(From the Open House Project blog.)

I'm reading Politics in Time by Paul Pierson (link), and am struck by how little academic political science seems to affect government policy and political discussion. I find political and social analysis incredibly stimulating, especially given how tiresome I find the current presidential punditizing.

I'm particularly interested in Pierson's purportedly novel conception of how political institutions develop over time, apparently filling the gaps that other models fail to address. (He sets his conceptions against "historical institutionalism" and "rational choice theory".) His analysis is abstract enough to be rigorous and challenging at first, but takes a broad enough view that he can abstract common elements out of disparate systems in a useful, applicable manner. He seeks to "explicate different ways in which things happen over time in social life, drawing attention to processes that are unlikely to be visible without specifically addressing questions of temporality" (p. 10). (more)

The San Diego Union Tribune, without whom this would not have happened, is reporting that corrupt contractor Brent Wilkes was found guilty by a jury on 13 of 13 counts related to his bribery of imprisoned ex-Rep. Duke Cunningham. The story of Brent Wilkes is perhaps one of the more telling tales of political corruption for our time. Here is a man who set up a series of bogus companies, many which appeared to be nothing but a name with similar addresses, and received million dollar contracts for important work including the bottling of water for troops in Iraq and providing “commercial cover for CIA operations,” despite having no background in air cover. This is the story of the atmosphere of corruption, embodied by the wanton abandon to cash in on political connections, which must have permeated Congress in the late-90s and early-00s.

Last Friday, Paul posted an interview with Larry Lessig from Danish TV. Today, I received a link to the lecture I heard him deliver at Stanford Law School just a couple of weeks ago. It’s worth devoting the time to watch this. It’s a remarkable analysis. Update: Lessig has now posted the slides.

Larry Lessig talks about money in politics, public information on the Internet, political corruption, and gives a shout of to the Sunlight Foundation.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has released its third annual report on the most corrupt members of Congress, entitled Beyond DeLay: The 22 Most Corrupt Members of Congress (and two to watch). The report highlights the corrupt activities of each of the 25 on the list.

The report is clear evidence that corruption hasn't disappeared from Capitol Hill.

Congress can get a bit contentious at times over corruption allegations - see for example this Hill article from yesterday - but at least they don't physically beat each other up over the issue as lawmakers did in Bolivia yesterday.

Keeping track of congressional information starts at the local level, and blogs do a great job of informing people about what is happening in their own backyard. I have been reading local blogs for quite a while and have been very impressed with the coverage on local ethics issues and congressional information. So I would like to highlight every week some blogs that do a great job covering issues that deal with transparency, ethics, and corruption.