"Banfield did not abandon altogether the possibility of policy interventions, although it’s true he thought policymakers' room to maneuver was severely constrained. Likewise, Kristol remarked in his 1985 retrospective that 'the failure (or at least non-success) of so much of social policy in the past twenty years can be exaggerated. Not every program failed and there are a few important ones that represent positive achievements.' Indeed, 'The Public Interest has always emphasized the modestly positive along with the skeptical.' Yet on the right writ large there has been a clear decline from skepticism toward nihilism—toward a belief that policy interventions fail so often and character is so intractable that it is almost never worth it to attempt to solve social problems through policy."
Joshua Tait at The Bulwark recalls political scientist Edward C. Banfield.
And David Klion at The Nation looks at varying definitions of "neoconservatism."
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