Duke University enters The Bob Zadek Show almost entirely through one person: Michael Munger, the economist and political scientist who appears as a guest across four episodes spanning 2015 to 2023. In each appearance his Duke affiliation is part of Bob Zadek’s introduction, and the university functions as the credential that establishes his standing to speak on campaign finance, public choice theory, cronyism, and the economics of environmental policy. The excerpts contain no account of Duke’s internal affairs, its history, its endowment, or its policies; the school is present only as an institutional home and, in one instance, as a remembered place of undergraduate reading.
Mike Munger’s affiliation
Bob Zadek introduces Munger in the January 2015 episode on campaign finance by noting that he holds a PhD in economics from Washington University and that he is a professor at Duke University, a position he has held for many years Who Wants to Buy a Politician? With Mike Munger (2015). In that same introduction Bob notes Munger’s 2008 run for Governor of North Carolina as a Libertarian and his earlier work as a staff economist at the Federal Trade Commission.
By the November 2019 episode, the description has expanded. Bob introduces Munger as a professor of political science, economics, and public policy at Duke University, and adds that he is active in AIER, the American Institute for Economic Research, and is a scholar with the Independent Institute Mike Munger is Taking Public Choice Seriously (2019). The episode concerns Munger’s book Is Capitalism Sustainable? and the question of whether crony capitalism is the Achilles’ heel of the free market system.
The January 2022 episode repeats the three-field title. Bob describes Munger as the professor of political science, economics, and public policy at Duke, notes that he has chaired that department, and adds that he was the former president and chair of the Public Choice Society Troubleshooting the Constitution (2022). The January 2023 episode on the Broken Window Fallacy uses the same formulation, identifying Munger as Professor of Political Science, Economics, and Public Policy at Duke University The ‘Broken Window Fallacy’ is Back (2023).
The variation across these introductions is worth noting: the 2015 episode says only that Munger is a professor at Duke, while the later episodes specify the three disciplines and, in 2022, the department chairmanship. The excerpts do not state when Munger joined Duke, what he teaches there, or how his departmental appointment is structured.
Duke as a setting for argument
Duke appears in the 2022 episode in a second capacity, as the workplace where Munger’s colleagues hold views he disagrees with. In the closing minutes, Munger says that his colleagues on the left at Duke used to tell him they could not imagine the bad-president scenario he described, because they believed a more powerful government would always be led by a good president. After 2016, Munger says, that stopped being hypothetical for them because they thought Trump was actually dangerous. He adds that he assumed that once Trump left office they would conclude a less powerful president was needed, but that they did not, and instead wanted a powerful president in the person of Biden Troubleshooting the Constitution (2022). This is the only passage in the excerpts in which Duke faculty other than Munger are described, and it is offered as an anecdote about academic opinion rather than as a claim about the university as an institution.
Larry Klayman’s recollection
Duke appears once outside the Munger episodes. In the April 2012 episode with Larry Klayman, the founder of Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch, Klayman recalls that when he was at Duke University he read Albert Camus’s The Stranger. He describes himself as having been a French literature major and a political science major, and says the book influenced him greatly and that he has lived it in his legal career. He summarizes the novel as the story of an Arab convicted in Algeria by a French jury because he did not cry at his mother’s funeral, and he uses it to argue that the American legal system has become absurd Who’s Looking Out for Us? (2012). The excerpt does not state when Klayman attended Duke, what degree he received, or whether he graduated.
Across episodes
The excerpts show no development in the treatment of Duke University across episodes. The 2015, 2019, 2022, and 2023 episodes all use Munger’s Duke affiliation as an introduction formula, with the later episodes supplying a fuller disciplinary description than the earlier one; the 2012 Klayman episode mentions Duke only in passing as the setting of an undergraduate reading. No episode revisits or revises what an earlier episode said about the university, and no guest other than Munger and Klayman refers to it.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts say nothing about Duke University’s founding, location, governance, finances, admissions, curriculum, or athletic programs, and nothing about any controversy involving the institution. They do not state Munger’s title beyond the professorial descriptions quoted, nor the dates of his appointment, nor whether he has emeritus status. They do not state what Klayman studied in beyond his own characterization of his majors, nor when he was enrolled. Any account of Duke as an institution would have to come from sources outside this program.
Guests and episodes
5 appearances by 2 guests, 2015–2023.
- Mike Munger (Duke University economist) — Who Wants to Buy a Politician? With Mike Munger (2015) — Campaign finance and money in politics.; Mike Munger is Taking Public Choice Seriously (2019) — Sustainability of capitalism and the threat of cronyism.; The ‘Broken Window Fallacy’ is Back (2023) — Green energy and the broken window fallacy.; Is Environmentalism a Religious Movement? (2023) — Economic Fallacies of Modern Environmentalism.
- Michael Munger (Professor at Duke University) — Leviathan in Chains: Michael Munger on Public Choice Economics (2017) — Public Choice Economics and Political Authority.