The Morning After
Like many of my generation there are certain events etched indelibly in my mind, as to where I was when I learned of them. Friday, November 22nd was a short day for me at Boston College. Deciding to go home early, I was walking through the lower campus near McHugh Forum when I learned of Kennedy's assassination. January 28, 1986, the day of the Challenger explosion found me teaching in a classroom at Newton North High School. Likewise on the morning of Tuesday, September 11th, my first images of the World Trade Center appeared on my computer screen in my office adjacent to my classroom at Newton North .
Tuesday evening November 8, 2016, found me in my basement family room watching the election returns come in. At about ten o'clock I had my first conscious intimation that Trump was going to win the election. By midnight it was a done deal. My overwhelming mental state was one of disbelief. Disbelief in that so many Americans could vote for a person who was so demonstrably unqualified for public office on so many different levels. This had nothing to do with a Democrat losing to a Republican. I had lived through the administrations of Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and both Bushes, and although not happy with it, they were within the pale. They were qualified. They understood, accepted, and worked within the constraints of the basic normative values which undergird our political process. I never for one moment felt that the basic security of our republic was threatened.
I come to all of this with a better than average understanding of the historical forces and dynamics which have shaped the ebb and flow of American and European political history, 36 years of teaching history will tend to do that. Could it be that despite all that learning and introspection I was at heart simply naive in my faith in the democratic process? And so began a long two year journey, still in progress, to get to the "nut" of it all, to come to understand the underlying historical, political and sociological processes at work here. In all of this my operating assumption has been that Trump's election, is a result, a symptom, not a cause of the transformative changes we are living through.
Back to the Beginning
In the picture below one is automatically drawn to the Acropolis and its Parthenon, symbols of classical Greek civilization and achievement. But take a moment and focus on the foreground of this picture. This is the Parthenon as seen from the Pnyx, a hill a little over half a mile south of the Acropolis. At 350 feet it is not particularly prominent. But this is the site that should be enshrined in our popular democratic imagination. It is here in 507 BCE that the Ekklesia, the democratic assembly of Athens began meeting. It is birthplace for all that we cherish in our democratic tradition.
© David E. Moore
Visiting on a warm April morning I imagined the crowds of citizens, as many as 6000, listening to Pericles rally his fellow Athenians after defeat in the first year of the Peloponnesian War, the exhortations of Alcibiades to attack Syracuse during a lull in that same war, Demosthenes Philippics urging preparedness against the Macedonian threat. Here, each citizen, equal under the law, had the right to speak. But more important was the principle of isopoliteía [ἰσοπολιτεία] the equal right to vote and hold public office. This core democratic principle is its most fragile element. Its best practice rests on a level of competency and selfless disinterest that will produce decisions that best serve the interest of the polis. This assumption was harshly critiqued from its very inception. Plato, Aristotle and Thucydides among others wrote extensively on the underlying weakness of democratic decision making. Examination of the decisions of the Ekklesia over time more than bear out their concern. One notorious example will suffice. In 415 the Ekklesia, agreeing with the arguments of Alcibiades, voted to attack Syracuse. The assembly appointed both Alcibiades and the leading opponent of the plan, Nicias, to lead the expedition together with Lamachus. Within months of this decision the Ekklesia then voted to arrest Alcibiades on the charge of sacrilege and escort him back to Athens for trial leaving the "peace" candidate leading the expedition. It all ended in catastrophe with 7000 Athenians ending their days as slaves in the stone quarries of Syracuse. Alcibiades escaped and took up residence in Sparta, now at war with Athens.
Democratically determined policies, declarations of war, and ostracisms often resulted in existential crises. Ultimately this ended in the devolution of democracy into tyranny following defeat in the Peloponnesian War in 404 BCE. A brief revival of democracy would finally end with the arrival of Philip II of Macedon in 338 as hegemon of Greece.
Well grounded in the Greek and Latin classics, these lessons were not lost on our Founding Fathers. Athenian democracy was direct democracy and something to be avoided.
Adrian Wooldridge is managing editor and, the 'Bagehot' columnist for The Economist. Previously he was The Economist's Washington Bureau Chief. In 2018 he co-authored with Alan Greenspan, Capitalism in America.
"Both voters and governments must be persuaded of the merits of accepting restraints on the states natural tendency to overreach."
