Hoover Institution Research Articles

MICHAEL W. FLAMM. Law and Order: Street Crime, Civil Unrest, and the Crisis of Liberalism in the 1960s. (Columbia Studies in Contemporary American History.) New York: Columbia University Press. 2005. Pp. xiii, 294. $34.50

If you live long enough, you will eventually discover that what still seem like current events to you have somehow become grist for the historian's mill. Michael W. Flamm's excellent book provided an uncomfortable reminder of that certainty to this reviewer, who as a young military officer in the late 1960s did civil disturbance intelligence analysis for the Army. It is a little disconcerting to read Flamm's account of events one witnessed while they were unfolding, as if it were a narrative of some Civil War battle. But it is also quite informative. For Flamm has done an excellent job, not only of describing the tumult of those years but also of explaining, in a way that is most enlightening even to a minor participant in some of the events he discusses, how law and order became the dominant political issue of the day. This book is, as Flamm explains, “a work of political culture. By weaving an analytical narrative around selected events, campaigns and legislation of the 1960s,” he “examines the impact that law and order had on an ideological watershed in American history” (p. 5). That watershed is the 1960s. Rather than another disillusioned liberal lament over what went wrong during that pivotal decade, Flamm endeavors to provide his readers with a conservative perspective on the 1960s. In order to do that, he has made heavy use of Barry Goldwater's papers at the University of Arizona and has also consulted Ronald Reagan's papers at the Hoover Institution and Richard M. Nixon's at the Nixon Library. Flamm also seeks to amplify the voice of those Nixon called the “silent majority.” Because of his heavy utilization of collections at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, his book inevitably provides the liberal viewpoint on the events of the 1960s as well. But it competes with the outlook of those who used the law and order issue to capture the White House in 1968.

Correction

May 2007, page 64—The Hoover Institution was mistakenly referred to as the Hoover Institute.© 2007 American Institute of Physics.

Milton Friedman: a biography

Childhood and Youth Rutgers University of Chicago Columbia Rose Washington New York World War II National Bureau and Controversy Department of Economics 'The Methodology of Positive Economics' Essays in Positive Economics Family Teacher Keynes A Theory of the Consumption Function A Monetary History of the United States Chicago School of Economics From Economics to Advocacy Capitalism and Freedom Goldwater and Travel AEA President Colleagues Newsweek Columnist Policy Proposals Nixon and Chile Nobel Prize Hoover Institution Free to Choose Reagan Influence Hayek and Ideas School Vouchers and Drugs Recent Work Friedman Prize

The struggle across the Taiwan Strait: the divided China problem

Divided China's Continuing Struggle In 1949, China divided into two regimes, with the People's Republic of China controlling the mainland and Taiwan, or the Republic of China, controlling a group of offshore islands. The Struggle across the Taiwan Strait describes how, for more than half a century, these competing regimes have struggled to unify China - until the 'political earthquake' of Taiwan's 2000 election raised the stakes to a new and more dangerous level. The authors detail the two regimes' move toward detente, and its eventual collapse in the 1990s, and analyze the aftermath of Taiwan's 2000 and 2004 elections. And they explain how the 'Taiwan nationalism' promoted by the current regime - calling for Taiwan's independence from China - has not only intensified the conflict between the regimes but locked both sides into a new contest that has increased the probability of war rather than peace. Whether negotiations on the divided China issue can occur any time soon, the authors conclude, depends on how the ideological and political markets influence Taiwan and mainland China's political life and beliefs. If Taiwan nationalism grows, with a new generation educated to downgrade the importance of their Chinese identity, tensions would likely nurture separatism from China - and war would be inevitable. Whatever Taiwan's people decide to do, the issue will continue to be a formidable problem for the leaders of both sides. Ramon H. Myers is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. Jialin Zhang is a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Pacific Rim Russian Librarianship: Forgotten Collectors for the Hoover Institution on Manchuria

ABSTRACT Collecting efforts by the Hoover Institution among Russian émigrés in China is a little-known story, told in this article through the biographies of Harold H. Fisher, Elena A. Varneck, Ivan I. Serebrennikov, and Robert V. Smith. The collection of documents, diaries, reports, books, and periodicals focuses on two broad topics: the Russian civil war in Siberia and the Far East, and the history of the Chinese Eastern Railway. The problems involved in collecting materials connected to events that recently occurred largely centered around money (especially the lack of it) and trying to decide whose materials were the most valuable.

