PhD student Victor Wu was recently interviewed on Substack Live about his research on the development of executive power in modern democracies and its contemporary implications by Daniel Muñoz, Associate Professor at UNC and author of the popular academic Substack Big Iff True. The full interview with video and transcript is here: https://substack.com/@bigifftrue/p-195243954
Abstract:
Two weeks ago, I argued that Americans should resist the trend towards ever-stronger presidents. Almost as soon as the post went up, I got an email from Victor Wu (Yale Political Science) absolutely STACKED with insightful objections.
In fact, Victor’s emails were so interesting that I invited him to speak with me last Friday. The result was one of my favorite interviews yet.
We talk about:
- how Victor’s time in the Marines influenced his political philosophy
- Victor’s unexpected connection to James C. Scott
- how the role of the president changed from executor to initiator
- the surprise return of Woodrow Wilson to political theory
We also swap a lot of philosophy stories and discover that, unbeknownst to us, we were classmates in 2014.