Jean-Paul Faguet

Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be with you, Sean.

Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be with you, Sean.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And the simple one sentence answer is nobody really knows. Sometimes it goes well and very often it goes badly. And kind of the big intellectual project is to try to figure out when and why and how and what variables you can dial up and dial down to generate better governance for better outcomes. And we still don't really know.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And the simple one sentence answer is nobody really knows. Sometimes it goes well and very often it goes badly. And kind of the big intellectual project is to try to figure out when and why and how and what variables you can dial up and dial down to generate better governance for better outcomes. And we still don't really know.

We have very highly contingent hypotheses with some some bits of evidence for certain cases, but you know, what happens to be working in modern Germany, but definitely did not work in Germany from the end of the 19th century to the 1940s, or what's been working at least until recently in the U.S., doesn't give you very much information about the rest of the world.

We have very highly contingent hypotheses with some some bits of evidence for certain cases, but you know, what happens to be working in modern Germany, but definitely did not work in Germany from the end of the 19th century to the 1940s, or what's been working at least until recently in the U.S., doesn't give you very much information about the rest of the world.

Yeah, it's hard work. It's hard work empirically, and it calls for very different sorts of tools across, in my field, across both heavy econometric, quantitative sorts of evidence, but also qualitative evidence, where you might go and spend weeks or months in the field interviewing people and observing communities and trying to get qualitative sources of information on things like

Yeah, it's hard work. It's hard work empirically, and it calls for very different sorts of tools across, in my field, across both heavy econometric, quantitative sorts of evidence, but also qualitative evidence, where you might go and spend weeks or months in the field interviewing people and observing communities and trying to get qualitative sources of information on things like

why some people manage to govern themselves well or badly. At the really micro level, like in a village, can they solve collective action problems around the agricultural cycle? Or at a macro level, like what's going on to democratic institutions in the U.S. today?

why some people manage to govern themselves well or badly. At the really micro level, like in a village, can they solve collective action problems around the agricultural cycle? Or at a macro level, like what's going on to democratic institutions in the U.S. today?

Yes, yes. Absolutely. So... Asimoglu and his co-authors, Robinson and Johnson, wrote a paper that re-kicked off, so to speak. It kicked off again a new literature in the political economy of development that had kind of been forgotten. Nobody was working on this in the 1980s and 90s.

Yes, yes. Absolutely. So... Asimoglu and his co-authors, Robinson and Johnson, wrote a paper that re-kicked off, so to speak. It kicked off again a new literature in the political economy of development that had kind of been forgotten. Nobody was working on this in the 1980s and 90s.

When I was a graduate student in the 90s, for example, people were doing much more kind of traditional economics sorts of things. And they brought it back. Now, I mean, kind of a fun fact. I don't know if Duran would agree with this. I kind of think he might. over a beer, but I don't know that he'd want to agree with it publicly in a public picture.

When I was a graduate student in the 90s, for example, people were doing much more kind of traditional economics sorts of things. And they brought it back. Now, I mean, kind of a fun fact. I don't know if Duran would agree with this. I kind of think he might. over a beer, but I don't know that he'd want to agree with it publicly in a public picture.

is that he and Jim Robinson in particular, because they've worked together longer in this train of research, they've kind of brought Marxism back into the discussion. I don't mean Marxism as in, you know, Leninism and the Soviet Union. I mean more like classical political economy where economic factors tie up with power and who has power and how that gets expressed in government patterns.

is that he and Jim Robinson in particular, because they've worked together longer in this train of research, they've kind of brought Marxism back into the discussion. I don't mean Marxism as in, you know, Leninism and the Soviet Union. I mean more like classical political economy where economic factors tie up with power and who has power and how that gets expressed in government patterns.

And the two kind of feed back to each other all the time, as opposed to especially North American political economy that tries to maintain the two things distinct. It says you get richer, you don't, and you're a legislator who gets lobbied or not, but the two things don't blend that much. And part of what these guys are saying is these things are completely intertwined and we can't ignore it.

And the two kind of feed back to each other all the time, as opposed to especially North American political economy that tries to maintain the two things distinct. It says you get richer, you don't, and you're a legislator who gets lobbied or not, but the two things don't blend that much. And part of what these guys are saying is these things are completely intertwined and we can't ignore it.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so they're not doing that. They're not following down the Karl Marx line of economic determinism or material dialectics. What I'm saying about them, and again, they may not agree with this characterization. They're just showing that institutions are at some level the expression of economic power applied to politics, which then feeds back into economic power.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so they're not doing that. They're not following down the Karl Marx line of economic determinism or material dialectics. What I'm saying about them, and again, they may not agree with this characterization. They're just showing that institutions are at some level the expression of economic power applied to politics, which then feeds back into economic power.