Research

This bold and important book strives to be a practical "strategy for a Second American Century." In this brilliantly argued work, Thomas Barnett calls globalization "this country's gift to history" and explains why its wide dissemination is critical to the security of not only America but the entire world. As a senior military analyst for the U.S. Naval War College, Barnett is intimately familiar with the culture of the Pentagon and the State Department (both of which he believes are due for significant overhauls). He explains how the Pentagon, still in shock at the rapid dissolution...

Natural disasters are too often viewed as unpredictable and horrendous 'one-off' events. Edited by John Quigley and Larry Rosenthal, this useful collection of essays and research studies takes a systematic look at how private insurers, governments, and the larger economy respond to floods, earthquakes, wildfires, and terrorist events. Chapters by Howard Kunreuther (on insurance), Alan Berger, Carolyn Kousky, and Richard Zeckhauser (on damage distributions and losses), and Adam Rose (on resilience) are especially welcome for their coverage of the full range of impacts, losses, and...

In many ways, recent developments in California politics can be understood best through geography. The formal rules of American politics — such as district-based elections and the Electoral College — make geography crucial to the political process. Where voters live is in many ways as important as how they behave. In recent decades, California's political map has changed dramatically as the state's fast-growing population has divided along racial, ethnic, economic, religious, and cultural lines. Most notably at the statewide level, these trends have caused California's traditional North-...

In 1978 California voters shocked the political world by approving Proposition 13, a strict limit on local property tax rates. No state had ever approved such a far-reaching constitutional limitation of the power to tax. And Californians did not just approve it; they embraced it, rejecting dire warnings of doomsday from the state's political, business, and academic leaders. Voter turnout was the highest recorded for any off-year election in the history of California and the tax cut won in a landslide, with 65% of the vote. Thirty years later, Proposition 13 remains firmly entrenched in...