Don Moynihan Profile picture
Nov 24, 2022 9 tweets 7 min read Read on X
With the season finale of #Andor, I wrote about what the show tells us about the administrative state that underpins the Empire, and lessons for governing more broadly.

(Spoilers ahead, though not specifically about the finale).
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-administ…
One lesson of #Andor is that poor contracting decisions can generate a lot of reputational damage donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-administ…
You could pair #Andor with James Scott's "Seeing Like a State": A bureaucracy is constructed to monitor and extract resources from distant communities, but a failure to understand local communities becomes its undoing.
The Empire's tendency toward brittle authoritarianism reflects bureaucratic incentive structures, where bland careerists become fascists to grab the rung on the ladder. See Arendt’s banality of evil: donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-administ…
For the last few years, I have talked to my students going into public service a lot about how bureaucrats respond when they are working for corrupt regimes. Some stay loyal, but some engage in sabotage. This is also part of the story of the Empire's bureaucracy.
#Andor also deals with the organizational structure of the rebellion, which is a emergent dark network that still have not built qualities that theorists like @BrintMilward show are essential for networks: trust, means of coordination and norms of reciprocity.
The final point is about the psychological costs of the rebellion for its participants. Fighting an authoritarian regime is personally costly in a way we do not see in the Star Wars movies.
This was reflected in Luthen's speech in episode 10.
That toll of fighting the Empire related of the toll of living under totalitarianism. Maarva's speech in the finale is the complement to Luthen, but comes from the same logic: at some point the costs of fighting make sense compared to the gradual loss of freedom.
Shout out to people whose tweets and research I drew on to write this: @_Oliver_James_ @SebJilke @StevenVdWalle @BrintMilward @AdamSerwer @jbouie @allafarce.
I want to hear from @Georgetown students who want to see this topic turned into a course!!
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-administ…

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More from @donmoyn

Sep 22, 2023
The connections are pretty clear. Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society helped bankroll the work of Ginni Thomas. He also arranged for Clarence Thomas to attend Koch fundraisers.
propublica.org/article/claren…

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The shared purpose of Leonard Leo, Ginni Thomas, Clarence Thomas and the Koch network was to put right-wing judges on the court. And Clarence Thomas used his public position on the court to raise money for that. Image
Clarence Thomas used to support the Chevron doctrine, which allows delegation to administrative expertise. But the people who fund the Koch network can't buy off administrators, so they want to remove their influence from the process. Now Thomas agrees with the donors.
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Read 4 tweets
Sep 12, 2023
Holy shit, its the original Avocado Toast guy!
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Also this guy: young people today can't afford a house because they occasionally buy new clothes
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If the people @FinancialReview care for free speech at all, they will do the decent thing and allow replies to this tweet, allowing a full and frank exchange of views. Image
Read 4 tweets
Aug 28, 2023
America has 22 times the firearm homicide rates as the European Union.
We are less safe and less free because of how available guns are in this country.
healthdata.org/news-events/in…
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America makes up about 15% of gun homicides, and together with five other countries constitutes half of gun homicides in the world. vox.com/2018/8/29/1779…
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The reason more people in America are dying from guns is because there are more guns in America.
America is the only country with more guns than people. cnn.com/2021/11/26/wor…
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Read 5 tweets
Aug 17, 2023
New, from me: I wrote about how the emerging debacle at New College (one-third of faculty gone, students can't find classes, housed in airport hotels) reflects the incompetence of populists like DeSantis. Image
Competence, the ability to perform organizational core tasks, is an underrated quality. It is an especially overlooked quality by people who value other things, like ideological goals, or believe that existing institutions are corrupt, or who have never actually run things. Image
Fuck Around (left, celebrating the firing of a faculty who criticized the Regents)
and
Find Out: (right, soliciting faculty applications because you don't have enough to teach classes - one-third have left for some reason).
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Read 6 tweets
Aug 16, 2023
The DeSantis takeover of New College was meant to offer a model of a conservative-run higher ed.

The result is chaos, which is what happens when incompetent people who don't actually care about organizational mission take over public services. insidehighered.com/news/students/…
The NY Times recently featured Chris Rufo to explain how DEI was undermining liberal education.

You know what actually undermines a liberal education?
Losing one-third of faculty.
Not offering core classes to students.
Raging incompetence and blind indifference.
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Rufo is seeking to personally recruit replacements. Which is completely at odds with what university trustees are supposed to do. No way that could go wrong, right? Image
Read 4 tweets
Aug 3, 2023
Update: Kathleen McElroy receives a settlement of $1M from Texas A&M, who had offered her a senior tenured position, and then pulled that offer.

From the internal Texas A&M reports: it was A&M Regents who signaled their opposition to McElroy, at which point the university figured out they would not tenure her.
Seems like the Regents cost A&M $1M. Nice job.
: ... tamus.edu/wp-content/up
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Not great when a university President is saying "I'm assuming all texts were deleted" and then tells faculty she was not involved in hiring process. (She has since resigned).
Read 8 tweets

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