2008-09 Faculty in the News

Mershon Center affiliated faculty are frequently in the spotlight, as reporters seek them out for expert commentary on today's headlines. Topics include national security, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Russia and the Cold War, and U.S. foreign relations, among others. Media outlets range from national newspapers to local television and radio stations to student blogs.

Below is a selection of media coverage for Mershon affiliated faculty members. The links will direct you to sites that are not associated with the Mershon Center. They are subject to change, and some may expire or require registration. For more information, contact Cathy Becker, Public Relations Coordinator, at becker.271@osu.edu or (614) 292-7529.

2008-09 Faculty in the News

Retired Colonel: Iraq Violence Will Remain Problem
NPR's All Things Considered, June 30, 2009
Expert: Peter Mansoor
The deadline for the withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops from Iraqi cities was Tuesday. Col. Peter Mansoor (retd.) says the withdrawal is necessary, but violence will still plague Iraq for years to come.

A 'Must Read' for the Book Czar
Huffington Post, June 18, 2009
Expert: Peter Shane
William Fisher calls Shane's book Madison's Nightmare: How Executive Power Threatens American Democracy must-reading for the Obama administration. From the review: "Peter Shane writes in compelling non-lawyerish commonsense prose about how ambitious assertions of presidential power are the logical outcome of a decades-long trend that started with Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, continued under Bill Clinton, and culminated most spectacularly under the 'unitary executive' doctrine embraced by the George W. Bush administration. What Shane calls 'aggressive presidentialism' has seen presidents of both parties waging an assault on the basic checks and balances of the U.S. government."

Turning Blue: How Democrats are Taking Back Ohio
Cincinnati City Beat, June 10, 2009
Expert: Paul Beck
Beck discusses Obama's narrow victory in Ohio. From the story: "Ohio State University political science professor Paul Beck says Obama’s unprecedented success among young voters might have turned Ohioans destined to conservatism in another direction. 'It could nudge the state in a more Democratic direction for the next 20 to 30 years,' he says." And "Beck says that Ohioans haven't shifted in terms of their ideology, but what has changed are the conditions around elections. 'These are short-run factors,' he says. 'It depends on the performance of the Obama administration. If the economy stays in the doldrums, then the Democrats aren’t going to do well.'"

No Nukes? Possibility or Pipe Dream?
The New York Times, June 7, 2009
Expert: John Mueller
Four experts debate whether the Obama administration's emphasis on global disarmament and containment of nuclear ambitions is a crucial step in eradicating the weapons, or detracts from more realistic national and global security goals. "The notion that the world should rid itself of nuclear weapons has been around for over six decades — during which time they have been just about the only instrument of destruction that hasn’t killed anybody." Mueller argues. "There may be another approach to the same end, one that, while also imperfect, would require far less effort while greatly reducing the amount of sanctimonious huffing and puffing we would have to endure. Just let it happen."

Double-Digit Unemployment Poses Political Danger for Obama
The Nation, June 6, 2009
Expert: Bruce Weinberg
Weinberg discusses 10 percent as the tipping point for when people will begin blaming the Obama administration for ongoing unemployment. From the story: "Ten is a tangible, very clear reminder that this is a severe recession," explains Ohio State University economics professor Bruce Weinberg. "Ten becomes something psychological. People will say: 'Whoa, we've got a double-digit unemployment rate.'"

Should the U.S. Military Return to Counting Bodies?
Time, June 2, 2009
Expert: Peter Mansoor
Mansoor is quoted in a story that explores the debate over whether the military should start releasing counts of enemy combatants killed, a practice that was discredited during the Vietnam War. From the story: "There does seem to be a growing acceptance of the judicious citing of body counts to combat Taliban propaganda. 'Publication of this information is part of the information campaign, and I think it's justified,' says Peter Mansoor, a retired Army colonel who served as a top aide to General David Petraeus in Iraq from February 2007 to May 2008. 'But I don't know that I'd go so far as to do every single death ... Then you get into a situation where some people will start to tally up the score and say, "Well, you've killed 2,000 people — why are you still losing?"'"

The battle ahead for Sotomayor
The National Law Journal, June 1, 2009
Expert: Peter Shane
Shane was quoted in a story about the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court. The story states: " Executive power and separation-of-power issues are likely to play out in the context of the president's authority as commander in chief and the treatment of detainees, but they also run through areas critical to business. 'A tricky issue to explore is the so-called unitary executive theory,' said executive power scholar Peter Shane of Ohio State University Michael E. Moritz College of Law."

Global Warming
Town Hall Ohio, Ohio Farm Bureau, May 24, 2009
Expert: Andy Keeler
Ohio State economists Keeler and Brent Sohngren discuss the impact of climate change on Ohio.

