Category Archives: Political theory

You get what you pay for: MP’s edition

Posted on July 24, 2017 by Nicholas Gruen

Does It Matter How and How Much Politicians are Paid? by Duha T. Altindag, Elif S. Filiz, Erdal Tekin – #23613 (LS POL) Abstract: An important question in representative democracies is how to ensure that politicians behave in the best … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics and public policy, Political theory, Politics - international | 1 Comment

Hoisted from comments: Copyright, the Google Settlement and torching the second library of Alexandria

Posted on May 2, 2017 by Nicholas Gruen

One of the privileges of access to what we cool kids call the “back end” of Troppo is that when I write a long, long comment, in an old thread that has taken a new direction, I can make it … Continue reading →

Posted in Cultural Critique, Economics and public policy, Geeky Musings, Intellectual Monopoly Privileges, Intellectual Property, IT and Internet, Political theory | 54 Comments

Upmarket Agitprop: Clive James on John Howard on Bob Menzies

Posted on April 26, 2017 by Nicholas Gruen

An essay prompted by a friend recommending James’ essay I think largely for its defence of Menzies as worthy of more respect he’s been given by the left – which is a fair point. Cross posted from The Mandarin, which, to my surprise … Continue reading →

Posted in Cultural Critique, Economics and public policy, History, Political theory, Politics - national | 30 Comments

Government for the people, of the people, by people who are pretending

Posted on April 3, 2017 by Nicholas Gruen

Choosing a Public-Spirited Leader. An experimental investigation of political selection By: Thomas Markussen (epartment of Economics, University of Copenhagen) ; Jean-Robert Tyran (Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen) In this experiment, voters select a leader who can either act in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Philosophy, Political theory | 1 Comment

Australian politics and the Emperor’s New Clothes

Posted on March 23, 2017 by Ken Parish

Hans Christian Andersen’s famous story The Emperor’s New Clothes epitomises the phenomenon of the truth hiding in plain sight as a result of collective delusion or selective vision. There is just such a collective public delusion at the heart of … Continue reading →

Posted in Political theory, Politics - national | 18 Comments

Can we attract good political leaders? Hint – yes

Posted on February 18, 2017 by Nicholas Gruen

Can a democracy attract competent leaders, while attaining broad representation? Economic models suggest that free-riding incentives and lower opportunity costs give the less competent a comparative advantage at entering political life. Moreover, if elites have more human capital, selecting on … Continue reading →

Posted in Political theory, Politics - international, Politics - national | 6 Comments

On the Origins and Consequences of Racism

Posted on February 13, 2017 by Nicholas Gruen

We use a novel method to measure racism at both the individual and the country level. We show that our measure of racism has a strong negative and significant impact on economic development, quality of institutions and education. We then … Continue reading →

Posted in Cultural Critique, Economics and public policy, Philosophy, Political theory, Politics - international | 3 Comments