Overview
We’re an online journal of politics and foreign affairs analysis. For the most part, our views are Classical Liberal: a strong belief in free trade, limited government, and respect for human rights. We aim to have informed, polite conversation about the issues which we find interesting.
Site History
Outside the Beltway was launched on BlogSpot on January 31, 2003 by James Joyner. It moved to its current domain on April 4 of that same year after the frustrations of Blogger’s service became too much to bear.
The site’s moniker was both descriptive and ironic: James had moved from Troy, Alabama to the Washington, D.C. exurbs of Dulles, Virginia to take a job in the publishing industry five months earlier. So, an author with a decidedly outside-the-Beltway mindset was now living in very close proximity to said Beltway.
OTB got some notoriety within a few weeks of its launch because it coincided with the controversial debate leading up to the Iraq War and its author was one of a relative handful of bloggers at that time with combat experience and academic training in national security policy. Early notice by ScrappleFace’s Scott Ott of and VodkaPundit’s Stephen Green led to OTB’s first InstaLanche on March 13, 2003.
On November 6, 2004, Steve Verdon, Robert Garcia Tagorda, “Rodney Dill,” “Dr. Leopold Stotch,” and Kate McMillan began a guest posting stint while James was on vacation and they stayed on as co-bloggers upon James’ return. OTB has been a group blog ever since.
Writing Staff
Editorial Board
James Joyner, Publisher/Editor-in-Chief
James is the Managing Editor of the Atlantic Council. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the Council, its Board of Directors, or its staff.
James founded OTB on January 31, 2003 and was its sole author until November 2004. It has since evolved into OTB Media, a collection of weblogs with over two dozen contributors. He also hosts a weekly radio program for BlogTalkRadio.
He has published academic articles in International Studies Quarterly and Strategic Insights; five book reviews; fourteen encyclopedia articles; over two dozen conference papers; and over three dozen magazine columns for Tech Central Station/TCS Daily, Reason, Legal Affairs, Human Events, and The Washington Examiner. A more-or-less complete listing can be found here.
He worked two years as a management analyst at Lanmark Technology, Inc., a Washington, D.C. area defense contractor, as a consultant to the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) in Falls Church, Virginia. From January 2004 to March 2005, he was also Managing Editor of Strategic Insights, the professional journal of the Center for Contemporary Conflict at the Naval Postgraduate School. Previously, he was acquisitions editor for international affairs at Brassey’s, Inc. (now, Potomac Books) a Dulles, Virginia book publisher and a political science professor at Troy State University (now, simply Troy University), Bainbridge College, and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
James served in the U.S. Army from 1988 to 1992 and is a combat veteran of Operation Desert Storm. He was awarded the Bronze Star Medal, the Army Commendation Medal, and numerous service medals and ribbons. He is a graduate of the Airborne and Air Assault schools.
He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Alabama (1995) and B.A. (1987) and M.A. (1988) degrees in Political Science from Jacksonville State University.
He has been married since October 2005 to the former Kimberly Webb and they reside in Alexandria, Virginia with their infant daughter, Katie, and two dogs and two cats.
Steve Verdon, Senior Editor
Steve has a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles and attended graduate school at The George Washington University, leaving school shortly before staring work on his dissertation when his first child was born. He works in the energy industry and prior to that worked at the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Division of Price Index and Number Research. His interests are in public economics, public choice, game theory, statistics and probability, and the evolution-intelligent design debate.
He joined the staff of OTB in November 2004. He founded the popular economics blog, Deinonychus antirrhopus, in July 2002.
Rodney Dill, Features Editor
Rodney was a frequent commenter around the blogosphere and occasional guest blogger at Wizbang! before beginning his stint at OTB in November 2004.
Rodney has a BS in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse, back from when people knew what Hollerith cards were, and actually used the toggle switches on the front of computers. He is an IT Manager in the Motor City and working within the Automotive Industry.
Rodney is a news, science, and politics junkie that would usually much rather read than post, (with the exception of caption contests) which is why he has not attempted his own blog.
He has the unfortunate gift of seeing something funny in nearly all situations and is the (self-proclaimed) master of caption contests.
Alex Knapp, Senior Editor
Alex has a B.S. in Biochemistry from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and a J.D. from the University of Kansas School of Law. He currently works in the telecommunications industry.
A political, philosophic, and pop culture junkie, he has been published in the Kansas City Star, TCS Daily, and Comic Book Resources. He joined the staff of OTB in June 2006. Additionally, he’s been writing the blog Heretical Ideas since October, 2001.
Chris Lawrence, Senior Editor
Chris has a B.A. in political science from the University of Memphis and a Ph.D. in political science (American politics and political methodology) from the University of Mississippi. He is currently an assistant professor at Saint Louis University.
He joined the staff of OTB in June 2006.
He started his blog, Signifying Nothing, in November 2002, and continues to write there.
Robert Prather, Contributing Editor
Robert has been a political junkie since high school who admits, “In some ways, the advent of CNN is the worst thing that’s happened to me.” With only one semester to go as an undergrad, he came to love economics after reading Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom. He pursued economics informally in the coming years and finally decided to go back to graduate school for economics. He received an MA in economics from Mississippi State University and also found a new respect for statistics.
Robert started posting at his site, which went through several name changes before Insults Unpunished stuck, on May 26, 2002. After several retirements and un-retirements, including a stint at Signifying Nothing, that earned him the title “the Michael Jordan of blogging,” he joined the staff at OTB in June 2006.
His interests are environmental issues, foreign policy and economics.
