John Meadowcroft

Congratulations Nigel!

Democratic Theory in the Age of Oligarchs, Autocrats, and Patriarchs A key note lecture delivered by Professor Simone Chambers (Department of Political Science, University of California, Irvine)

On 25 April we are hosting Simone Chambers who will be giving a lecture entitled ‘Is there a Future for Deliberative Democracy? Democratic Theory in the Age of Oligarchs, Autocrats, and Patriarchs’. Sign-up to attend here: tinyurl.com/yc2vewf6

Judging by the attire it very possibly is us

Elon Musk Is A Billionaire Federal Welfare Vampire As Elon Musk’s DOGE chainsaws through federal agencies with budget and staff cuts, Tesla and SpaceX, cornerstones of his wealth, continue to benefit from public money. They probably wouldn’t have succ...

NEW: Elon Musk, leading Trump’s haphazard effort to cut government overspending, is among the largest beneficiaries of federal government support. His empire was built on it.

In the past 15 years, Tesla and SpaceX have sucked in $30 billion in public dollars #doge www.forbes.com/sites/alanoh...

Is there any hope for liberalism and democracy in Russia? Great reporting by @sarahrainsfordbbc.bsky.social www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

It is Elon Musk who is now running the United States. Not Donald Trump | Moira Donegan A foreign billionaire is running the state through a shadow government without formal checks – the constitutional order, now, is largely window dressing It’s one of the humiliations of our historical moment that the constitutional order has been…

It is Elon Musk who is now running the United States. Not Donald Trump | Moira Donegan

Title page of essay in open copy of Public Affairs Quarterly 38.3

In Public Affairs Quarterly 38.3, @johnmeadowcroft.bsky.social argues that Robert Nozick's "Anarchy, State, and Utopia" has been misread as a defense capitalism's inequalities. https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/uip/paq/article/38/3/173/392018/Emergence-as-a-Moral-Theory-Reappraising-Robert

Cover of Public Affairs Quarterly, Volume 38, Issue 3, July 2024 Yellow letters spell "PAQ" at the top of the page on an orange rectangle, with a thin blue rectangle below separating it from the rest of the beige background.

Vol. 38, Iss. 3 of Public Affairs Quarterly is out online! Featuring contributors @dweltman.bsky.social , Nicholas Kreuder, Nicole Hassoun, @johnmeadowcroft.bsky.social , and Bouke de Vries (whose article is free to access!) https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/uip/paq/issue/38/3

The UK parliament has joined Bluesky, with proper verified domains and everything:

• @houseofcommons.parliament.uk
• @houseoflords.parliament.uk
• @ukparliament.parliament.uk
• @commonsspeaker.parliament.uk

Recently published paper on the constitutional political economy of James Buchanan and Vincent Ostrom, co-authored with @johnmeadowcroft.bsky.social
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Recent book by recent former KCL PhD student and fine scholar Matias Petersen: www.routledge.com/Political-Ec...

Joe Rogan Is Now the Donald Trump of the Comedy World He's an out-of-touch billionaire who has lost touch with reality.

I've been listening to a lot of Joe Rogan since the election. Like a lot of billionaires surrounded by yes-men, he's lost touch with the very reality he claims to represent.

A letter on Philosophy & Public Affairs letterhead that reads: November 12, 1973 Professor Robert Nozick Department of Philosophy Emerson Hall Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 Dear Professor Nozick, I have been meaning to send you a note ever since you did not telephone the second time last week just to say that I decided after all to drop the offending post-apostrophes from the possessive of Rawls. This is, as I told you, according to the Chicago Manual of Style an honor due only to Moses and Jesus, but with us aesthetic considerations won out. The decision puts us somewhat in a class by ourselves -- I note that in Brian Barry's new book he and Oxford Press write Rawls's -- but I don't mind being different. I trust that you will not. sincerely， Margot Cutter

November 12, 1973 --- The day Philosophy & Public Affairs started treating Rawls like Jesus.