Yascha Mounk is a German born American citizen, a freelance journalist and Associate Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University, as well as Executive Director of Tony Blair's Institute for Global Change. His particular area of expertise is the crisis of liberal democracy and the rise of populism. His most recent work on this subject is The People versus Democracy – Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It. He is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker, Slate, The Atlantic and Foreign Affairs.
The United States is now at an inflection point of its own. If we rigidly hold on to the status quo, we will lose what is most valuable in the world we know, and find ourselves cast as bit players in the fading age of liberal democracy. Only by embarking on bold and imaginative reform can we recover a democracy worthy of the name.
I n America Is Not a Democracy , [The Atlantic, March, 2018.] Mounk begins with the story of the citizens of Oxford, Massachusetts and their discovery that "the levers of power are not controlled by the people." What follows is an examination of how "economic elites and narrow interest groups" have come to dominate our political process and what restorative steps need to be taken. Particularly note at the end of his piece the "dilemma" which must be resolved if democracy is to survive.
Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt
"Steven Levitsky is Professor of Government at Harvard University. His research interests include political parties, authoritarianism and democratization, and weak and informal institutions, with a focus on Latin America."1 "Daniel Ziblatt is Professor of Government at Harvard University. He is a resident faculty member of the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, and also a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University."2
"History doesn't repeat itself. But it rhymes. The promise of history is that we can find the rhymes before it is too late."
This Is How Democracies Die [The Guardian, 1/21/2018] In this short extract from their recent book How Democracies Die Livitsky and Ziblatt begin by warning us that the death of democracy is an often "almost imperceptible" process which is facilitated by the destruction of the "democratic norms" of "mutual toleration...and forbearance". The polarization which results with the destruction of these norms "can kill democracies."
Session Two ~ The Past Is Prologue
All too often history is subjected to abuse and misuse in the service of some contemporary observation on our current state of affairs. It's as if history were some vast ore deposit to be mined for nuggets of information that can be put to better use when ripped out of context. It was not surprising, following the election of Donald Trump, that we saw a proliferation of historical references making comparisons to the rise of fascism in 1920's Europe and the appointment of Hitler as chancellor in 1933. This is a dangerous phenomenon in that it distorts both the fabric of history and our understanding of the present reality. All of that being said, there is still a role for history in helping us understand our contemporary world. Few today subscribe to the determinism that was popular in nineteenth century historical and philosophical circles. There is just too much contingency and serendipity to allow for such neat and pleasing constructs. What we can look for are parallels, echos as it were, which might shed some light on similar circumstances today. There is a wonderful quote attributed to Mark Twain, probably apocryphal, that aptly describes this relationship, "History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes." It is in that spirt that I offer the readings below.
"Manisha Sinha is an Indian-born American historian, and the Draper Chair in American History at the University of Connecticut. She is the author of The Slave's Cause: A History of Abolition (2016), which won the Frederick Douglass Book Prize. Her research interests lie in early United States history, especially the transnational histories of slavery and abolition and the history of the Civil War and Reconstruction. She has published numerous articles and lectured widely on these topics." 1
"How does our own epoch of fierce political polarization compare to the decade that was rent over the issue of slavery before the Civil War? Predictions are often overwrought and historical analogies can be misleading, but the controversies that bedeviled that age and its legacies still haunt us. In certain ways, they foreshadow—or, perhaps, still condition—our own divided house."
In Today's Eerie Echoes of the Civil War [The New York Review of Books March 6, 2018] Manisha asks us to set aside our usual historical perspective and consider the idea that the Civil War "never truly ended". The "echoes" of the Civil War are to be found in the many unresolved conflicts of that era still rippling through our society today.
"Miranda Carter is an award-winning biographer, historian and novelist. Her books include Anthony Blunt: His Lives (winner of The Orwell Prize) and the Blake and Avery novels, from The Strangler Vine (shortlisted for the Edgar Award for best novel, CWA John Creasey Dagger and the HWA debut crown, longlisted for the Bailey's Women's Prize for fiction) to The Devil’s Feast. She often appears on documentaries about the Royal family, as a consequence of having written The Three Emperors (2009), though they always cut out the critical bits. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature." 1
"The real lesson of Kaiser Wilhelm II, however, may be that Trump’s leaving office might not be the end of the problems he may bring on or exacerbate—it may be only the beginning."
