A Cynical Election Ploy Like Hawley and Cruz’s Looks Harmless. Until It Isn’t with Elizabeth Saunders

Washington generally shrugs at cynical theatrical gestures like the GOP Senate effort, led by Josh Hawley (Mo.) and Ted Cruz (Tex.), to object to the election results. Politicians see them as useful and harmless. Consider the regular news releases from Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) making National Science Foundation projects sound ridiculous, or the House of Representatives’ decision in 2003 to have its cafeteria call french fries “freedom fries.” Wednesday’s episode in the Senate at first had the appearance of a dinner theater murder mystery in which the key suspects (Democratic operatives; sinister manufacturers of voting machines; the late Hugo Chávez) had been fingered by pro-Trump lawyers.

Access the full article here.

Other Writing:

Academic Article

Interorganizational Cooperation and Intraorganizational Power: Early Agreements under Codecision and Their Impact on the Parliament and the Council – with Adrienne Hèritier

The authors argue that closer attention should be paid to the interorganizational rules of decision making and their implications for intraorganizational processes. They claim that exogenous changes in macro-institutional rules, which result in a move from formal and sequential to informal and simultaneous interaction between collective actors, will lead to changes in individual actors’ respective ...
Read Article
Essay

Is a No Deal” Brexit Still Avoidable? Why the Irish Border Remains a Stumbling Block for Negotiations

W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman’s comic history of England, 1066 and All That, talks about nineteenth-century British Prime Minister W. E. Gladstone’s efforts to solve the Irish Question—the puzzle of what to do with rebellious Ireland, which was then part of the United Kingdom. According to Sellar and Yeatman, every time that Gladstone ...
Read Article