We have evidence in front of us now that we have leaders who barely meet the minimum required

in the Russian knowledge.

And now the good fight with Yasha Monk.

When I went to graduate school one of the big fields of study and one of the dominant methodologies

was based on the assumption that human beings are rational, that you can use methods of rational

choice to predict how human beings in general and politicians and statesmen in

particular are going to act. This was at the basis of analyzing everything from the likelihood of

nuclear war to how a representative in Congress would act faced with different kinds of political incentives.

Now, I feel a little bit torn about this subject.

I was quite dismissive about it in grad school.

I've come to appreciate it more over time,

but I also see that it has some very serious limitations.

And my guest today, Janice Stein,

is one of the most prominent critics of rational

choice as a way of trying to understand the social world and particularly as a way of trying

to understand this political moment. Janice is the founder of the monk school for public policy

at the University of Toronto and a

national treasure in Canada, as I learned when I got to spend a little bit of time with

for there a couple of months ago. We also talked about the fundamental issues facing the

international order today. I think Janice and I share a

political sensibility in which we want to preserve many things of a current order, but also

recognize the ways in which it really has failed to live up to its promises, in which attempts

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