Friends or foes?: the United States and Soviet Russia, 1921-1941

With Friends or Foes? Norman Saul continues his monumental multivolume magnum opus on U.S.-Russian relations over the course of 200 years. This fourth volume provides the first comprehensive study in any language of an era that shaped the rest of the century and captures the major changes in relations between two nations on the verge of becoming dominant global powers. Among other things, Saul examines the rationale for America's failure to recognize the Soviet government through the early 1930s, analyzing the impact of the Red Scare and the roles of the State Department, Russian emigres, religious groups, and key individuals - like Charles Evans Hughes, Robert Kelley, Herbert Hoover, Boris Skvirsky, Olga Kameneva, and Maxim Litvinov - on the policy process. In addition, he recalls the American Relief Administration's gigantic effort to help Russian peasants and garners new material from American business records on concession arrangements and commerce and on Soviet responses during the first Five Year Plan. He also records travelers' impressions, cultural exchange, and the role of academia in each country - particularly the contribution of Russian emigre scholars to American education and the contributions of American journalists in Russia. Saul's prodigious research in the Hoover Presidential Library, the Franklin Roosevelt Library, and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University - incorporating overlooked Diplomat Post Records and featuring an interview with George Kennan on his diplomatic role - has yielded a wealth of new insights into what really happened during a period in the history of the relations between the two countries that remains mysterious and controversial. Breaking new ground in diplomatic, economic, social, and cultural history, Friends or Foes? illuminates both the mutual fascination that briefly permitted peaceful coexistence (and eventual alliance) and the ideological battles that ultimately led to the Cold War.

DEATHS

DEMOCRACY PIONEER. Seymour Martin Lipset, a sociologist and political scientist renowned for his studies of American democracy, died 31 December at age 84. The only person to be president of both the American Sociological Association and the American Political Science Association, Lipset taught at Harvard University, the University of California, Berkeley, and George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, and was most recently a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

The Scholar and the State

This paper draws attention to the 2003 Congressional Testimony on funding International and Area studies. The Congressional subcommittee was presented with testimony by Stanley Kurtz, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution who claimed that certain academic centers of area studies had boycotted defense and intelligence-related funding thereby exhibiting an unwillingness to abide by U.S. national security interests. This paper assesses the accuracy of this claim and investigates the stakes made by such a claim. The paper presents some of the history of the debates about such funding in the area of African studies and raises the larger question of the relationship of scholarly activity with State interest. To do so, it connects these more contemporary debates with earlier debates about the relationship between anthropological work and colonial rule.

The Unitarian Service Committee Medical Mission

The Unitarian Service Committee Medical Mission

Hugh LeCaine Agnew. The Czechs and the Lands of the Bohemian Crown. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2004. xxviii, 441 pp. $40.00 (cloth); $25.00 (paper).

Hugh LeCaine Agnew. The Czechs and the Lands of the Bohemian Crown. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2004. xxviii, 441 pp. $40.00 (cloth); $25.00 (paper).

The Struggle across the Taiwan Strait: The Divided China Problem. Ramon H. Myers , Jialin Zhang

Publishers details for: The Struggle across the Taiwan Strait: The Divided China Problem, by Ramon H. Myers and Jialin Zhang. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 2006. xii + 168 pp. US$15.00 (paperback).

A Win-Win U.S. Strategy for Dealing with Iran

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsLarry DiamondLarry Diamond, Michael McFaul, and Abbas Milani are fellows and coordinators of the Iran Democracy Project at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. McFaul is a member of The Washington Quarterly's editorial board.

Nation-building: beyond Afghanistan and Iraq

Bestselling author Francis Fukuyama brings together esteemed academics, political analysts, and practitioners to reflect on the U.S. experience with nation-building, from its historical underpinnings to its modern-day consequences. The United States has sought on repeated occasions to reconstruct states damaged by conflict, from Reconstruction in the South after the Civil War to Japan and Germany after World War II, to the ongoing rebuilding of Iraq. Despite this rich experience, there has been remarkably little systematic effort to learn lessons on how outside powers can assist in the building of strong and self-sufficient states in post-conflict situations. The contributors dissect mistakes, false starts, and lessons learned from the cases of Afghanistan and Iraq within the broader context of reconstruction efforts in other parts of the world, including Latin America, Japan, and the Balkans. Examining the contrasting models in Afghanistan and Iraq, they highlight the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq as a cautionary example of inadequate planning. The need for post-conflict reconstruction will not cease with the end of the Afghanistan and Iraq missions. This timely volume offers the critical reflection and evaluation necessary to avoid repeating costly mistakes in the future. Contributors: Larry Diamond, Hoover Institution and Stanford University; James Dobbins, RAND; David Ekbladh, American University; Michele A. Flournoy, Center for Strategic and International Studies; Francis Fukuyama, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University; Larry P. Goodson, U.S. Army War College; Johanna Mendelson Forman, UN Foundation; Minxin Pei, Samia Amin, and Seth Garz, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; S. Frederick Starr, Central Asia-Caucacus Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies; F. X. Sutton, Ford Foundation Emeritus; Marvin G. Weinbaum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Sarbanes-Oxley: Legislating in Haste, Repenting in Leisure