What Happens When a Bad-Tempered, Distractible Doofus Runs an Empire? [The New Yorker, June 6, 2018] Setting aside for the moment all of the tragedy which flowed from his reign, Wilhelm II is one of the more colorful characters of fin de siècle Europe. Carter's comparisons of Trump's and Wilhelm's personal traits and flaws are striking and accurate. It almost makes one want to reassess the plausibility of reincarnation. The lesson, however, is quite clear. Flawed, inept men in positions of power produce consequences which long outlast them.
"Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist. He is also a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books and presents BBC Radio 4's The Long View. In 2014 he was awarded the Orwell special prize for journalism. His books include seven thrillers written under the pseudonym Sam Bourne."1
If there’s a common thread linking 21st-century European nationalists to each other and to Trump, it is a similar, shared contempt for the structures that have bound together, and restrained, the principal world powers since the last war. ...But when we contemplate our forebears from eight decades ago, we should recall one crucial advantage we have over them. We have what they lacked. We have the memory of the 1930s. We can learn the period’s lessons and avoid its mistakes. Of course, cheap comparisons coarsen our collective conversation. But having a keen ear tuned to the echoes of a past that brought such horror? That is not just our right. It is surely our duty.
The 1930s Were Humanity's Darkest, Bloodiest Hour. Are You Paying Attention? [The Guardian, 3/11/2017] Freedland provides us with an excellent overview of the line between the 1930s and today, where the comparisons diverge and where they run in parallel. Freedland describes three insistent "beeps" on our "early warning system" that should give us pause for concern. For Freedland, "...the warning never gets old."The 1930s Were Humanity's Darkest, Bloodiest Hour. Are You Paying Attention? [The Guardian, 3/11/2017] Freedland provides us with an excellent overview of the line between the 1930s and today, where the comparisons diverge and where they run in parallel. Freedland describes three insistent "beeps" on our "early warning system" that should give us pause for concern. For Freedland, "...the warning never gets old."
"Christopher Robert Browning (born May 22, 1944) is an American historian, known best for his works on the Holocaust. Browning received his bachelor's degree from Oberlin College in 1968 and his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1975. He taught at Pacific Lutheran University from 1974 to 1999, eventually becoming a Distinguished Professor. In 1999, he moved to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to accept an appointment as Frank Porter Graham Professor of History. Browning was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciencesin 2006.[1] Browning retired from teaching in Spring 2014."1
The fascist movements of that time prided themselves on being overtly antidemocratic, and those that came to power in Italy and Germany boasted that their regimes were totalitarian. The most original revelation of the current wave of authoritarians is that the construction of overtly antidemocratic dictatorships aspiring to totalitarianism is unnecessary for holding power. Perhaps the most apt designation of this new authoritarianism is the insidious term “illiberal democracy.”
In The Suffocation of Democracy, [The New York Review of Books, 10/25/2018] Browning elucidates the many points of similarity between the the rise of fascism during the 1930's and our current political climate. What is more fascinating and alarming are the differences he delineates. In our new "illiberal democracy" the forms all remain, just as they were, a comforting "fig leaf" to the insidious destruction of democratic norms. Ultimately, for Browning, "Trump is not Hitler and Trumpism is not Nazism, but regardless of how the Trump presidency concludes, this is a story unlikely to have a happy ending."
"Cass Robert Sunstein FBA is an American legal scholar, particularly in the fields of constitutional law, administrative law, environmental law, and law and behavioral economics, who was the Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration from 2009 to 2012. For 27 years, Sunstein taught at the University of Chicago Law School.[3] Sunstein is the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard Law School. He is Honorary Doctor at Copenhagen Business School."1 His most recent book is Can It Happen Here?: Authoritarianism in America.
Sample text. Click to select the Text Element.
With our system of checks and balances, full-blown authoritarianism is unlikely to happen here, but it would be foolish to ignore the risks that Trump and his administration pose to established norms and institutions, which help preserve both order and liberty. Those risks will grow if opposition to violations of long-standing norms is limited to Democrats, and if Republicans laugh, applaud, agree with, or make excuses for Trump—if they howl with the wolf.
