| The Volokh Conspiracyhttp://volokh.com/The Volokh Conspiracy, an academic blog.en-us2008-08-21T04:08+00:00 Out of Iraq in 2011?:http://volokh.com/posts/1219293376.shtmlFrom the Wall Street Journal:...Orin Kerr2008-08-21T04:08+00:00Wall Street Journal: U.S. and Iraqi negotiators reached agreement on a security deal that calls for American military forces to leave Iraq's cities by next summer as a prelude to a full withdrawal from the country, according to senior American officials. The draft agreement sets 2011 as the date by which all remaining U.S. troops will leave Iraq, according to Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammed al-Haj Humood and other people familiar with the matter.Hat tip: Kevin Drum.]]>Judicial Biography Needed:http://volokh.com/posts/1215389954.shtmlEvery modern Supreme Court Justice becomes the subject of one or more judicial biographies. It's a different picture in the court of appeals. Circuit Court Judges occasionally become the subject of...Orin Kerr2008-08-21T04:08+00:00here and here. An appeal of this decision to the state Supreme Court is near certain, as will be motions seeking recusal of the two Supreme Court justices who would lose their seats. I don't know enough about Michigan law to predict an outcome, but it seems clear to me the ballot initiative is an exceedingly cyncial effort to steal a state government, and a bad idea.]]>How Dangerous is the Russian Bear?http://volokh.com/posts/1219270166.shtmlI agree with much of what new Conspirator Eric Posner says about Russia in his recent post. Under Putin, Russia has clearly turned against Western liberal values and reasserted an...Ilya Somin2008-08-20T22:08+00:00I agree with much of what new Conspirator Eric Posner says about Russia in his recent post. Under Putin, Russia has clearly turned against Western liberal values and reasserted an ugly form of traditional Russian nationalism. It is also clear that Putin has no sympathy for either the American project of spreading liberal democracy or the Western European effort to promote international human rights law. At the same time, the new Russia is less of a threat to American global hegemony than many understandably fear in the aftermath of events in Georgia. Relative to its Soviet predecessor, Putin's Russia is weak in both hard military power and the ideological influence of "soft power." It will also be difficult for Russia to establish a working alliance with either China or the radical Islamists, the two other significant forces with an interest in undermining American dominance.Let's take the hard power first. The Soviet Union was able to pose a serious military challenge to the US by pouring vast resources into its military - as much as 40 or 50 percent of GDP, according to some estimates. Today Russian military spending is a tiny fraction of America's (about 10%). Even if it wanted to, Putin's regime lacks the power to impose the kinds of draconian sacrifices on its people that it would need in order to rebuild its military power to Soviet-era levels. The poor performance of Russia's military in conflicts with weak adversaries such as Georgia and the Chechen rebels suggests that its forces have deteriorated in quantity as well as quality.Russia's "soft power" deficit is even more glaring than its relative lack of military power. Unlike Communism, which at its height appealed to intellectuals and others all over the world, the ideology of Russian nationalism has little if any appeal to anyone who isn't Russian. Indeed, most of Russia's neighbors find it offensive and threatening, which is why they are now uniting behind Georgia and drawing closer to the West. States such as the Ukraine, Poland, and the three Baltic countries are no match for Russia individually; but they can certainly hope to counter it collectively - especially given the poor state of the Russian armed forces. The more nationalistic and aggressive Russia becomes, the more its neighbors - most of whom have powerful historical memories of brutal Russian imperialism - are likely to unite against it. Russia will have great difficulty in cooperating with either China or the radical Islamists, the two other major forces in world politics that seek to challenge American dominance. China and Russia are competing for influence in the oil-rich states of central Asia, and the Russians are well aware that Chinese nationalists have longstanding territorial claims on Russia's far eastern possessions. This doesn't rule out occasional Russo-Chinese cooperation against the West, but it does make a close alliance unlikely. In the case of the Islamists, a Russian nationalist regime would be reluctant to engage in more than very limited cooperation because Russia itself has a large and potentially restive Muslim population (about 10% of its people). Strengthening radical Islamism increases the chance that Russia's own Muslims will start to resist Moscow's rule, and the Russians surely don't want to repeat their painful experience in Chechnya on a larger scale.Finally, it is far from clear that Russia will continue on the course set by Putin. If oil prices decline and Putin's military adventures meet with setbacks, the political pendulum could swing back in favor of more liberal forces. Similar nationalist regimes have evolved into liberal democracies in many Latin American and East Asian states. The same thing could happen in Russia over the next decade or two. Although I don't have space to argue the point in detail, I don't think that Russian culture is any more intrinsically inimical to liberal values than those of Korea, Taiwan, or various Latin American states - all of which successfully transitioned from authoritarian nationalism to liberal democracy over the last 25 years.The rise of authoritarian nationalism in Russia is a tragic setback for liberal values, and poses some difficulties for American foreign policy. But we should keep the magnitude of the threat in proper perspective. Putin's Russia is a serious menace to its neighbors, though even they can minimize the threat if they cooperate with each other and with the West. It is only a modest danger to us.]]