2024 Presidential Election

Most major candidates for office this cycle agree on one thing: the US needs to do more to lessen our dependence on China for trade. Both Republicans and Democrats blame China for job losses, intellectual property theft, failing to keep international commitments, and undermining the global trade regime. Are there significant differences among the candidates as to their preferred policies? And no matter who wins, what will trade policy look in the coming decade?

Jon Pevehouse is a professor political science whose research examines how domestic political debates create pressures to change foreign policy. His work has focused on trade policy, international human rights, and international organizations. Recently, he published a co-authored paper on how Americans view trade policy with different trade partners, finding that partner states who are democracies generate more support for trade deals.

Talking about the issues that impact your community and our state can be hard. It doesn’t have to be. Join Dr. Yackee as she discusses the La Follette School of Public Affairs’ Main Street Agenda project. In this innovative approach to building and practicing the skill of civil dialogue, the La Follette School will hold in-person community conversations around the state that will give Wisconsin residents opportunities to find common ground on issues that matter to them and their communities. Ultimately, the goal of the events will be to help participants learn strategies to have respectful conversations with people of differing views.

Susan Webb Yackee is a professor of public affairs and director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison. A leading scholar in the study of bureaucracy and public administration, her research and teaching interests include the U.S. public policymaking process, public management, regulation, health policy, and interest group politics. Yackee is an elected member of the National Academy of Public Administration and a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS).

Prof. Teodoro’s 2022 book, The Profits of Distrust (Cambridge, with Samantha Zuhlke & David Switzer), argues that basic services are the bedrock of government legitimacy, and links the meteoric rise of the bottled water industry to declining trust in government and disengagement from civic life. In this Badger Talk, Prof. Teodoro shows why government getting the basics right matters for democracy.

Manny Teodoro works at the intersection of politics, public policy, and public management. His research focuses on U.S. environmental policy and implementation, with an empirical emphasis on drinking water and infrastructure. Prof. Teodoro also studies public management and bureaucratic politics, emphasizing labor markets as political phenomena and predictors of organizational performance.

Menzie D. Chinn is Professor of Public Affairs and Economics at the University of Wisconsin’s Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs and the Department of Economics. His research is focused on international finance and macroeconomics. He is currently a co-editor of the Journal of International Money and Finance, and a Research Fellow in the International Finance and Macroeconomics Program of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Previously, he has been a visiting scholar at the International Monetary Fund, the Congressional Budget Office, the Federal Reserve Board, the European Central Bank, and the Banque de France. He also served on the CBO Panel of Economic Advisers, 2011-12. In 2000-2001, Professor Chinn served as Senior Staff Economist for International Finance on the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. With Doug Irwin, he is coauthor of International Economics (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming), and with Jeffry Frieden, coauthor of Lost Decades: The Making of America’s Debt Crisis and the Long Recovery (2011, W.W. Norton). He is also a contributor to Econbrowser, a weblog on macroeconomic issues. Prior to his appointment at the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 2003, Professor Chinn taught at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He received his doctorate in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley, and his AB from Harvard University.