Congressman shares insight from time of professorship

The (Cedar Rapids) Gazette published an article, “U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack worries about the future of democracy,” in which the reporter tells of the congressman’s time teaching politics at Cornell College.

The article reads: Back in the day when he taught courses in Third World politics, Professor Dave Loebsack lectured on “legitimacy engineering.” As African and Asian nations emerged from colonialism to self-rule after World War II, they had to try to engineer legitimacy “not only for themselves, but for the system itself,” said Loebsack, who as a Cornell College political science professor for 14 years didn’t anticipate it would be an issue for the United States.

Congressman Dave Loebsack was first elected to national office in 2006 and was reelected in November 2018 for a seventh term in the U.S. House of Representatives serving Iowa’s Second Congressional District. He taught at Cornell from 1982–2006.