set audacious legislative goals for their first hundred days. And, in April, t...

The American people have been roughed up over the last decade. A sense of vulnerability and danger tinges their view of public affairs.
The 2008 crash made them wary of markets. The last two years exposed the weakness of political institutions. And international politics has turned ugly.
The main question in politics today is how to deal with this fragility.
Some people are escapists, engaged in a futile effort to make fragility go away.
And some are realists. They accept fragility as an unav...

Argument
The world’s best national security minds know to study every aspect of foreign policy. That’s not enough.
Grand strategy is a concept familiar to experts on foreign policy and national security. Its meaning has inflated over the years. Some critics think that it has bloated so much that it is no longer useful — but they are wrong. The real problem with grand strategy is that it is not grand enough.
In the 19th century, grand strategy was about the actual fighting of wars. A commander...

April 29th marks the one hundredth day of the Trump presidency. The media has been deluged with assessments about what Donald Trump accomplished — or didn’t — during his first one hundred days. But this an outmoded and dangerous way to think about presidential performance.
Today, the 100-day benchmark is deeply embedded in American political culture. During the presidential race, both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton made grandiose promises about what they would accomplish in their first hund...

In the mid-1990s, many academics declared an end to the nation-state. Twenty years later, the influence of the state over daily life is more extensive than ever.

Yellen, Kohn, or the people?

How technocracy failed during the financial crisis

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Lockbox Government - Magazine - GovExec.com

There's an uncomplicated tale many Americans like to tell themselves about recent U.S. foreign policy. As the story has it, the nation was led astray…...

Something is rotten in these United States, and Americans know it. As usual, the focal point of their anger is Washington's dysfunctional politics and partisan…...