Jeffrey Friedman
Encyclopedia
Jeffrey Friedman is a political scientist and the editor of Critical Review: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Politics and Society.
Friedman graduated from Brown University
in 1983 with a double major in History and Philosophy, and received an MA in History at the University of California, Berkeley
, in 1985 and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Yale
in 2002. He taught in the Government department at Dartmouth College
in 1998, the Social Studies program at Harvard from 1998 to 2000, and the Political Science department at Barnard College
, Columbia University
from 2001 to 2006.
In 2006 he resigned from the Barnard faculty to edit Critical Review
, which he had founded in 1986. The initial purpose of the journal was to bring critical scrutiny to bear on libertarian scholarship, and to subject mainstream scholarship to similar scrutiny. As part of this effort, Friedman published an article, "What's Wrong with Libertarianism," that prompted wide discussion among libertarian writers. Since then, the journal has evolved into a scholarly forum for critically assessing the realities of democracy and capitalism, emphasizing the actual functioning of democracy in the light of political scientists' findings of "public ignorance" of political affairs, and related questions such as electoral "mandates," media bias, academic bias, and the autonomy of state officials from public scrutiny. Friedman's articles "Public Opinion and Democratic Theory" (1998), "Public Opinion: Bringing the Media Back In" (2003), and "Popper, Weber, and Hayek: The Epistemology and Politics of Ignorance" (2005) addressed these issues.
Friedman is a visiting scholar in the Government Department of the University of Texas at Austin, and the Max Weber Fellow of the Institute for the Advancement of the Social Sciences at Boston University
.
Friedman graduated from Brown University
Brown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
in 1983 with a double major in History and Philosophy, and received an MA in History at the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
, in 1985 and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Yale
YALE
RapidMiner, formerly YALE , is an environment for machine learning, data mining, text mining, predictive analytics, and business analytics. It is used for research, education, training, rapid prototyping, application development, and industrial applications...
in 2002. He taught in the Government department at Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
in 1998, the Social Studies program at Harvard from 1998 to 2000, and the Political Science department at Barnard College
Barnard College
Barnard College is a private women's liberal arts college and a member of the Seven Sisters. Founded in 1889, Barnard has been affiliated with Columbia University since 1900. The campus stretches along Broadway between 116th and 120th Streets in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough...
, Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
from 2001 to 2006.
In 2006 he resigned from the Barnard faculty to edit Critical Review
Critical Review
Critical Review is a name shared by several publications, which are unrelated to each other by anything except their names:* The Critical Review was an English newspaper published from 1756 to 1817.* Critical Review...
, which he had founded in 1986. The initial purpose of the journal was to bring critical scrutiny to bear on libertarian scholarship, and to subject mainstream scholarship to similar scrutiny. As part of this effort, Friedman published an article, "What's Wrong with Libertarianism," that prompted wide discussion among libertarian writers. Since then, the journal has evolved into a scholarly forum for critically assessing the realities of democracy and capitalism, emphasizing the actual functioning of democracy in the light of political scientists' findings of "public ignorance" of political affairs, and related questions such as electoral "mandates," media bias, academic bias, and the autonomy of state officials from public scrutiny. Friedman's articles "Public Opinion and Democratic Theory" (1998), "Public Opinion: Bringing the Media Back In" (2003), and "Popper, Weber, and Hayek: The Epistemology and Politics of Ignorance" (2005) addressed these issues.
Friedman is a visiting scholar in the Government Department of the University of Texas at Austin, and the Max Weber Fellow of the Institute for the Advancement of the Social Sciences at Boston University
Boston University
Boston University is a private research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. With more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 31,000 students, Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of Boston's largest employers...
.
Publications
- "Locke as Politician." Critical Review 2(2-3): 64-101 (1988).
- "Public Opinion and Democracy." Critical Review 10(1): i-xii (1996).
- The Rational-Choice Controversy: Economic Models of Politics Reconsidered (editor). Yale University Press (1996).
- "What's Wrong with Libertarianism." Critical Review 11(3): 407-67 (1997).
- "Public Ignorance and Democratic Theory." Critical Review 12(4): 397-411 (1998).
- "After Democracy, Bureaucracy?" Critical Review 14(1): 469-79 (2000).
- "The Politics of Communitarianism and the Emptiness of Liberalism." Dissertation, Department of Political Science, Yale University (2002).
- "Public Opinion: Bringing the Media Back In." Critical Review 15(3-4): 239-58 (2003).
- "Theory Gets a Reality Check: Power, Money and a Little Bit about Love." The Dissident, no. 2.
- "Popper, Weber, and Hayek: The Epistemology and Politics of Ignorance." Critical Review 17(1-2): i-lvii (2005).
- "The Bias Issue." Critical Review 17(3-4): 221-236 (2005).
- "Public Competence In Normative and Positive Theory: Neglected Implications of "The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics." Critical Review 18(1-3): i-xliii (2006).
- "'A Weapon in the Hands of the People': The Rhetorical Presidency in Historical and Conceptual Context." Critical Review 19(2-3): 197-240 (2007).
- "The Irrelevance of Economic Theory to Understanding Economic Ignorance" (with Stephen Earl Bennett). Critical Review 20(3): 195-258 (2008).
- "A Crisis of Politics, Not Economics: Complexity, Ignorance, and Policy Failure." Critical Review 21(2-3): 127-83 (2009).
- What Caused the Financial Crisis. University of Pennsylvania Press (2010).
- "'Search' vs. 'Browse': A Theory of Error Grounded In Radical (Not Rational) Ignorance." Critical Review 23(1-2): 73-104 (2011).
- "Capitalism and the Jewish Intellectuals." Critical Review 23(1-2): 169-94 (2011).
- "Engineering the Financial Crisis: Systemic Risk and the Failure of Regulation" w/ Wladimir Kraus - University of Pennsylvania Press (2011).