It Can Happen Here [New York Review of Books, 6/28/2018] For me, the major take away in Sunstein's book review is the incremental nature of authoritarianism. "Each in their different ways, Mayer, Haffner, and Jarausch show how habituation, confusion, distraction, self-interest, fear, rationalization, and a sense of personal powerlessness make terrible things possible." The question then becomes one of conscience and character formation. Why are some individuals, cultures, nations more vulnerable to the siren song of authoritarianism than others?
Session Three ~ Rule Britannia, Brexit to What End?
It is often quite useful to step back from one's own socio-political context and access similar circumstances in another setting. Brexit and all that it entails offers us a case study of what ails democracy without the emotional baggage of ownership, not to mention living with the consequences. At first glance one might think that a referendum, the most direct form of democratic decision making, would result in a decision that accurately and fairly reflects the opinion of the people. Or does it? A good place to begin would be to read Roger Cohen's op-ed piece in the March 15 New York Times: The Brexit Disaster Has Legs.
"Dr Adam Quinn, Department of Political Science and International Studies,Senior Lecturer in International Politics, University of Birmingham, UK. His primary area of interest is American politics, grand strategy and foreign policy. His book, US Foreign Policy in Context: National Ideology from the Founders to the Bush Doctrine (2010), sought to locate the National Security Strategy of the George W. Bush administration within the long-term context of American thinking about international order."1
“A core purpose of referendums is to engage those with relatively low information about the issues, which is to say the general population, in the choice. This makes them especially vulnerable to producing decisions based on false information and/or unrealistic beliefs about what alternatives are possible - often stoked by opportunistic actors within the political system.”
In Referendums: the Pros and Cons Adam Quinn provides a succinct and balanced overview of the reasons why referendums are both a good and a bad idea. He provides a good starting point in evaluating the wisdom of the Brexit referendum.
Amanda Taub is a lawyer, law professor and journalist. She is currently an adjunct professor of Human Rights and International Law at Fordham University. She is currently one of the Interpretation columnists at the New York Times. She has published widely including in VOX, Real Clear Politics, and The Atlantic. One of her major interests is the rise of authoritarianism in our contemporary political life.
"Max Fisher writes The Interpreter, a news column and newsletter that explore the ideas and context behind major world events. Based in London, he uses political science and social science to examine and explain topics from authoritarianism to arms control. . . .
Before joining the Times in 2016, he launched several web-based projects aimed at expanding the audience for foreign news. This included, in 2011, an international news vertical for The Atlantic magazine; in 2012, the Washington Post’s foreign news blog, WorldViews; and, in 2014, as one of the founding editors of Vox.com."1
Why Referendums Aren't as Democratic as They Seem Often touted as the purest form of direct democracy, referendums are often anything but. Taub and Fisher outline the various reasons why the "experts are skeptical" of this increasingly popular "tool" of democracy.
Though such votes are portrayed as popular governance in its purest form, studies have found that they often subvert democracy rather than serve it. They tend to be volatile, turning not just on the merits of the decision but also on unrelated political swings or even, as may have happened in Colombia, on the weather.
"Richard J. Evans was born in London and educated at Oxford University. He has taught at Columbia University and Birkbeck, University of London, and since 2014 has been the Regius Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Cambridge. His many publications include an acclaimed three-volume history of the Third Reich and a recent collection of essays, The Third Reich in History and Memory. A Fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Society of Literature, he is a past winner of the Wolfson History Prize, and was twice a History Honoree at the Los Angeles Times Book Awards. In 2012 he was appointed Knight Bachelor in the Queen’s birthday honors list, for services to scholarship."1
"Politicians have always used history to bolster their arguments in one way or another, plundering the past for examples that seem to shore up their position. . . . Yet the past can be an unreliable guide to the present, and more often than not it resists politicians’ attempts to co-opt it in their own interests. . . . In our age of “alternative facts” and “post-truth”, where opinion seems all and evidence is pushed aside in the interests of partisanship, manipulation of the past to fit the political agendas of the present has become all-pervasive."
In How The Brexiteers Broke History Richard Evans sets the historical record straight. What should have been a sober examination of the economic and national benefits of remain or leave often turned into a form of "historicide" as Brexiteers, combining nostalgia for a past that never existed and fear of a stealth takeover by a "fourth Reich," played on voters fears and anger to achieve their ends.
