Daniel W. Drezner is assistant professor of political science at the University of Chicago. He received his BA from Williams College and his PhD in political science from Stanford University. He is the editor of Locating the Proper Authorities (Michigan University Press, 2003) and author of The Sanctions Paradox (Cambridge University Press, 1999). Dan has published articles in numerous scholarly journals as well as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Slate and Foreign Affairs. He has received fellowships from the German Marshall Fund of the United States, the Council on Foreign Relations and Harvard University, and has previously held positions with the RAND Corporation and the Treasury Department, and taught at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Donetsk Technical University in the Republic of Ukraine. Dan is currently finishing a book on globalization and global governance. He blogs at Daniel W. Drezner. His wife Erika graciously puts up with his incessant online activities; his children Samuel and Lauren are less gracious about it.
What has been your best blogging experience? > The series of posts I did on offshore outsourcing, which turned into source material for my Foreign Affairs article. Most of my readers disagreed with me, which was great, because I was able to see where the counterarguments would come from.
What has been your worst blogging experience? > Logging on and finding 300 spam comments before I had downloaded MT-Blacklist. I was very close to quitting.
What would be your main blogging advice to a novice blogger? > Think long and hard about whether this is the first thing you want people to see when your name is Googled.
What are your favourite blogs? > Virginia Postrel, Brad Setser, Marginal Revolution.
Who are your intellectual heroes? > Adam Smith, Albert Hirschman, Thomas Schelling, Friedrich von Hayek, and Samuel Huntington. (I actually disagree a lot with Huntington, but I admire his willingness to say and write anything no matter how unfashionable his conclusions.)
What are you reading at the moment? > David Rothkopf's Running the World; Robert Jervis's American Foreign Policy in a New Era, Alexander George and Andrew Bennett's Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences, and Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel. I'm waiting for my wife to finish Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
Who are your cultural heroes? > Joss Whedon, Whit Stillman, Frank Miller and Alan Moore.
What is the best novel you've ever read? > The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
What is your favourite movie? > Stalag 17.
What is your favourite song? > 'Love, Reign O'er Me' by the Who.
Can you name a major moral, political or intellectual issue on which you've ever changed your mind? > I've become much less comfortable with the death penalty over the years.
Can you name a work of non-fiction which has had a major and lasting influence on how you think about the world? > Robert Axelrod's The Evolution of Cooperation. I was sixteen at the time, and the idea that there was this tool called game theory that could help explain strategic behaviour blew my mind.
Who are your political heroes? > Abraham Lincoln, Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan.
What is your favourite piece of political wisdom? > Montesquieu: 'Useless laws weaken necessary laws.'
If you could effect one major policy change in the governing of your country, what would it be? > Devising an affordable market-based solution to health care. (I'm not saying I know how to do this, mind you.)
What would you do with the UN? > Set up so many democratic-based clubs outside the UN that actually accomplish things that Turtle Bay sinks into obsolescence.
What do you consider to be the main threat to the future peace and security of the world? > The nexus between terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.
Do you think the world (human civilization) has already passed its best point, or is that yet to come? > No, yet to come. I'm pretty Whiggish.
What would be your most important piece of advice about life? > Never, ever skimp on your bed - it's where you'll be spending a third of your life.
Do you think you could ever be married to, or in a long-term relationship with, someone with radically different political views from your own? > My wife and I are on opposite sides of the political fence - though our marriage has caused both of us to moderate our views.
What do you consider the most important personal quality? > A sense of humour.
What personal fault do you most dislike? > Dogmatism.
What is your favourite proverb? > 'Fail. Fail Again. Fail Better.' (Samuel Beckett)
What commonly enjoyed activities do you regard as a waste of time? > Watching parades - I just don't get it.
Who would play you in the movie about your life? > My wife's answer is Matthew Broderick - I can live with that.
Where would you most like to live (other than where you do)? > Assuming money was no object, London, Oxford, Istanbul, Hong Kong or San Francisco.
What would your ideal holiday be? > Lake Tahoe, Lake Como, or Lake Chatyr-Kul - all are fresh water lakes near mountains.
What do you like doing in your spare time? > What is this 'spare time' thing to which you refer?
Who is your favourite comedian or humorist? > Denis Leary.
Which baseball team do you support? > The Boston Red Sox.
[The normblog profile is a weekly Friday morning feature. A list of the first 52 profiles, and the links to them, can be found here. Details of subsequent profiles are here.]