What Do You Think About Petitions in the Nineteenth Century?

3min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Tyler Drexler: What do you analytically see as the major effect of petitions, apart from any particular case? He says we're in a different world now, especially in the united states, where i don't think petitions have quite the socital and historical imprint that they used to. Nowadays, we could say social media. Somebody could jump on the social media and say, hey, look at this awful statement i just got. And then you get a bunch of likes. So it's some kind of aggregation mechanism like that that can do that. But i don't think we have the kinds of institutions that we used to impart because we don't have a petition institution that

Daniel Carpenter is one of the world’s leading experts on regulation and the foremost expert on the US Food and Drug Administration. A professor of Government at Harvard University, he’s conducted extensive research on regulation and government organizations, as well as on the development of political institutions in the United States. His latest book Democracy by Petition: Popular Politics in Transformation, details the crucial role petitions played in expanding the franchise and shaping modern America.

Daniel joined Tyler to discuss how to reform the hiring and firing practices for public employees, what the history of the postal service can teach us about internet regulation, the problem with the term “institutional capture”, what the FDA got right and wrong regarding COVID-19 vaccines, how nationalism is affecting vaccine rollout, why vaccinating the young is crucial for herd immunity, the drawbacks of a “Good Housekeeping” model of the FDA, how black box drug labels sometimes change behavior for the worse, the institutional variables of foreign drug trials and manufacturing, the pivotal role petitions played during the 19th century women’s rights movement, the French Canadian petition that changed history, why political scientists should study Native Americans, the benefits of fly fishing, and more.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video.

Recorded April 1st, 2021 Other ways to connect

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram
Follow Tyler on Twitter
Email us: cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu
Subscribe at our newsletter page to have the latest Conversations with Tyler news sent straight to your inbox.