James Poulos on the future of conservatism

5 November 2008, 2000 EST

I would be doing our readers a great disservice if I failed to point them to James’ fascinating discussion of the future of the conservative movements after 4 November 2008. A taste:

Politically, on the right, nobody is dead now. Nobody is discredited. Everyone will decide for themselves. The wagons could be circled even tighter. But the herd is being thinned, and it is hard, for instance, to think of exactly why, say, Elizabeth Dole should still be serving in the U.S. Senate. There is nothing wrong with Liddy Dole, of course; but Republicans are going to have to do better than that. Yet the important thing for Republicans to remember is that this would be true even if McCain won. Not idiocy but irrelevance is the dangerous charge. Misplaced emphasis. Which raises a string of important issues.

Dan Nexon

Daniel H. Nexon is a Professor at Georgetown University, with a joint appointment in the Department of Government and the School of Foreign Service. His academic work focuses on international-relations theory, power politics, empires and hegemony, and international order. He has also written on the relationship between popular culture and world politics.

He has held fellowships at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation and at the Ohio State University's Mershon Center for International Studies. During 2009-2010 he worked in the U.S. Department of Defense as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow. He was the lead editor of International Studies Quarterly from 2014-2018.

He is the author of The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change (Princeton University Press, 2009), which won the International Security Studies Section (ISSS) Best Book Award for 2010, and co-author of Exit from Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2020). His articles have appeared in a lot of places. He is the founder of the The Duck of Minerva, and also blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money.