"Hari Kunzru was born in 1969, and grew up in Essex. He studied English at Oxford University, then gained an MA in Philosophy and Literature from Warwick University. In 1999 he was named The Observer Young Travel Writer of the Year, and in 2004 he became a member of the Executive Council of English PEN. He is on the editorial board of Mute, the culture and technology magazine. . . . In 2003, Hari Kunzru was named by Granta magazine as one of twenty 'Best of Young British Novelists'. His latest novel is Gods Without Men (2011). He is the deputy president of English PEN."1
"Fintan O'Toole is one of Ireland's most respected and controversial political and cultural commentators, and an acclaimed biographer and critic. His books include White Savage, A Traitor's Kiss, Meanwhile Back at the Ranch, the number one bestseller Ship of Fools, which Terry Eagleton called 'a brilliant polemic', and its sequel Enough is Enough. He lives in Dublin and is a columnist for the Irish Times."2
"From the ill-conceived Brexit referendum onward, Britain’s governing class has embarrassed itself. The Remain campaign was complacent, the Leave campaign brazenly mendacious, and as soon as the result was known, most of the loudest advocates for severing ties with the European Union ran away like naughty schoolboys whose cricket ball had smashed a greenhouse window."
"Journalist and novelist James Meek is the author of Dreams of Leaving and Remaining, a collection of deeply reported essays that were first published in the London Review of Books and that explore the social and political fissures exposed by the Brexit referendum in Britain. He began his career as a journalist in Scotland, before moving to Kyiv in 1991 to report for the Guardian. After eight years covering Ukraine and Russia, he returned to Britain, and through extensive travels across the country developed a uniquely textured understanding of the changing landscape under both Labour and Tory governments. Private Island, a collection of essays on privatization in Britain, won the Orwell Prize in 2015, while his third novel, The People’s Act of Love, was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2005. His latest novel, To Calais, In Ordinary Time(Canongate), will be published in September 2019."1
Myth is a story that can be retold by anyone, with infinite variation, and still be recognisable as itself. The outline of surviving myth is re-recognised in the lives of each generation. It’s an instrument by which people simplify, rationalise and retell social complexities. It’s a means to haul the abstract, the global and the relative into the realm of the concrete, the local and the absolute. It’s a way to lay claim to faith in certain values. If those who attempt to interpret the world do so only through the prism of professional thinkers, and ignore the persistence of myth in everyday thought and speech, the interpretations will be deficient.1
James Meek on Brexit and the myth of St. George In this edited excerpt from his forth coming book, Dreams of Leaving and Remaining, Meek brings a different lens to our understanding of the underlying mythic forces expressing themselves in the Brexit/Remain debate. Reading Meek brings to mind Joseph Campbell's PBS series The Power of Myth. Campbell asserted that myth plays an important role in "supporting and validating a certain social order." Meek explores the story of St George as an example of the power of myth to "simplify, rationalize and retell social complexities. . . .[hauling] the abstract, the global and the relative into the realm of the concrete, the local and the absolute." If the existing social order is falling apart, there must be a dragon somewhere, says the Leaver. Remainers, lacking any correspondingly powerful response,
rely instead on argument, data and logic. They had no effective answer to the Leaver's question, if it's not a dragon then why is Great Britain's economic, social, and political fabric in a shambles?
Session Four ~ The Center Has Not Held
While the European psyche attempted to recover from the desolation of the Great War, William Butler Yeats articulated a different, darker anticipation in The Second Coming. The civilized center of European culture had fallen apart allowing the most appalling slaughter ever perpetrated by human kind. And it was not over. There was more to come. Some "rough beast . . . slouches towards Bethlehem," and it came to pass with the ascension of Adolf Hitler to the Chancellorship of Germany in 1933. The historian, Arthur Schlesinger, writing in similar circumstances in 1949 wrote in The Vital Center of living in ". . . a time of troubles, and age of anxiety. . . the grounds of our civilization, of our certitude, are breaking up under our feet . . ." In the broadest sense of the word "center" both recognized the centrality of those norms which differentiate anarchy from civilization, liberal democracy from authoritarianism. In this session we will take a closer look at the current health of the political center in an increasingly fragmented and polarized political landscape. In future sessions we will look at the role nationalism, populism and identity politics have played in creating our "widening gyre."
