Henry Farrell

3 weeks ago | foreignaffairs.com | Michelle Gavin |Henry Farrell |Abraham L. Newman |Laura Gamboa

Technology companies such as Alphabet, Meta, and OpenAI need to wake up to an unpleasant reality. By getting close to U.S. President Donald Trump, they risk losing access to one of their biggest markets: Europe. Just a decade ago, these companies believed that information technology would limit the power of governments and liberalize the world.

3 weeks ago | insidestory.org.au | Henry Farrell

The reactionary right is not a monolith J.D. Vance is attempting to straddle two diametrically different tendencies on the radical right We have a tendency to overestimate how unified our political adversaries are, because of a particular version of what psychologists call the “fundamental attribution error.” When we look at our own side, we all too easily see the incoherence, the petty feuding, bickering and incompetence. When we look at the other, it appears to be possessed by a single...

3 weeks ago | programmablemutter.com | Henry Farrell

We have a tendency to over-estimate how unified our political adversaries are, because of a particular version of what psychologists call the “fundamental attribution error.” When we look at our own side, we all too easily see the incoherence, the petty feuding, bickering and incompetence. When we look at the other, it appears to be possessed by a single purpose, marching in lockstep to a coherent evil plan.

3 weeks ago | democracyjournal.org | Henry Farrell

When Elon Musk brought the U.S. government to the brink of shutdown over a spending bill in December, he boasted of a victory for democracy. As Musk described the outcome on X, which he owns: “Your elected representatives have heard you and now the terrible bill is dead. The voice of the people has triumphed. VOX POPULI / VOX DEI.”The voice was not divine, but rather Musk’s own, amplified by a social media platform that he has partly reconstructed around his own prejudices and predilections.

1 month ago | unpopularfront.news | John Ganz |Max Read |Henry Farrell |Brad DeLong

This is a regular feature for paid subscribers wherein I write a little bit about what I’ve been reading and/or watching. I’m going to comment briefly on the disgraceful Trump-Zelensky Oval Office scene, but first…In case you missed it, and I hosted political scientist on our intermittent podcast.—Speaking of podcasts, I’m very excited that next week I’ll be the first guest on Inflection Point, the relaunched Berkeley Political Economy podcast with economist and sociologist Dylan J. Riley.