@awhf.bsky.social
Columbia SIPA professor studying labor policy, politics of policy design, and political economy. Co-director of Consortium on American Political Economy & Columbia Labor Lab. Former Biden-Harris Department of Labor and Office of Management and Budget.
Wow. A group of top scholars at Harvard just sent a letter to its president, Alan Garber, warning against surrendering to Trump.
Signatories include Steven Levitsky, Dani Rodrik, Ryan Enos, Theda Skocpol, and Steven Walt.
Someone forwarded it to me. Read it here:
Very happy to announce the publication of Workplace Politics, with @szakonyi.bsky.social and Ora John Reuter. Drawing on data from 8 countries with a deep-dive on Russia, we examine when, why, and how politicians and employers pressure their workers to vote in elections. academic.oup.com/book/60445
30.07.2025 17:47 — 👍 23 🔁 8 💬 3 📌 0
❗About to start now! Our final day of the American Political Economy research conference, with a fantastic lineup of roundtable speakers on the US in international perspective -- @himself.bsky.social, @benbraun.bsky.social, Aditi Sahasrabuddhe, and Mark Schwartz -- followed by a paper panel.❗
30.07.2025 15:51 — 👍 7 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0
📣 Starting soon: the second day of the Consortium on the American Political Economy virtual research conference! We'll have a roundtable on plutocracy with @adambonica.bsky.social, Kristin Goss, and @reillysteel.bsky.social and a fantastic set of research papers on business and civil society!
29.07.2025 15:50 — 👍 6 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0Eliminating multi-language services would make it harder for taxpayers to comply with their tax obligations, set honest taxpayers up to fail and needlessly put tax revenue at risk. The IRS should not move forward with this harmful idea that has no sound tax administration purpose.
25.07.2025 15:24 — 👍 6 🔁 3 💬 1 📌 0Well said by @ryanenos.bsky.social.
“It is honor that causes people to do the irrational things that are good—that separates the fighters from those who flee in the face of danger. Unfortunately, this sort of honor is not something on which we select for our institutional leaders.”
I hope Suresh Naidu is wrong, but I’m pretty sure he’s right—Columbia’s settlement with Trump is unlikely to stick: www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/o...
24.07.2025 11:14 — 👍 370 🔁 97 💬 20 📌 14“Higher education policy in the United States is now being developed through ad hoc deals, a mode of regulation that is not only inimical to the ideal of the university as a site of critical thinking but also corrosive to the democratic order and to law itself.”
24.07.2025 01:51 — 👍 32 🔁 11 💬 1 📌 0
It's hard not to think about Columbia's decision today reading David Pressman in the NYT today talking about his experience in Hungary: "Don’t dupe yourselves. The illusion that you are smarter than the strongman, that you’ll outmaneuver him with silent cleverness, is just that — an illusion."
24.07.2025 00:43 — 👍 4 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
We have scholars of democracy and authoritarianism that have laid out the risks we are facing, and the need for collective action, rather than efforts to go it alone and try to appease the regime (see below for one example): www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVE5...
24.07.2025 00:38 — 👍 6 🔁 3 💬 1 📌 0What is especially frustrating is the depth of scholarly expertise at Columbia that has been warning against the tactics that Columbia has chosen to pursue: individual negotiation, rather than collective action, and a blindness to the stakes or costs to our democracy or civil society.
24.07.2025 00:36 — 👍 7 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0It is heartbreaking to see Columbia capitulating to the Trump Administration's attacks on higher education and democracy. Not only does this legitimize the offensive against civil society and pressure other universities to fold, but it feels like madness to trust the Administration to keep a deal.
24.07.2025 00:33 — 👍 54 🔁 17 💬 4 📌 1There are already great examples what is possible by forging relationships and partnerships with community-based organizations, worker advocacy groups, and unions that can give Americans more voice in government. Strengthening these groups will be essential to protecting our democracy. 2/2
11.07.2025 13:43 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
As the threats to our democracy mount daily, I was grateful for the chance to brainstorm what forward-looking state legislatures can do to bolster community and worker power for the inaugural issue of the @statesforum.bsky.social: statesforum.org/journal/issu... 1/
11.07.2025 13:41 — 👍 11 🔁 8 💬 1 📌 1Catch me at this year's Research Conference on the American Political Economy on 7/29 at 12 pm ET! I'll be on a roundtable called "Plutocracy" with @adambonica.bsky.social and @kagoss.bsky.social, moderated by @awhf.bsky.social. It's virtual, so you can attend from wherever. Sign-up link below.
