The impending inauguration of a new president seems like as good a time as any to inaugurate this new forum for the discussion of American politics and policymaking.

I hope to keep the scope fairly broad. Of course, there will be the daily lure of current events as President Obama puts together an administration and pushes a legislative agenda (and perhaps Congress pushes back!). But I also hope to share some thoughts and stimulate discussion of broader issues about the current state of American democracy. And as a working political scientist, I hope this will be a forum for the discussion of important political, social, and economic research on pressing public problems.

To tide readers over until I can get some new stuff up, the next few posts will link to some of my recently published opinion pieces.

My official bio is after the jump.

Here’s my official bio:

Nolan McCarty is the Susan Dod Brown Professor of Politics and Public Affairs and associate dean at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. His research interests include U.S. politics, democratic political institutions, and political game theory. He is the recipient of the Robert Eckles Swain National Fellowship from the Hoover Institution and the John M. Olin Fellowship in Political Economy. He has recently completed two books: Political Game Theory (2006, Cambridge University Press with Adam Meirowitz) and Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches (2006, MIT Press with Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal). Other recent publications include The Realignment of National Politics and the Income Distribution (1997 with Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal), “Bureaucratic Capacity, Delegation, and Political Reform” (2004 with John Huber) in the American Political Science Review, “The Appointments Dilemma” (2004) in the American Journal of Political Science, “Political Resource Allocation: The Benefits and Costs of Voter Initiatives” (2001 with John G. Matsusaka) in the Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, “The Hunt for Party Discipline” (2001 with Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal) in the American Political Science Review, “Cabinet Decision Rules and Political Uncertainty in Parliamentary Bargaining” (2001 with John Huber) in the American Political Science Review, and “The Politics of Blame: Bargaining before an Audience,” (2000 with Timothy Groseclose) in the American Journal of Political Science. McCarty was the program co-chair of the 2005 Midwest Political Association Meetings and was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences during academic 2004-05 year.