“The Cycles Meet: Political Change and Conflict in the Coming Decade”

Beyond the headlines and the controversy du jour, American politics today is the manifestation of a pair of deep historical cycles that are converging and creating a unique moment for institutional change.

1. “Presidential time,” (an idea developed by Yale’s Stephen Skowronek) suggests that, when a party is in a state of advanced decay (like today’s GOP), a president from the opposing party has the opportunity to re-arrange institutions and significantly change U.S. governance. These are the Reagans, Roosevelts, and Lincolns – the truly game-changing presidencies.

2. The late Samuel Huntington observed that the United States goes through periodic episodes of moralism (“Creedal Passion”) in which the American people attempt to bring the country’s reality in line with its ideals of liberty and equality for all. Writing in the wake of the last bout of “Creedal Passion,” the Sixties, Huntington observed that the next bout should be in the second and third decades of the 21st century. All of the signs are present.

The convergence of these two cycles—a president empowered to bring vast change, and American public agitating for reform—means that the 2020s will be a turbulent decade that will touch every aspect of American politics and society.

REGISTRATION IS OPEN! Registration will be open until 11am, Thursday, December 10, 2020. You should receive a confirmation email after registering. A link to the webinar should be included in this ticket confirmation.  If you do not receive a confirmation email, please contact the NEC for that or any other questions at manager@national-economists.org.

About our speaker:

Dr. Aaron Mannes is a lecturer at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy and a consultant to the U.S. government. From 2004 to 2015 Dr. Mannes was a researcher at the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS) where he was the subject matter expert on terrorism and international affairs collaborating with a team of inter-disciplinary scientists to build computational tools to support decision-makers facing 21st century security and development problems. Dr. Mannes earned his Ph.D. at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy in 2014. His dissertation topic was the evolving national security role of the vice president.

Dr. Mannes is the author or co-author of three books on terrorism (a fourth is on the way), including the first book length big-data analyses of terrorist group behavior. He has written scores of articles, papers, and book chapters on a wide array of topics including U.S. foreign policy, the presidency and vice presidency, Middle East affairs, terrorism, technology, and other international security issues for popular and scholarly publications including Politico, USA Today, Policy Review, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, The Journal of International Security Affairs, The Huffington Post, The National Interest, and The Guardian.