Public Policy

Research Note: Isaiah Berlin and the Politics of Simple Solutions

April 23, 2010
By Kevin R. Kosar
Research Note: Isaiah Berlin and the Politics of Simple Solutions

The more difficult times are, the more intense the demand for simple solutions. This seems to be the case for both individuals and groups, be they corporations, religions, or nations. The February 25, 2010 issue of the New York Review of Books carried some short essays on Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997).  Nicholas Kristof of the...
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National Affairs on “The Ideology of Home Ownership”

March 30, 2010
By Kevin R. Kosar
National Affairs on “The Ideology of Home Ownership”

My friend, Vin Cannato, has published a nice piece on home ownership in the Spring 2010 issue of National Affairs. Cannato writes, Through a combination of heedless public policy and reckless lending, the benefits of home ownership had come to be exaggerated; the risks and drawbacks had been obscured from public view; and entry...
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Research Resource: Online Archive of The Public Interest

October 9, 2009
By Kevin R. Kosar
Research Resource: Online Archive of The Public Interest

The Public Interest was founded in 1965 by Daniel Bell and Irving Kristol and ceased publication in 2005. It was a very influential journal of policy and political thought, and at its best featured top writers from across the political spectrum. The Public Interest often was critical of the status quo, and regularly argued...
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Lecture on Unintended Consequences and Intended Non-Consequences

August 18, 2009
By Kevin R. Kosar
Lecture on Unintended Consequences and Intended Non-Consequences

Christopher DeMuth, former head of the American Enterprise Institute, and now its D. C. Searle Senior Fellow, gave a lecture  on public policy this past June. He reviewed the neoconservative and Chicago free market criticisms of government action, and focuses much of his lecture on regulatory policy. DeMuth forcefully argued that regulation frequently has...
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My New Book

My Education Politics Book

Recent Reads

Fiction: John Grisham, The Associate (2009).

Non-Fiction: Todd Kliman, The Wild Vine: A Forgotten Grape and the Untold Story of American Wine (2010).

Non-Fiction: Kathryn A. Jacob, King of the Lobby: The Life and Times of Sam Ward, Man-About-Washington in the Gilded Age (2010).

Non-Fiction: Philip Terzian, Architects of Power: Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and the American Century (2010).

Fiction: David Lodge, Thinks (2001)

Non-Fiction: Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Service, 30th Anniversary Expanded Edition (2010)

Non-Fiction: Christopher Buckley, Losing Mum and Pup: A Memoir (2009)

Non-Fiction: Alice Cooper, Alice Cooper, Golf Monster (2007)

Fiction: John Le Carre A Most Wanted Man (2008)

Fiction: John Le Carre Our Game (1995)

Fiction: John Le Carre The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963)

Fiction: Peter DeVries Into Your Tent I'll Creep (1971)

Fiction: Peter DeVries Peckham's Marbles (1986)

Fiction: Georges Simenon Three Beds in Manhattan (1964)

Fiction: Kazuo Ishiguro The Remains of the Day (1988)