This essay was prepared for presentation as a lecture to the Hoover Institution. In it, I focus on three areas in which the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act, popularly known as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), has proven especially problematic. First, the legal ethics rules added to the Act at the last minute have proven incapable of dealing with the incentives that condition lawyers to turn a blind eye to client misconduct. Second, the structure Congress chose for the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), the accounting oversight board created by SOX, turns out to have serious constitutional defects. Finally, and most importantly, corporate compliance costs have gone up far more than anyone anticipated and are staying up far longer than even Cassandra might have predicted. Worse yet, these costs disproportionately impact smaller public corporations, which are an important engine of economic growth. Taken together, these three areas of concern highlight why Congress should think twice before trying instant legislation in the future.

Campaigning In 1928

While the military and political accomplishments of World War I were clearly limited, the war, nonetheless, established a foundation for unparalleled economic growth in the United States during the 1920s. A significant consumer economy grew as many Americans worked fewer hours, earned higher salaries, invested in the stock market, and bought everything from washing machines to Model T Fords. This culture of consumerism in the 1920s changed the politics of American society and set the tone for American attitudes about economic political issues for decades to come. In the early 1920s, President Warren G. Harding's policies were generally conservative, especially regarding taxes, tariffs, immigration restriction, labor rights, and business regulation. Continuing Republican policies, President Calvin Coolidge included federal tax cuts and high tariffs. The expansive economy of the 1920s was fueled by the use of factory machine manufacturing and standardized mass production. The economic boom also resulted from the effects of World War I on technology, scientific management, the rapid increase in worker productivity, the psychology of mass consumption (with installment credit) behind the purchase of radios, motion picture tickets, electric appliances, and automobiles. Certainly, federal policies that supported big business with high tariffs, cutbacks in the authority of the Federal Trade Commission to regulate unfair trade practices, and the reduction of corporate and personal income taxes contributed to the boom as well. It was with this backdrop that Herbert Hoover and Al Smith squared off in the election of 1928. Hoover was born in Iowa and orphaned as a child. He began a career as a mining engineer soon after graduating from Stanford University in 1895. Within twenty years he had used his engineering knowledge and business skills to make a fortune as an independent mining consultant. In 1914, Hoover administered the American Relief Committee and during World War I he headed the Commission for Relief in Belgium and the U.S. Food Administration and was chairman of the Interallied Food Council. After the war he directed the American Relief Administration. Then Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt said of Hoover in 1920, "He is certainly a wonder and I wish we could make him President of the United States. There could be no better one." In 1919 Hoover founded the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University. As Secretary of Commerce in the Harding and Coolidge administrations from 1921 to 1929, Hoover was widely celebrated for his leadership. The man who had fed Belgium, had run the U.S. Food Administration, revolutionized the Department of Commerce, and ministered to victims of the 1927 Mississippi flood appeared the ideal candidate in 1928. Hoover seemed more practical than Woodrow Wilson, glowed with respectability compared to the Harding administration, was easily more inspired than Coolidge, and was generally considered more "purely American" than his Democratic opponent, New York Governor Alfred E. Smith.

The Ambiguities of Rawls's Influence

John Rawls is the towering figure of academic liberalism. A gentle, dignified, self-effacing man, he taught philosophy at Harvard for more than thirty years and from his commanding position exerted a decisive influence on his profession. Through his scholarship and teaching he played a major role in establishing the now-dominant understanding of liberalism in the academy and, more generally, of the method and purpose of the philosophical study of politics.Peter Berkowitz teaches at George Mason University School of Law and is the Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution (berkowitz@hoover.stanford.edu). He is the editor of the companion volumes Varieties of Conservatism in America (Hoover Institution Press 2004) and Varieties of Progressivism in America (Hoover Institution Press 2004).This essay weaves together (and in places corrects) the argument of “John Rawls and the Liberal Faith,” in The Wilson Quarterly, Spring 2002, pp. 60–69, and “The Academic Liberal,” in The Weekly Standard, Dec. 16, 2002.

