Morning Good People!

What follows is a set of what I imagine will be frequently asked questions if I don't answer them right now. They deal mostly with my background and the nature of the blog. I hope to get an actual post, likely about Iran, up in the next 24 hours. So if anyone actually reads this, welcome and I look forward to reading your comments. I'll likely add to this/edit it at a latter time so as to make it more useful.

Question: Who am I?

Answer: I am just a college student from New Zealand living in Philly and interested in politics, economics and things of that nature. I love sandwiches and coca-cola and television shows made by Joss Whedon. Politically I identify myself as Liberal (though a little more in the European than the American sense), but while i agree with more Democratic policies than Republican policies, I don't identify as a Democrat. On specific policy areas I support policies that would be considered way out left in American politics (but generally aren't in the rest of the developed world) and on others positions that are decidedly on the right. On a few issues (such as electoral reform) I back positions that aren't really even on the page of American politics.

Question: What are you going to blog about?

Answer: Short answer: politics. Slightly longer answer: Any issue in global politics and American politics that interests me. Long answer: here are some of major interests: American political institutions, special interests in American politics, social issues in American politics Democratization, Political Change in the Middle East, The relationship between Islam and Democracy (and the prospects for Democracy in majority Muslim nations), The role of electoral laws and institutions in producing political outcomes, South African Politics, Turkish Politics, Brazilian Politics, the 'neo-populist' regimes of some Latin American countries, and much more besides. I hope to comment on all these and more over time. Since at the time of writing this I'm actually out of Philly and back in New Zealand, some NZ politics will probably creep in too.

Question: Why are you doing this?

Answer: Been meaning to for ages. Just finally got around to it. What's going on in Iran was also a major motivation.

Question: Why "Principled Pragmatism"?

Answer: Honestly, because about 15 other things I thought of were already chosen. One of them by a world of warcraft blog. That made me sad. The name I ended up with is essentially an effort to describe my own political affilation. I dearly value my principles and am in many sense an idealist. But I also have a very real and strong appreciation of the actual possibilities of world. I'll think of a better way to put this later.