Regulated utilities, merchant generators battle over climate plan's allowances
The New York Times, May 21, 2009
Expert: Andy Keeler
The story explores the debate over giving 5 percent of carbon emission permits to unregulated merchant generators for free. From the story: "The 5 percent share currently outlined in the Waxman-Markey bill could be worth $2.7 billion to $5.5 billion a year at the start of the cap-and-trade program in 2012, said economist Andy Keeler, a professor at Ohio State University. The difference depends on how high the price on carbon emissions goes in the program's first years."

The Ambivalent Presidency? Executive Power Under the Obama Administration
Executive Watch blog, May 5, 2009
Expert: Peter Shane
Shane discusses the Obama administration's use of executive power so far. From the blog entry: "The George W. Bush Administration had the most ambitious view of executive power in history.  Bush sympathizers see little difference in the Obama Administration.  Bush’s detractors, in some respects, agree. The truth is probably closer to the following:  The Obama Administration has cast aside some of the Bush Administration’s more audacious claims.  It is still struggling, however, to find a consistent stance with regard to its philosophy of executive power."

Help Identify the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy
Huffington Post, April 22, 2009
Expert: Peter Shane
As executive director of the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy, Shane asks readers to review and comment on the commission's draft report. The report's key thesis: "[M]eeting the 'information needs of communities in a democracy' requires systems for creating and sharing information that simultaneously enable individuals to lead their lives effectively and foster positive social outcomes for the community as a whole. Creating these systems means assuring that individuals have access to quality information; strengthening the capacity of individuals to engage with information; and promoting individual engagement with information and the public life of the community."

ND utilities say cap-and-trade means higher rates
Associated Press, April 17, 2009
Expert: Andy Keeler
Keeler, speaking in Bismarck, N.D., discussed cap and trade in an interview. From the story: Keeler "said the cap-and-trade system 'is essentially a tax, though people pretend otherwise.' He said North Dakota electricity consumers pay about half as much per kilowatt hour than residents of California. 'Retail rates are lower in North Dakota than in less coal-intensive states,' he said." And: "Keeler, the Ohio State University professor, said other countries must also focus on curbing greenhouse gasses.
'This has to be a global effort or we're all wasting our time,' he said."

Wish I'd said that
Foreign Policy blog, April 16, 2009
Expert: John Mueller
Walt, Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Relations at Harvard University, calls attention to Mueller's article "How Dangerous Are the Taliban?" in Foreign Policy, calling it "an excellent antidote to what seems to be an emerging consensus that U.S. security is vitally dependent on 'defeating' the Taliban and creating an effective central Afghan state."

How Dangerous Are the Taliban?
Foreign Policy, April 15, 2009
Expert: John Mueller
Mueller questions whether the Taliban and al Qaeda pose enough of a threat to the United States to make a long war in Afghanistan worth the costs. From the article: "Given the Taliban's limited interest in issues outside the “AfPak” region, if it came to power again now, it would be highly unlikely to host provocative terrorist groups whose actions could lead to another outside intervention."

Keeping Signing Statements Rare
Executive Watch blog, April 8, 2009
Expert: Peter Shane
Shane finds the early use of signing statements by the Obama administration to be "four ways troublesome." From the article: "I think it is OK to be concerned already that the Obama Administration is not yet “getting it” on this subject. The routine use of signing statements to note each President’s constitutional views and vague interpretive intentions is, quite simply, an awful idea."

Why No More 9/11s?
Slate, March 5, 2009
Expert: John Mueller
Mueller's book Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them is quoted in a special series exploring eight theories for why America has not been attacked again. Mueller is quoted in the "Terrorists are Dumb Theory" and the "Burden of Success Theory." In Overblown, Mueller "relates how al-Qaida-linked coordinated suicide bombings in three Jordanian hotels in 2005 ended up killing a large group of Palestinians and Jordanians who were attending a wedding party. 'It would be difficult,' Mueller writes, 'to imagine a target likely to be more stupid from the perspective of the terrorists.'"

Debating with Alexander Wendt - On Social Sciences and IR
Debate With Authors blog, February 18, 2009
Expert: Alexander Wendt
This entry is a repost of a 2008 interview with Wendt by Theory Talks about what influenced him, constructivism, the dangers of methodology and the world state. From the interview: "If you want to become an IR specialist in general, I would say: get a PhD. Apart from that, I think it is very important – and even more than when I was a student in the 80s – to look outside of what is published strictly by IR scholars. There's a lot of work that I would call 'IR' that is published by sociologists, anthropologists, lawyers, philosophers, political theorists – I think that a lot of the most interesting questions are being raised outside of IR, so it is just a matter of getting outside of the little bubble that graduate students get trained in and we all live in. Even big canonical IR-theorists like Waltz and Keohane looked outside our field to rational choice theory, which stems from economics."

10 Reasons to be Thankful
Reader's Digest, February 1, 2009
Expert: John Mueller
The story explores several reasons people should be thankful. No. 2 is Peace. "Wars and terrorist attacks will always make headlines, but it's remarkable how many of the world's 6.7 billion people now live in peace," it says."Over the past century, even counting the world wars, a person's chance of dying from war or violent civil strife was less than 2 percent, according to John Mueller, a professor of political science at Ohio State University. That means that the scourge of war is now comparable to the statistical risk of driving a car in the United States."