Solving DSGE models with perturbation methods and a change of variables

This paper explores the application of the changes of variables technique to solve the stochastic neoclassical growth model. We use the method of Judd [2003. Perturbation methods with nonlinear changes of variables. Mimeo, Hoover Institution] to change variables in the computed policy functions that characterize the behavior of the economy. We report how the optimal change of variables reduces the average absolute Euler equation errors of the solution of the model by a factor of three. We also demonstrate how changes of variables correct for variations in the volatility of the economy even if we work with first-order policy functions and how we can keep a linear representation of the laws of motion of the model if we use a nearly optimal transformation. We discuss how to apply our results to estimate dynamic equilibrium economies.

Iran’s Peculiar Election: Chinese Dreams, Persian Realities

The mid-2005 election of Mahmoud Ahmedinejad as Iran’s new president left those committed to democratic change in the country feeling shocked and disappointed. At first glance, his victory seemed to signal not only the consolidation of Iran’s ruling Islamist autocracy, but also the rejection in principle of democracy and the revival of the ideas and goals of the revolutionary Islamic Republic. While few had thought that another “reformist” would replace outgoing two-term president Mohammad Khatami, just as few had forecast that a “conservative” with Ahmedinejad’s hard-line credentials would win. True, a reassertion of conservative political and economic power had been rolling forward for several years. Its most recent milestone had been the fraudulent February 2004 parliamentary elections, which had turned a one-time pocket of reformism into another tame preserve run by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his agents. 1 More of the same might have been anticipated in the case of the post-Khatami presidency, but Ahmedinejad seemed worse than expected—not merely a Khamenei crony, but a true believer in the antidemocratic and antiliberal dictates of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Fortunately, pronouncements of the death of democracy in Iran are premature. Without question, the rulers’ grip on power is tighter—and prospects for genuine democratization thus dimmer—than was the case five years ago. Yet considered in a longer-term and comparative perspective, Iran retains many structural and historical factors that favor democratic development and that will endure despite one unfavorable election result. Moreover, the very features that make the current authoritarian regime Michael McFaul is senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and codirector of its Iran Democracy Project. He is also professor of political science and director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University.

Saving our environment from Washington: how Congress grabs power, shirks responsibility, and shortchanges the people

Congress empowered the Environmental Protection Agency on the theory that only a national agency that is insulated from accountability to voters could produce the scientifically-grounded pollution rules needed to save a careless public from its own filth. In this provocative book, David explains how his experience as an environmental advocate brought him to this startling realization: letting EPA dictate to the nation is a mistake. Through a series of gripping and illuminating anecdotes from his own career, the author reveals the EPA to be an agency that, under Democrats and Republicans alike, delays good rules, imposes bad ones, and is so big, muscle-bound, and remote that it does unnecessary damage to our society. EPA stays in power, he says, because it enables elected legislators to evade responsibility by hiding behind appointed bureaucrats. The best environmental rules, those that have done the most good, have come when Congress had to take responsibility or from states and localities rather than the EPA. Schoenbrod succeeds admirably in presenting a provocative analysis of the contemporary state of environmental law and policy. He makes a strong challenge to conventional wisdom. Richard B. Stewart, School of Law, Center on Environment and Land Use Law, New York University This engaging book brings environmental policy analysis alive with personal experiences pithy examples, and human interest stories. It challenges blithe acceptance of the status quo. Terry L. Anderson, executive director, PERC, and senior fellow, Hoover Institution

Power and Political Institutions

Rational choice theory tends to view political institutions as structures of voluntary cooperation that resolve collective action problems and benefit all concerned. Yet the political process often gives rise to institutions that are good for some people and bad for others, depending on who has the power to impose their will. Political institutions may be structures of cooperation, but they may also be structures of power—and the theory does not tell us much about this. As a result, it gives us a one-sided and overly benign view of what political institutions are and do. This problem is not well understood, and indeed is not typically seen as a problem at all. For there is a widespread sense in the rational choice literature that, because power is frequently discussed, it is an integral part of the theory and just as fundamental as cooperation. Confusion on this score has undermined efforts to right the imbalance. My purpose here is to clarify the analytic roles that power and cooperation actually play in this literature, and to argue that a more balanced theory—one that brings power from its periphery to its very core—is both necessary and entirely possible.Terry M. Moe is the William Bennett Munro Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution (moe@hoover.stanford.edu). An earlier version of this article was presented at the Yale Conference on Crafting and Operating Institutions, April 11–13, 2003. The author would like to thank Sven Feldmann, Lloyd Gruber, James Fearon, Peter Hall, Jennifer Hochschild, Stephen Krasner, Chris Mantzavinos, Gary Miller, Paul Pierson, Theda Skocpol, Barry Weingast, and anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.