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My work has always fallen onto a kind of boundary between
comparative politics and political economy.
And from my earliest work till today, there's always been
this same puzzle that has fascinated me, and that's how
people define their own interests.
MIT constantly pushes you or allows you to somehow extend
your inquiry across departmental boundaries.
Let me give you an example, which was a study carried out
with six colleagues from other departments at MIT on how
companies react, respond to globalization.
What we discovered is that, no matter which set of firms we
looked at, those companies have entirely different
strategies about outsourcing, offshoring, investment in
research, investment in the
qualifications of their workers.
So I think that so much of what people believe is
inevitable and how we need to respond to global pressures, a
lot of that isn't really inevitable.
We really have the possibility through politics
of making big choices.
Being at MIT kind of constantly focuses you on, why
does this matter?
Well, I'm interested in x.
Why does it matter?
Why should anyone care?
At MIT, I think you just never can think of a problem without
hearing that voice in your head.