Dual-Role Actor- A Fresh Look At Bootlegger and Baptists Dynamics
Bruce Yandle’s concept of Bootleggers and Baptists explains how seemingly opposing groups/individuals join forces for a single cause. The Bootleggers stand to gain from advocating the assumed policy position. The Baptists provide moral... continue reading
The Paradox of Implicit Logrolling
The process of Implicit Logrolling (Buchanan & Tullock,1962) is a form of indirect vote-trading that heavily relies on the bundling of wedge issues. By way of tying specific groupings of policies to attract targeted demographics of voters to a... continue reading
The Intrapersonal Collective Action Problem
As economist Thomas Schelling astutely points out in his paper Egonomics or the Art of Self-Management (1978), people are often conflicted in their decision-making by current satisfaction and long-term goals. Since these goals are contrary, it is... continue reading
The dictum of Public Choice Theory is that politics functions as a form of exchange. This assertion is very much true of the process of voting, where participants either select policies or representatives to make policy decisions. Public policy is... continue reading
The Strategic Depth Theory of Diversity & Inclusion
It would be easy to assume that the increase in workplace Diversity and Inclusion programs was caused by corporate executives becoming more politically progressive. Is this even true? Per Fos, Kempf, and Tsoutsoura (2022), approximately; 69 % of... continue reading
The Linchpin Framework of Adjudication
In the essay, Is Stare Decisis A Sand Castle? (2012), F.E. Guerra-Pujol details how judges possess the discretionary authority to bind and unbundle similar previous court cases. The legal scholarship is in sync with Guerra-Pujol's observations;... continue reading
Terrorism as a Factor of Production in a Coup D'état
Terror campaigns are perceived as a “.. weapon of the weak..” (Leiden & Schmitt, 1968), a refuge for actors lacking the political capital for a full coup d’état. Concentrated acts of terror could provide subversive political factions with clout,... continue reading
Weak Link Theory of U.S. Political Party Platforms
Why do Republicans no longer support free trade? Neoliberal trade policy was a hallmark of the Regan years (Wilson, 1993). The Trump administration ended this decades-long consensus. Per Ehrlich & Gahagan (2023), an ANES survey found only 33.1%... continue reading
Cookie-Cutter Effect of Regulation
The best description of the Brussels Effect is “unilateral regulatory globalization” (Bradford, 2012). Per Bradford (2012) this “..occurs when a single state can externalize its laws and regulations outside its borders through market mechanisms,... continue reading
Few economic concepts demonstrate scarcity as clearly as the Malthusian Trap. An economic condition where population growth outpaces food production (Malthus,1798). The fight for subsistence is in the rearview mirror of the developed world, but... continue reading
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