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John Marini
John Marini is professor of political science at the University of Nevada, Reno
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John Marini was one of the first conservative thinkers in 2016 to recognize that Donald Trump posed an existential threat to the administrative state, in a series of articles that are included in a recent collection we highly recommend, Unmasking the Administrative State: The Crisis of American Politics in the Twenty-First Century. In this second half of our conversation (take in the first part here if you missed it), Glenn Ellmers helps us draw John out further on these deeper aspects of the problem, noting that conservatives might actually find some insight into the authoritarianism of the administrative state from an unlikely source—certain French social theorists, in particular Foucault. Now I know what you’re thinking, and yes, references to Foucault usually summon my gag reflex, too, but you should hear out John and Glenn on this point. From time to time I bait Lucretia with the suggestion that we can sometimes turn the left’s dogmas against them, and she usually doesn’t buy it, but here we may see some support for this idea.
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Ricochet
February 2023
The “administrative state” is an obscure and ungainly phrase, but in recent years the term has burst out into general use, though it is often conflated with another term currently popular—the “deep state.” They are not the same thing, though they do overlap, and “deep state” does enjoy the advantage of being shorter and pithier. What is “the administrative state”? It is a mistake to confuse it with mere bureaucracy, or just concentrated executive branch power, nor should it be analyzed principally as an economic problem on account of high taxes or stifling regulation. It is partly a constitutional issue, as it involves the erosion of the separation of powers. But the administrative state is a more profound problem than that. The premier analyst of this subject is Prof. John Marini of the University of Nevada at Reno. Prof. Marini is retiring from his long teaching and writing career at the end of this semester, and we decided it was high time we sit down with him for an extended conversation involving one of my “origin story” intellectual histories before proceeding to the main event. John explains the philosophical origins of what he prefers to call the “rational state,” taking after Hegel. But it is no abstract theory. It leads to the practical result we’ve just experienced with COVID, where the presumptions of scientific expertise were married to the authority of executive government to yield a wholly authoritarian response. "Lucretia" and Glenn Ellmers, both dutiful students of Prof. Marini, join me for this fascinating conversation, which we'll continue with next week in the sequel we're calling "Marini Strikes Back."
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