Interesting paper suggesting private schools don’t add value in exam results, but select pupils who would perform well in any school. That said, I suspect many parents pay for private schooling to purchase cultural capital and access to exclusive social networks for their children

Elinor & Vincent Ostrom did vital research on self-governance, polycentricity, democracy, social dilemmas, coproduction, public entrepreneurship, & the commons.

A starter pack featuring scholars who advance this research agenda. go.bsky.app/GwUPgW4

Suggested additions welcome.

A man is holding a flying dragon on a line.

Take your dragon out for a fly.

This is an #earlymodern advice (from Athanasius Kircher), on how to and when to use your private #dragon to make an impression. The image is part of Kircher's 1678 "Mundus Subterraneus" (access: www.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/view/bsb1... ), and ...

1/2

How does the use of evidence in policy narratives change during crises? A new comparative study of New York City‘s pandemic school shutdowns is out - written together with the brilliant @klatt.bsky.social

A starter pack of starter packs for UK media & politics.

UK Journos New, Podcasts
go.bsky.app/VB1hZZk
UK MPs
go.bsky.app/LrPkHJJ
FT Journalists
go.bsky.app/FuqnwdD
BBC journalists
go.bsky.app/8gWbLmD
Channel 4 News Journalists
go.bsky.app/6HZ1mvW
Prospect journalists
go.bsky.app/Vk8j7vP

Our first BlueSky post!
Open access paper by William Ascher.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

(PDF) Emergence as a Moral Theory: Reappraising Robert Nozick's Foundational Liberalism PDF | This article argues that Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia has been widely misread as a crude defense of the inequalities of contemporary... | Find, read and cite all the research you n...

My new article published in Public Affairs Quarterly reappraises Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia as a work of ideal theory that proposes an accont of the emergence of the state as a new moral foundation for liberal thought and practice: www.researchgate.net/publication/...

A starter pack of my brilliant colleagues and former colleagues in political science, economics, and around and about the place. Under construction, will share again when we have momentum go.bsky.app/KpPy48W

Altruism and self-interest in constitutional reform: the case of the British abolition of slavery and the slave trade - Public Choice Was the British abolition of slavery and the slave trade a triumph of altruism over pecuniary self-interest? Analysis of qualitative data reveals the importance of self-interested motives underlying t...

Was the British abolition of slavery a triumph of altruism over pecuniary self-interest? Neatly coinciding with the start of Black History Month, my article in Public Choice: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Research Assistant

🚨 RA job alert! 🚨

@jeannebomare.bsky.social and I are hiring a part-time RA starting this fall for a British Academy-funded project on UK inheritance tax (London-based).

Apply here: bit.ly/RA_kings (deadline in 5 days!)

Email me if you have any questions

Far-Right Populism and the Making of the Exclusionary Neoliberal State This book examines the rise of exclusionary neoliberalism by assessing how far-right populist actors impact economic policy change

My book is finally out 🤗 you might think “yet another book about neoliberalism” - and you are not wrong. But it’s also a brief history of exclusionary neoliberalism as a political project of the far right in Austria: link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

Brilliant, moving article about a young Pakistani man who fell from a plane over London and what happened to his family, twenty years on - great journalist

Constitution Unit welcomes Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship The Constitution Unit is welcoming applicants to the Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship scheme for September 2025 to May 2026 entry, with an internal deadline of 26 August 2024.

Join the Constitution Unit as a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow! There is frequently chocolate.

Find out more 👉 www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution....

What is it like to attend a predatory conference? Nature sent a reporter to find out as part of an investigation into dud events. Nature sent a reporter to find out as part of an investigation into dud events.

So, academics really attend? They actually happen? I honestly didn’t think so. Wow

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

So farewell then, Richard Tice, leader of Reform when it didn't matter. My SKETCH of one man's humiliation. thecritic.co.uk/bedazzling/

My latest post considers Putin as a strategic fanatic. I show how moves which started with his coercion of a pro-Russian president in 2013 not to sign an agreement with the EU has led to Russia facing what Putin now presents as an existential threat. open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/p...