Obama's First Executive Order Strikes a Blow for Transparency and the Rule of Law
Huffington Post, January 22, 2009
Expert: Peter Shane
Shane discusses Obama's first executive order. From the article: "In a world where political symbols matter, President Barack Obama chose a worthy subject for the first executive order of his new administration. His first executive order, entitled "Presidential Records," revokes Executive Order 13,233, President George W. Bush's constitutionally lunatic procedure for enabling former Presidents and Vice Presidents to limit public access to their records. The obscurity of the subject does not diminish the importance of what the new President is signaling."

Pollution Threatens Economy
Port Clinton News Herald, January 12, 2009
Expert: Andy Keeler
Story quotes Keeler on the Environment Ohio report What's at Stake: How Global Warming Threatens the Buckeye State. From the story: "As part of any strategy to prudently and responsibly manage the risks of climate change, Ohio will have no choice but to limit its greenhouse gas emissions," said Dr. Andrew Keeler, an economist with The Ohio State University's John Glenn School of Public Affairs. "Congress and the new Administration need to act as soon as possible to incorporate a price for greenhouse gas emissions into our market economy to address this problem efficiently."

Executive Vigor Without Executive Arrogance I: Ending the Reign of Signing Statements
Huffington Post, December 29, 2009
Expert: Peter Shane
Shane makes the case that newly elected President Obama should limit the use of signing statements by decree. These statements, which the president can use to comment on or modify laws passed by congress when signing them, were used over 1,400 times by President Bush -- more than three times the use of all his predecessors combined. If Obama set limits on signing statements, "it would surely demonstrate presidential vigor. It would also accomplish three things: repudiating any claims for the legal force of signing statements, pledging allegiance to the executive branch's obligation to enforce the law, and promising transparency on those rare occasions when the president's obligations to the Constitution mean that a statute cannot be enforced consistent with our supreme national law."

How to Leave Iraq -- Intact
The New York Times, November 22, 2009
Expert: Peter Mansoor
Mansoor, former executive officer to Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq, discusses how Obama can withdraw troops while holding onto progress made under the surge. From the article: "Barack Obama has the opportunity to recast American policy toward Iraq in a meaningful way, by providing much-needed support to its political center. His administration should view the new status of forces agreement between Washington and Baghdad as a means to shape the withdrawal of our combat forces while maintaining enough leverage to guide Iraq toward a more stable future."

Undergraduates learn 'Recipe for Success'
The Lantern, November 21, 2009
Experts: Randy Schweller, Barbara Hanawalt, Edward Crenshaw
A recap of the Mershon Center Undergraduate Research Panel, co-sponsored by the Office of Undergraduate Research.

My Election Eve Hopes: Closing the Book on Bush's Regulatory Legacy, Redefining "the Center"
Huffington Post, November 3, 2008
Expert: Peter Shane
Shane discusses how Congress can overturn last-minute deregulation rules pushed through by the Bush administration, and redefining the center in politics. From the article: "Here's the most important statute you have never heard of: the Congressional Review Act of 1996 (CRA). It creates a fast-track congressional procedure that allows Congress - with a cooperative President - to veto administrative regulations with which it disagrees." And "Since 1981, virtually anyone has been labeled a centrist or a moderate who does not subscribe to every single plank of the political platform of the radical right. A "leftist" is apparently anyone who does not think the enrichment of large corporations should be the singular goal of all public policy or that victims should not have to carry rape-induced pregnancies to term. This is nonsense."

House rivals sidestep climate change
Associated Press, October 30, 2008
Expert: Andy Keeler
Neither Barack Obama nor John McCain are discussing climate change in their presidential campaigns. "Both campaigns certainly understand that the objective of reducing greenhouse gases is going to require more expensive energy in the short and medium run, and that's not what they want to campaign on," said Andy Keeler, an energy economist at the John Glenn School of Public Affairs at Ohio State University.

What will the next president do about global warming?
Capital Times, October 22, 2008
Expert: Andy Keeler
The newspaper analyzes Barack Obama and John McCain's views on climate change, as well as what a president can do about it. From the story: "If there were really a change of culture, if 80 percent of America conserved, we would see remarkable change," said Andrew Keeler, an associate professor at the John Glenn School of Public Affairs at Ohio State. "A president using the bully pulpit would make a difference."

How the Surge Worked
The Washington Post, August 10, 2008
Expert: Peter Mansoor
Mansoor, former executive officer for Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq, discusses all the elements that made up the "surge" in Iraq. From the article: "One must understand that the 'surge' was more than an infusion of reinforcements into Iraq. Of greater importance was the change in the way U.S. forces were employed starting in February 2007, when Gen. David Petraeus ordered them to position themselves with Iraqi forces out in neighborhoods. This repositioning was based on newly published counterinsurgency doctrine that emphasized the protection of the population and recognized that the only way to secure people is to live among them."