10.07.2025 00:41 — 👍 6 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0This is a really important paper in the debate about optimal Social Democratic party strategies and the type of policy positions that are needed to deliver a "progressive majority". A must read!
07.07.2025 15:57 — 👍 45 🔁 21 💬 0 📌 0
Trump Official Suggests Replacing Deported Farm Workers with Medicaid Enrollees talkingpointsmemo.com/where-things...
08.07.2025 23:22 — 👍 344 🔁 102 💬 72 📌 36
New, from me:
The Times published a piece accusing a man born in Africa as claiming to be African-American in a failed college admission.
They viewed this story to be newsworthy enough to grant anonymity to a eugenicist working with hacked personal data.
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/whos-afrai...
Elites aren't even using their existing mechanisms set up to allow deniable messaging. Go look at PhRMA, the big bad lobbying group; they've got nothing to say about their NIH R&D pipeline being destroyed, nor about the worst regression in public health and vaccine acceptance in U.S. history.
27.06.2025 21:41 — 👍 1105 🔁 280 💬 48 📌 6
This is naked authoritarianism. It is exactly what happened in Turkey. There is nothing to stop this regime from demanding that faculty be purged too. Everyone must stand up and push back.
www.nytimes.com/2025/06/27/u...
When Republican voters learn that the "Big Beautiful Bill" takes from the poor to give to the rich, they oppose it.
25.06.2025 20:37 — 👍 2291 🔁 747 💬 117 📌 113
A response from me and several Columbia Law colleagues to Judge Vyskocil’s opinion last week denying standing to AAUP and AFT in their challenge to government funding suspensions to Columbia. Consider us dubious, to say the least. knightcolumbia.org/blog/a-title...
23.06.2025 19:52 — 👍 35 🔁 19 💬 1 📌 3“It’s terrible that people are losing jobs, but the real, real tragedy is that in communities all around the U.S., there’ll be outbreaks that don’t get stopped quickly. There’ll be cancers that develop that didn’t have to develop. There’ll be kids who get diabetes who didn’t have to get diabetes.”
23.06.2025 13:54 — 👍 30 🔁 19 💬 1 📌 1There's no declaration of war, and no AUMF that covers this. Entering this war is wrong on the merits; we had a perfectly peaceful way to address Iran's nuclear program. It's also unlawful. A democratic republic should not be able to enter a war of choice on one man's say-so.
22.06.2025 00:11 — 👍 3788 🔁 1020 💬 82 📌 45Thanks to “institutional neutrality” an African American law prof couldn’t offer a course with “inequality” in the title, but a self-described white nationalist could win a prize for writing a paper that reads like a Klan manifesto.
21.06.2025 14:31 — 👍 1543 🔁 422 💬 30 📌 13Everyone should read this article, regardless of what they thought of campus protests, and ask how any institution can expect to retain its academic freedom if it makes a deal with this government, which is a personalist dictatorship in its conduct of national security affairs.
19.06.2025 18:16 — 👍 147 🔁 62 💬 1 📌 2
“This bill is making massive cuts to social programs that many of the Republican districts and states rely on very heavily.”
IGP Faculty Advisory Board Member @awhf.bsky.social during our Rapid Response webinar on the federal budget. Watch the conversation: www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxYx...
Stop Looking for Red Lines. You no Longer Live in a Full Democracy
It's going to be up to us to bring it back to life
open.substack.com/pub/ryandeno...
New online: @profmpastor.bsky.social on the Los Angeles protests.
The task of this moment is to build a broad front that can resist authoritarianism. The recent protests are early skirmishes in the fight that will be needed.
www.dissentmagazine.org/online_artic...