Dave Schuler, Contributing Editor
Dave has owned a small business for more than 25 years and has an advanced degree in engineering. He has contributed to OTB since November 2006 but mostly writes at his own blog, The Glittering Eye, which he started in March 2004.
Dodd Harris, Contributing Editor
Dodd, who used to run some blog named ipse dixit, is an attorney, a veteran of the United States Navy, and a fairly good poker player. He can kill a mime using only his thumb.
He joined the staff at OTB in May 2007.
Contributors
Stephen Bainbridge, Visiting Writer
Stephen Bainbridge is the William D. Warren Professor of Law at UCLA, where he currently teaches Business Associations, Unincorporated Business Associations, and Advanced Corporation Law. In past years, he has also taught Corporate Finance, Securities Regulation, Mergers and Acquisitions, and seminars on corporate governance. Professor Bainbridge previously taught at the University of Illinois Law School (1988-1996), where the Class of 1990 gave him the “Best Instructor Award.” He has also taught at Harvard Law School as the Joseph Flom Visiting Professor of Law and Business (2000-2001), La Trobe University in Melbourne (2005) and at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo (1999).
He is a prolific scholar, whose work covers a variety of subjects, but with a strong emphasis on the law and economics of public corporations. He has written over 50 law review articles, which have appeared in such leading journals as the Virginia Law Review, the Northwestern University Law Review, the Cornell Law Review, the Stanford Law Review and the Vanderbilt Law Review. Bainbridge’s most recent books include: Business Associations: Cases and Materials on Agency, Partnerships, and Corporations (5th ed. 2006) (with Klein and Ramseyer); Agency, Partnerships, and Limited Liability Entities: Cases and Materials on Unincorporated Business Associations (2nd ed. 2001) (with Klein and Ramseyer); Agency, Partnerships & LLCs (2004); Corporation Law and Economics (2002); Securities Law-Insider Trading (1999).
From 1994 to 1996, Bainbridge was a Salvatori Fellow with the Heritage Foundation. Bainbridge currently serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Markets and Morality and the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society’s Corporations, Securities & Antitrust Practice Group.
His blog magazine, ProfessorBainbridge.com, is one of the most widely read political and legal weblogs on the Internet.
John Burgess, Middle East Correspondent
John retired from the State Department after a 25-year career as a Foreign Service Officer. He served two tours in Saudi Arabia, 1981-83 and 2001-03. He reads and speaks Arabic and has spent the bulk of his career in the Middle East, with assignments in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Bahrain in addition to those in the KSA. Has has also had assignments in London and New Delhi, as well as Washington.
He has been blogging at Crossroads Arabia since July 2004 and does most of his writing there.
Richard Gardner, Roving Correspondent
A “retired” Navy Submarine Officer with military policy, arms control, and budgeting experience, he served for 6 years on the Joint staffs of US Strategic Command (Strategy & Policy) and the Iceland Defense Force. On the Navy Staff at the Pentagon, he was the Action Officer & Program Sponsor for the SSGN Project and Navy Ballistic Missile Programs. He has a BS in Engineering from the University of California, Irvine.
He moved (fled) from the East Coast Washington to the West Coast Washington in mid-2005, living in the general Seattle area. He enjoys not having a security clearance anymore, and follows the stock market when he isn’t bicycle touring or skiing. His bicycle touring includes riding across the entire USA, and Key West to DC
He made a few guest posts OTB starting in January 2004 covering special events and has made frequent contributions since.
Steven Taylor, Visiting Writer
Steven is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Troy University in Alabama. He is the contributing editor on Colombia to the Library of Congress’s Handbook of Latin American Studies, and his most recent publication is a forthcoming article in Political Terrorism and Democratic Development (Northeastern University Press).
He has his PhD from the University of Texas in Austin and a BA from the University of California at Irvine.
He does most of his blogging at PoliBlog, which he started in February 2003.
Emeritus Writers
Kate McMillan, Canadian Affairs Editor
Gainfully unemployed as a freelance commercial and automotive airbrush artist living in Saskatchewan, Canada. She claims, “I have absolutely no academic or political credentials, which forms the basis of the uninformed commentary at which I excel.”
She was one of the original guest bloggers at OTB in November 2004 and soon joined the permanent stable, contributing through January 2007.
Eventually, she turned to writing full time at her own blog, small dead animals, which was voted the Best Canadian Blog in the 2004 Weblog Awards and has been generally considered that country’s best blog ever since.
Dr. Leopold Stotch, Foreign Affairs Editor
“Dr. Leopold Stotch” is the pseudonym of an assistant professor of political science at a major research university inside the beltway. He has a Ph.D. in International Relations, and his major areas of interest are security studies and foreign policy analysis. He’s published several articles in these areas, and is currently working on a manuscript that seeks to define the global security role of the United States in a post-9/11 world.
He began contributing to OTB in November 2004 and continued through February 2006. He occasionally blogs at his own site, Professor Chaos.
Greg Tinti, Political News Correspondent
In August of 2005–frustrated by how sour things had turned since 9/11–Greg Tinti started the blog The Political Pit Bull for catharsis. What began as a hobby, however, quickly turned into a passion/addiction.
With a B.A. in Anthropology from The George Washington University, Greg is particularly interested in foreign policy and cultural issues but thoroughly enjoys ranting about the hot-button issues of the day as well. Since he began blogging, Greg has also developed an interest in video blogging and now frequently uses clips in posts and would like to start creating more spoofs like Memories with Scott McClellan.
He began a stint as a guest writer on OTB in June 2006 and soon became Breaking News Editor. He decided to return to his own blog in mid August. His blogging career eventually ended altogether.