>Good grief:http://volokh.com/posts/1219269708.shtmlThis just means yet another person much smarter than I will be writing for this blog....Dale Carpenter2008-08-20T22:08+00:00This just means yet another person much smarter than I will be writing for this blog. Welcome Eric!]]>Police Drive 4,100 Miles to Serve Arrest Warrant, End up With the Wrong Guy:http://volokh.com/posts/1219264998.shtml...Orin Kerr2008-08-20T20:08+00:00Louisville Courier-Journal has the scoop. Thanks to Eck for the link.]]>Experiment with a No-Laptop Policy for Class:http://volokh.com/posts/1219262733.shtmlHere's a message I sent out to my students a few weeks before the start of class about this. When the semester is done, I'll ask my students to fill out...Eugene Volokh2008-08-20T20:08+00:00Here's a message I sent out to my students a few weeks before the start of class about this. When the semester is done, I'll ask my students to fill out an anonymous survey, and I'll report both on that and on my personal conclusions. I don't know what the result will be (though I have my hopes and my guesses), but that's why it's an experiment. Dear [Students]:I'm very much looking forward to our class this Fall. As you know, law school classes — much more so than most large undergraduate classes — rely on class participation. I don't grade students' in-class comments, chiefly because I'm a big believer in fully anonymous grading. But I would like to see more and better class participation, because it helps both the participant and the other students learn, and because it makes the class more interesting for the students (and for me).Because of this, this semester we'll be conducting an experiment: The rule will be(1) no laptops in class — that's no laptops, not just no Internet access — but(2) one student per day will take notes [on a laptop,] which will then be circulated to the entire class.Several law professors at other schools, including some I know well and trust, have conducted such an experiment, and report that they have gotten great results. Class discussion, they say, is much better. Students are less distracted, both by things on their own laptops and on their neighbors'. Students don't feel pressured to take verbatim notes (since that's very hard to do in longhand on notepads), and instead focus on identifying the important points and tying them together. Students are therefore listening more actively, and are more ready to discuss things and answer questions.Also, most of the other professors report, anonymous surveys at the end of the semester show that most students like this system more than the normal laptops-OK rule. (The few exceptions report that students are on balance indifferent to this new system.) So it sounds like a win-win, which is why I decided to try it here as well.After the semester is over, I will ask you folks to anonymously report back on the results; you will then also be able to compare your in-class experience in this course with your in-class experience in the other courses, which to the best of my knowledge aren't conducting this experiment. While obviously the different subject matters might be a confounding factor, I think that on balance the survey will likely yield useful information. Armed with it, I'll know whether to keep on this track in future classes, or to switch back to the laptops-OK rule. And my colleagues might be able to take advantage of the results as well.In any case, I wanted to give you some advanced warning, so that when class starts next Wednesday (August 20), you'll(1) know what will happen,(2) know that you need to bring a notepad and a pen (I found the four-color pens to be especially useful when I was a student), and(3) know that you could leave your laptops in your lockers and save some back strain.I'd also like volunteers to take notes for that class and the classes the following week; I'll soon have a more formal system set up for that. A special bonus for the volunteer notetaker: You won't get called on that day or the following class day. So please e-mail me if you'd like to volunteer. I in turn will e-mail all of you the syllabus in a coupleof days.Again, looking forward to seeing all of you next week,Eugene]]>The Volokh Conspiracy:http://volokh.com/posts/1219261998.shtmlA few people have asked why I named this blog The Volokh Conspiracy. The blog began as The Volokh Brothers, but when I realized I wanted us to grow, I had...Eugene Volokh2008-08-20T19:08+00:00A few people have asked why I named this blog The Volokh Conspiracy. The blog began as The Volokh Brothers, but when I realized I wanted us to grow, I had to change the last word. I thought "The Volokh Gang," but then I thought some people might see it as derivative of the then-running political talk show The Capital Gang. I thought "The Volokh Group," but then I thought some people might see it as derivative of The McLaughlin Group. I also realized that the names were derivative of those shows, so I consciously looked for something different.Conspiracy struck me as unusual, memorable, and a little (OK, only a little) amusing. First, I liked the incongruity of a conspiracy actually publicly announcing itself as a conspiracy. Second, it echoed "The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy," to which we belong, and also "The Jewish Conspiracy," to which most of the charter members and since then most of the more recent members have also belonged -- but at the same time, as a self-chosen label, it also slightly mocked the term (just as many conservatives' embrace of the label "The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy" slightly mocks the term, which was apparently originally coined by Hillary Clinton).So that's how it came about, and I think it's worked well for us. And, hey, no prosecutors have started investigating us yet under 18 U.S.C. § 371 -- at least to our knowledge.]]