By now, I imagine that most everybody knows that Paul Krugman has won the Nobel prize for Economics (and yes: if the Nobel Institute publicizes it on its website, it is effectively a Nobel prize). From what I know of his work, it was very well deserved. But maybe political science should take a little bit of pride in his work too? His most recent project – which tries to understand the reasons for the collapse of the post-New Deal consensus and the gross increases in inequality in the US – points specifically to the kinds of things that political scientists emphasize (electoral politics etc) as providing the key variables of explanation. The people whose work speaks most directly to his and vice versa are political scientists. Certainly, when I wanted to organize a panel at APSA this year on the political consequences of the social upheavals of the 1960s, I had no difficulty whatsoever in persuading him to participate. Maybe APSA should invite him to give a keynote speech next year? And if we can somehow get to claim him for our own, it might be nice payback for economics having stolen “Herbert Simon”:http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/1978/simon-autobio.html from us all those years ago …
