Cass Sunstein

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. Larry Lessig, the law professor now running for president, seems to be trying to produce a real-life Frank Capra movie. He hopes to tap into a deep strain in American culture -- the one that defined Capra's work...Capra's best movies focus on the power of goodness and purity. His central opposition is between greed and corruption on the one hand and simple human decency on the other.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. Black Lives Matter, the activist movement that began in 2013, focuses on violence against African-Americans -- perpetrated not only by the police but also by private vigilantes. Its central goals are to prevent such violence and to hold people accountable when it occurs. Its supporters proclaim that this is something new, “not your grandmamma’s civil rights movement.” Maybe so. But it may well be your grandmamma’s grandmamma’s civil rights movement. Black Lives Matter taps into an often forgotten, but nevertheless defining, element of our constitutional heritage.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. Tom Brady is, of course, the greatest quarterback who ever lived. Anyone who questions that, or accuses him of the slightest wrongdoing, is biased and untrustworthy. OK, I'm a New England Patriots fan, and inclined to celebrate Thursday's ruling by Judge Richard Berman, which vacated NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell's decision to suspend Brady for four games. But football aside, the decision offers a general lesson that even Brady-haters should celebrate. It involves the rule of law.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein: Within the past year, a new catchphrase has come to dominate political discussion, certainly on the left: “The system is rigged.”  Senator…

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. Of all the findings in behavioral science, the most significant may be "loss aversion," the idea that people dislike losses a lot more than they like equivalent gains. Loss aversion can create big trouble for businesses and investors. And it can badly confuse political debate -- as it seems to be doing in the current discussions of the nuclear deal with Iran.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. What would you think if a presidential candidate -- Republican or Democrat -- proposed a new federal program claiming to reduce poverty, boost employment, improve the health of infants and mothers, and increase the likelihood that people would graduate from college? You’d probably think the candidate was blowing a lot of smoke. Yet the earned income tax credit is doing every one of these things.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. Thursday's Republican debate will pit System 1 candidates (above all Donald Trump) against System 2 candidates (above all Jeb Bush). Let me explain. Social scientists, most prominently Daniel Kahneman, have distinguished between "fast thinking," undertaken by what they call the mind's System 1, and "slow thinking," which characterizes System 2. System 1 is automatic, intuitive, focused on the present and often emotional. System 2 is deliberative, calculating, focused on the long term and emotion-free.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. When it comes to regulating greenhouse gases, some people think the more stringent the rules, the better. Others favor the more pragmatic approach championed by President Ronald Reagan: The benefits of any regulation must justify its costs. The Barack Obama administration's rules for existing power plants, announced Monday, pass Reagan's test with flying colors -- and offer some nice surprises along the way.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. In 2010, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron began an experiment that he knew might not succeed. He created a new office, the Behavioural Insights Team, which would try to apply new understandings of human behavior to the work of agencies throughout government -- with the goal of saving 10 times as much money as the project cost. If BIT failed, it would be shut down within two years...Many people were skeptical about the idea. It seemed like a potential waste of taxpayers' money on a new research institute, and, to some, the very notion of using "behavioral insights" seemed vague and somewhat scary. Who wants government to be manipulating people's behavior? In five years, however, BIT has silenced the skeptics.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. In recent years, high-level Western officials have argued that terrorism is a product of poverty, a lack of education or mental illness. Other influential voices have urged that terrorist acts expose the truth about Islam, and still others that they are a natural, if excessive, response to legitimate grievances against the West. On Monday, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron pointedly rejected every one of these theories -- and went on to provide what may well be the most clear-headed explanation ever offered by a head of state...In Cameron's view, the root cause of terrorism is instead an extremist ideology, fueled by a process of radicalization.