>The Bear Is Back!http://volokh.com/posts/1219261832.shtmlThanks to Eugene for inviting me to join this blog. Let me start with a prediction. When historians write about the post-cold war era, which began in 1989, the date of...Eric Posner2008-08-20T19:08+00:00Thanks to Eugene for inviting me to join this blog. Let me start with a prediction. When historians write about the post-cold war era, which began in 1989, the date of its termination will not be 9/11/2001, as has been frequently claimed, but 8/7/2008, when Georgian forces attacked separatists in South Ossetia and Russia responded with an invasion. August 7 marks the end of American sole-superpowerdom, or hyperpowerness, or hegemony, or whatever you want to call it, an interval somewhat longer than but still very similar to the periods of global preeminence the United States enjoyed for a few years after World War I and World War II.There are other notable similarities. In all three of these periods, Americans and others believed that an era of the rule of international law had begun, and in all of these periods, the United States was initially lauded for its leadership and then criticized for putting its interests first.There are some differences, however. In the great powers era that ended with the world wars, national governments derived their authority from unembarrassed chauvinism — their peoples’ instinctive belief in their own ethnic, racial, or national superiority. With the cold war, the conflict was not between competing nationalisms but between competing ideologies — democracy versus socialism, capitalism versus communism. Today, the conflict is shaping up as one between an ideology, on the one hand, and a bunch of different nationalisms, on the other. On one side, we have American/European commitment to democracy and rights. On the other side, we have Russian and Chinese nationalism, and who knows what other countries with similar agendas will emerge over the next few decades.These differences play out in many ways. Americans believe that every country should have our system or at least a constitutional democracy; Europeans similarly believe that every country should respect human rights. The Chinese and Russians, by contrast, are preoccupied with restoring or promoting national greatness — something that few Europeans and even Americans would say about their own countries. The Americans and the Europeans – well, the west, I guess – are willing, at cost to themselves, to pressure states (like Sudan) that violate western values. Russia’s main concern is protecting – Russians, those who live in neighboring countries. China seeks to do deals with other countries, not to convert them to the Chinese system.Of course, America’s ideological goals serve its interests; they are just the goals that American governments believe that Americans ultimately support. It will be hard for future historians to see the post-Cold War period as anything other than a series of steps that the United States took to expand its sphere of influence, in Africa, in the Middle East, in Eastern Europe, and in Central Asia, into the vacuum left by the collapse of the Soviet Union. But each step was accompanied by a consistent ideological agenda: we are doing this for your own good! China’s rise has slowed down this agenda in Africa, and Russia’s recovery will almost certainly defeat it in Central Asia. The United States won the battle of ideologies in 1989, but its global power was only a temporary thing, as is becoming clearer every day.The implication for international law is troubling. The busy international legal activity that occurred during the post-Cold War era – the establishment of international courts, the involvement of the Security Council, the advance of international trade law – will slow down and perhaps even reenter the deep freeze into which it was shunted during the Cold War. The irony is that liberal internationalism could advance only as long as the United States was the sole superpower and in the mood to advance it.]]>Informational Cascades:http://volokh.com/posts/1219260259.shtmlA good illustration from today's session of my Criminal Law class, which was the first law school class these students ever had. I passed around a seating chart, and asked students...Eugene Volokh2008-08-20T19:08+00:00A good illustration from today's session of my Criminal Law class, which was the first law school class these students ever had. I passed around a seating chart, and asked students to write their first names, last names, and any pronunciation key for their names. At the end of the class, I got the chart, and nearly every student included a phone number.Why?, I thought. I didn't think I said anything that could have been misheard as a phone number.And then I realized what must have happened: The first student included a phone number, for whatever individual reason (perhaps because the student thought it would be helpful, or because this was asked in some classes at the university the student went to before). Then the next student saw this, assumed a phone number was requested (relying on the first student's judgment rather than his own memory of what I asked). And once the first few boxes had phone numbers as well as names, the path was set: Nearly everyone else followed suit.Had the first student not included the phone number, I'm pretty sure this wouldn't have happened; likewise if this hadn't been the first class the students had. (I wonder, by the way, whether people will do the same in other classes. I expressed some surprise at seeing the phone numbers after class, but not loudly, so only a few students heard it.) But this one person's decision led the rest of the students, quite rationally, to do what they saw others doing.]]> |
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