I’ve written a review of Beth Simone Noveck’s Smart Citizens, Smarter State for Boston Review. It’s a vision of smarter government through crowd-sourcing and soliciting outside expertise and, just as importantly, an argument that providing expertise and solving problems...

I co-wrote a series of posts for the OpenSecrets blog about the demographics of 2014’s top 500 campaign donors. No surprises here: the biggest donors are old, white, and male. Some of my favorite findings:

– The...

I’ve written two new pieces for the OpenSecrets blog, one about how members of different occupations have different political habits, even within the same industry, and another about candidates that were suspiciously dependent on contributions from out-of-state destinations....

I’ve made a conscious effort to listen to more new music over the last year or two in an effort to stave off the inevitable moment when pop culture passes me by. Ever since I realized that I tend not...

I’ve written a piece for Boston Review about what seems like the millionth progressive effort to make headway in state and local politics:

[T]he Democracy Alliance, a “cadre of wealthy liberal donors” co-founded by George Soros, “aims to...

My new piece for Boston Review is about Groundbreakers: How Obama’s 2.2 Million Volunteers Transformed Campaigning in America by Elizabeth McKenna and Hahrie Han:

[A]s the title implies, Han and McKenna tell the story of the organization—from top...

Last week, I wrote a piece for Boston Review about the uses and limits of outrage. I forgot to link to it here, but figured I might as well do so now that Rudy Giuliani has forced his way back...

If you’re having a hard time getting excited about this year’s slate of American elections (what, the Jacksonville mayoral election isn’t doing it for you?), now is a good time to remember that there are other democracies and some...

I went to see Sarah Chayes speak at Politics and Prose last Wednesday to promote her new book, Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security. The (mostly positive) Washington Post review by Carlos Lozada sums up Chayes’...

I just finished listening to The Age of Fracture, a 2014 album by a London-based band called CYMBALS. Musically, it wasn’t distinguishable from a million other synth-heavy indie bands, but the reason it caught my attention in the first place...