Despite all the ways Trump has sought to aggrandize the spending power, the real institutional changes to appropriations are actually happening in Congress.
open.substack.com/pub/mattglas...
Our paper is part of a forthcoming special issue calling on comparative and APD scholars to pursue more US-Latin American comparisons to explain variation in institutional forms and change across the regions, nations, and sections of the Americas.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
In a new paper, we view the US as a mixed case of state formation and state building that shares elements with both Europe and Latin America. We point to 1815 as an inflection point in APD that reflect fundamental changes in the int'l system.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Wrote about Trump and political time in late 2024. TL;DR Trump may have broken the clock.
sheingate.medium.com/marking-time...
Focusing on energy prices and the Strait of Hormuz while people are dying might seem crass, but energy prices are the prices that anchor prices for pretty much everything else - including food. And lots apart from oil passes through those straights. From @ifpri.org:
www.ifpri.org/blog/the-ira...
When we say the president is *politically* rather than legally constrained in warmaking, what exactly does that mean? Don't overthink it.
blog.mattglassman.net/notes-on-the...
Bookmarking this for when I teach intro American again. I start with ideas and end with institutions so the focus here on Huntington's IvI gap is very useful. Also, I agree much can be learned from the Progressive Era about how political reforms make it on the agenda for politicians and parties.
Wow, I was eleven years old the last time the US won a gold medal in hockey. Amazing game.
Very little has changed since I wrote this piece 10 years ago.
www.nytimes.com/2015/12/30/o...
Superb Owl by artist Marlene McCauley
#SuperbOwl
The Breaking Bad graph
This “5 classes question” guides my approach to teaching. I tell my students when they are old like me they might remember five classes they took as undergrads. My goal as a teacher is to be one of them.
This “5 classes question” guides my approach to teaching. I tell my students when they are old like me they might remember five classes they took as undergrads. My goal as a teacher is to be one of them.
Booth Fowler taught American political thought. Every lecture was like a sermon. He marched the class of 60 to the site of the math building bombing at UW and pronounced “this is where the New Left died”
Ed Friedman taught Revolutions. He played La Marseillaise the first day of class. We spent the next five weeks reading Skocpol’s States and Social Revolutions.
Nevermind the jobs you had, tell me 5 classes you took at university:
Politics of Revolutions
American Political Thought
Ancient Philosophy
Free Will
Tai Chi
In a new Op-Ed in @thehill.com , CLF’s Daphene Altema-Johnson, @andrewtl.bsky.social & @ptand.bsky.social discuss how the 2025 Dietary Guidelines promote more meat & dairy—but what Americans really need is more fiber, which comes from foods like legumes. thehill.com/opinion/heal...
Imagine a handful of close races in GOP states that refuse to
certify results. Those seats are vacant at the start of the new Congress, reducing the number required for a majority and allowing the GOP to elect a Speaker and seat the GOP candidates in the contested seats.
I think the answer is in how Congress handled disputed elections in the past, esp. the 1870s and 1880s. Art 1, Sec 5: "Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns, and Qualifications of its own Members." What stops the GOP House refusing to seat Dem members, esp. in close races?
This recent piece by @ayakohiramatsu.bsky.social utilizes the Doar papers to understand how DOJ enforced the VRA.
The Americans is a fantastic show. Yes, it’s about spies and the Cold War, but for me the takeaway is that you can never fully understand your parents’ inner lives.
THE 2026 CHARLES H. LEVINE MEMORIAL BOOK PRIZE
CALL FOR NOMINATIONS
(See thread below and attachment for nomination instructions):
Upcoming deadlines to apply to Syracuse U's great Qualitative and Multi-Method Research 2-week summer program! Fellowships available to cover the costs! Pls circulate widely!
www.maxwell.syr.edu/research/cen...
Early iterations of the Schedule F made the case that language in statute allowed the removal of civil service protections to senior officials.
Revised version leans into unitary executive theory: the civil service statute is unconstitutional. They are betting SCOTUS will go along.
Ralph Bakshi’s Wizards (1977)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTzS...
There's this one too with some useful visualizations. Also includes US parties. www.globalpartysurvey.org/initial-find...
Figure showing eight senate dems who voted to end the shutdown on a left right scale using first dimension nominate scores.
Here's the Eight Democratic Senators who voted to end the shutdown arrayed from left to right using their first dimension nominate scores. No real surprise. As many noted, Coons and Warner (both to the right of Kaine) are up for reelection in '26.
Dems who voted with GOP on ending shutdown:
DURBIN
SHAHEEN
HASSAN
FETTERMAN
ROSEN
CORTEZ MASTO
KAINE
And KING (I)
On track for 60-40 vote
Did you know gov shutdowns aren’t in the Constitution, any law, or Court ruling?
They exist because of a 1980 OLC memo—a lawyer’s opinion that everyone just went along with. Before 1980, funding gaps didn’t cause shutdowns.
What one memo created, another can undo. How the next D admin can undo it:
