Not Actually Roasting Henry Brady

It was a thrill to join other colleagues and students of Henry Brady yesterday for the panel "Remembrances, Rants, Roasts: Henry Brady’s Contributions to Political Science." My remarks: I did not know Henry Brady from Adam when I applied to Berkeley—or even, I believe, when I showed up. Moreover, I did not get to know Henry in the usual manner, chanting (X′X)−1(X′Y) alongside other first-year students, as I learned my econometrics in the Econ Department. No, I came to know Henry when I took his class on conceptualization and measurement with David Collier—a great course, and a study in contrasts. Henry and David were temperamental opposites, but intellectually they were natural complements, as their subsequent work would show. Ultimately, two things made me Henry’s student: Henry did in graduate school what I wanted to do, which was to study economics alongside political science; and he was working—is still working—with Cynthia Kaplan on political behavior in the late Soviet Union,…