The Monkey Cage

It’s on, according to Colin Scott at Paul Krugman-cited blog, The Irish Economy.

There is a consensus that the practitioners and discipline of economics have been key beneficiaries of the financial and fiscal crises. The views of leading economists as to where we are and what we should do are widely sought across the media and within government. A conference organised at TCD earlier this week on the issue of political reform was part of a deliberate effort by political scientists to demonstrate the relevance of their discipline and the Irish Times has been publishing opinion pieces and articles drawing on the conference.

University College Dublin political scientist, John Coakley (UCD is my alma mater, but he arrived after I left).

ECONOMIC CRISES rightly push economists to the forefront when it comes to seeking to devise solutions. But the roots of such crises are often political, so it is not surprising that we also find calls for political reform matching demands for corrective action in the economy. … One of the most significant constraints is the nature of Irish political culture. After generations of familiarity with the operation of Irish-style democracy, Irish people have developed particular expectations of what is possible and appropriate.

University College Cork political scientist, Neil Collins:

THERE IS a truism in political science that power is inversely related to noise [HF - never heard of this truism meself, and it would seem to go against the findings of a large literature on social movements etc]. If you are in the streets, behind the banner or peering down from a poster, you have probably already lost. Important decisions affecting our everyday life are usually made by those we are least likely to be able to name. … The irony is that political institutions have ceded power to regulatory systems on foot of economic arguments, while the mechanism of accountability from those systems has been shown to be inadequate. Political parties, pluralism, ministerial accountability, elections and parliamentary scrutiny have failed to guarantee democratic control and popular trust in political institutions, and the economic levers are proving inadequate for the purpose. [HF - Collins seems on safer ground here]

It is interesting to me that there isn’t even the hint of political science involvement in the general public debates over the economic meltdown - the only political scientist I can think of who has been at all prominent is Barry Eichengreen, who holds a joint appointment in economics. Nor can I imagine US political scientists engaging in collective action to try to change this. Why the differences with Ireland?