Comment of the Day: DLM: Dan Drezner (2014): WHAT NICK KRISTOF DOESN'T GET ABOUT THE IVORY TOWER: "Having now completed the sinful trifecta (academic -> govt -> private, in econ rather than foreign policy) I think Drezner is pretty spot on. Understanding the policy making process and the facts on the ground that will complicate negotiations is a legit strength of beltway types...
...This was good:
Academics are the best at playing Whac-a-Mole with the unending analogies.... Beltway and market folk like to disdain theories as abstract and unrealistic. Of course, these tribes then go on to articulate their own implicit theories... “analogies” or “rules of thumb” or “granular analysis” or “projections.”
Maybe it was the rarefied air of the particular federal agency I spent time in and the groups I interacted with, but I generally found the beltway's implicit theorizing to be more aware (though not necessarily better) than the private sector's...."