An article by Cass Sunstein. When Americans think about Confederacy, they often think about Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 classic, Gone With the Wind. Inspired by recent debates over the Confederate flag, I decided to give the book a try. I confess that I did not have high hopes. I expected to be appalled by its politics and racism, and to be bored by the melodrama. (Scarlett O’Hara, Rhett Butler, and Ashley Wilkes? Really?) About twenty pages, I thought, would be enough. I could not have been more wrong. The book is enthralling, and it casts a spell. Does it make a plausible argument for continuing to display the Confederate flag? Not even close. But it does raise a host of questions—about winners’ narratives, about honor and humiliation, about memory, about innocence and guilt, about men and women, about what’s taken for granted, about the particularity of human lives, and about parallel worlds.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. An executive order from President Barack Obama requires that the Environmental Protection Agency analyze the costs and benefits of its regulations. But how exactly can it measure the economic benefits of the coming restrictions on greenhouse gases? For both policy and law (including the inevitable court challenges), it's a crucial question. This month, the administration provided a big part of the answer with a new report from its Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Carbon, which is intended to capture in dollar terms the damage from 1 ton of carbon emissions.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. Last week's Supreme Court decision striking down a federal regulation on mercury and other pollutants from coal-fired power plants is a temporary setback for those who seek to reduce air pollution. At the same time, however, it should be welcomed as a ringing endorsement of cost-benefit analysis by government agencies. It's a kind of rifle shot, with potentially major effects on a host of future regulations that have nothing to do with the environment.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein: In his powerful dissenting opinion from Friday's same-sex marriage decision, Chief Justice John Roberts asks an excellent question: “Just who do we think we are?” That question deserves an answer. If we look at the arc of the court’s history, we might be able to offer one. Contrary to appearances, the court usually pays attention to an actual or emerging moral consensus, certainly with respect to fundamental rights. It follows public opinion; it does not lead it. When Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that the Constitution protects “the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning,” he didn't mean the justices consult philosophical texts or make things up. He meant to refer instead to an emphatically social process, in which the justices learn from their fellow citizens.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. In recent months, universities have turned their attention to an important problem that should be included in our national effort to examine and root out bigotry. They have identified, and attempted to reduce, "microaggressions" -- words or behavior that might stigmatize or humiliate women or members of minority groups, with particular emphasis on African-Americans, disabled people, and gays and lesbians. The effort has admirable goals, but there is a risk that schools will overshoot the mark.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. Thursday's Supreme Court decision to uphold a pivotal regulation under the Affordable Care Act is, of course, a tremendous victory for the Barack Obama administration. But it also establishes a principle that's likely to haunt future presidents...The underlying question is which branch of government has the power to interpret ambiguous legislation. Since the Supreme Court's 1984 decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, the executive branch has been allowed to adopt its own interpretations, as long as they're reasonable. And because so many laws are ambiguous, this "Chevron principle" has given great authority to executive agencies and the president.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. Under the Constitution, the U.S. government cannot deprive people of “liberty” without “due process of law.” Clear enough? Clearly not. For more than a century, the Supreme Court has been sharply divided over what "liberty" means. Today’s immigration decision puts those divisions in sharp relief. With their sweeping opinions, Antonin Scalia and Stephen Breyer led the two poles -- but Anthony Kennedy’s appealingly minimalist view carried the day.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. In recent years, the federal government has adopted a large number of soft interventions that are meant to change behavior without mandates and bans. Among them: disclosure of information, such as calorie labels at chain restaurants; graphic warnings against, for example, distracted driving; and automatic enrollment in programs designed to benefit employees, like pension plans. Informed by behavioral science, such reforms can have large effects while preserving freedom of choice. But skeptics deride these soft interventions as unjustified paternalism, an insult to dignity and a contemporary version of the nanny state. Some people fear that uses of behavioral science will turn out to be manipulative. They don’t want to be nudged. But what do Americans actually think about soft interventions?

What is more unexpected: that Jewish author A.J. Jacobs, known for his ambitious lifestyle experiments, has some Asian and Scandinavian roots? Or that rapper Ludacris is 1/16th Jewish? These are the types of questions that were raised by the Global Family Reunion on June 6, a Comic Con-esque celebration of the advancement of genealogy technology. People from countries as far away as New Zealand and Brazil, along with a diverse cast of celebrity speakers and musicians, gathered on the grounds of the New York Hall of Science in Queens, New York to emphasize one basic but uplifting idea: that we’re all more related than we thought...Cass Sunstein, a prominent Harvard Law School professor – and Jacobs’ first cousin once removed – perhaps best summarized the sentiments behind the project after his talk. "We tend to think of members of our family as people we protect and sacrifice for and care for, and that tends to be limited to a very small group,” Sunstein told JTA. “But if you think of the extent to which your connections are much broader and more surprising than you know, then maybe those feelings of generosity and kindness can broaden.” Well said, professor.

Cass Sunstein is a professor and legal scholar at Harvard Law School, the author of numerous books and the former administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. He spoke about his experiences in the Obama administration, his views on regulatory policy and leadership, his favorite sport (squash) and being married to a powerful woman...Q. In your new book, "Wiser: Getting Beyond Groupthink to Make Groups Smarter," you divide leaders into two categories: those who are complacent and easygoing and those who are anxious. Which type makes a better leader? A. A complacent leader is someone who is upbeat, optimistic, who has a clear sense of direction, who is quite confident that things will be fine and who has a degree of sunniness. An anxious leader is someone who may be easy to get along with but also is thinking about all the things that could go wrong and always seeing the worst-case scenario. There is no question that the anxious leader is much better than the complacent leader.