As mentioned before on this blog, policy diffusion is one of my main research interests. Inspired by Marginal Revolution’s “markets in everything” and The Monkey Cage’s “politics everywhere” features, here is the first installment of “diffusion everywhere,” with many more to follow, I hope.
From the October 4 issue of The New Yorker:
One of the starkest measures of the Dalai Lama’s precarious positions [...] has come from an unexpected source. When Barack Obama entered the White House, Tibet activists expected a swift embrace. [...] But, as [the Dalai Lama] prepared for his first visit to the new Administration, the Washington Post broke the news that he and Obama would delay their White House meeting until after the President’s official trip to China, that November. [...] Lodi Gyari, the Dalai Lama’s special envoy and lead contact with the U.S. government, says the criticism of Obama was unwarranted: “The decision not to do the meeting beforehand was absolutely mutual.” Nevertheless, he added, in the months since, some foreign governments have used it as an excuse to avoid irritating China. “They said, ‘Look, if the big United States is shying away, then, please, give us a break,’”he told me.
