WELCOME

Welcome to the Political Psychology blog. I hope your time here is both interesting and informative.

I am a professor of political science at the City University of New York, and a practicing psychoanalyst. My substantive interests over the past four decades have been at the intersection of psychology, politics, and policy. My work in these areas has focused on presidential leadership and psychology, public psychology, and most recently the psychology of immigration and American national identity. I am now at work on the strategic psychology of the Bush Doctrine.

You are welcome to look at my profile for more information about these matters.

What kinds of posts can you expect on this blog? Mostly, commentary and analysis of the range of issues that are associated with the matters that interest me and also responses to particularly egregious punditry that needs correction.

I don’t intend or aspire in this blog to “psychoanalyze” every public issue, or to reduce every political or policy issue to some elementary psychological essence. Often policy and political issues are just that and must be analyzed in the terms that suit them best.

On the other hand, there is an great deal of psychology in public life, and it is often misunderstood and frequently mischaracterized. For evidence of that you need look no further than the shallow psychological caricatures of our current president, Mr. Bush. I have always thought that before you spout psychology you ought to be trained in it—a view clearly not shared by the Maureen Dowds and Jonathan Alters of the world.

At any rate, welcome. I hope you find the postings informative and helpful in your thinking about the many critical issues this country faces.