Yascha Mounk is a German born American citizen, a freelance journalist and Associate Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University, as well as Executive Director of Tony Blair's Institute for Global Change. His particular area of expertise is the crisis of liberal democracy and the rise of populism. His most recent work on this subject is The People versus Democracy – Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It. He is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker, Slate, The Atlantic and Foreign Affairs.
The question is no longer whether we can preserve our political order in its current form. (We probably can’t.) It is what reforms are needed to ensure that the precious, fragile combination of liberalism and democracy does not entirely vanish from the face of the earth. If the center is to hold—if we are to rescue what is best about our imperfect political order—a lot will have to change.
"The Niskanen Center focuses on producing advice on libertarian-friendly legislation and regulation by working within the existing political framework. The target audience is influential Washington insiders, rather than the general public, including policy-oriented legislators, presidential appointees, career civil servants in planning, evaluation and budget offices, congressional committee staff, engaged academics, and interest group analysts. The Center's activities is guided by its reading of the research on the determinants of public opinion. The Center seeks to embrace relative policy improvements, which includes putting forth second best or even third best or fourth best solutions, rather than a single, optimal one, and seeks to include the preferences of potential allies who do not share its beliefs."1
"Brink Lindsey is vice president for policy at the Niskanen Center. His current research focuses on policy responses to slow growth and high inequality. He has written on a wide range of topics, including trade policy, globalization, American social and cultural history, and the nature of human capital.
Prior to joining Niskanen, Lindsey worked for many years at the Cato Institute, most recently as vice president for research. From 2010 to 2012 Lindsey was a senior scholar in research and policy at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.
Lindsey is the coauthor (with Steven Teles) of the book The Captured Economy: How the Powerful Enrich Themselves, Slow Down Growth, and Increase Inequality
(Oxford University Press)."2
"Will Wilkinson is vice president for research at the Niskanen Center, overseeing the Center’s research and publications. Before coming to the Niskanen Center, Mr. Wilkinson was U.S. politics correspondent for The Economist, and is currently a columnist for Vox‘s The Big Idea section. His policy work centers on domestic social and economic policy, with a particular focus on economic growth, social insurance, criminal justice reform, and issues around the measurement of freedom, equality, and happiness. Previously, he was a research fellow at the Cato Institute, where he wrote on an array of topics including Social Security reform, the policy implications of happiness research, and the political economy of inequality. He was a founding editor of Cato Unbound and has been a program director at the Mercatus Center and the Institute for Humane Studies. In addition to The Economist, Mr. Wilkinson’s commentary has appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Atlantic, Politico, Forbes, Boston Review, Bloomberg View, and other publications. He has been a columnist for The Week and a regular commentator on American Public Media’s radio program Marketplace."3
"Steven Teles is Associate Professor of Political Science at the Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of (with David Dagan) Prison Break: Why Conservatives Turned Against Mass Incarceration (Oxford, 2016), The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement: The Battle for Control of the Law (Princeton, 2008), Whose Welfare: AFDC and Elite Politics (Kansas, 1996). He is also the editor (with Brian Glenn) of Conservatism and American Political Development (Oxford, 2009) and (with Glenn Loury and Tariq Modood) Ethnicity, Social Mobility and Public Policy: Comparing the US and UK (Cambridge, 2005). His book (with Brink Lindsey) The Captured Economy, which investigates the role of rent-seeking in the growth of inequality, will be published by Oxford University Press in 2017. He has published widely in general-readership publications, including National Affairs, The Public Interest, Democracy Journal, The American Prospect, The Nation, Washington Monthly (where is he a member of the Editorial Advisory Board), The American Interest and The New Statesman. At Niskanen he will provide intellectual input into the full range of the Center’s research, as well as contributing to its Revitalizing Liberalism Initiative."4
"Samuel Hammond is the Director of Poverty and Welfare Policy at the Niskanen Center. He previously worked as an economist for the Government of Canada specializing in rural economic development, and as a graduate research fellow for the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. His research focuses on the effectiveness of cash transfers in alleviating poverty, and how free markets can be complemented by robust systems of social insurance."5
Even if these dangers can be avoided, we must recognize that the deeper crisis of legitimacy for America’s political institutions is already upon us. It began with Trump’s nomination and was underscored by his victory: Neither of these events could have occurred in a healthy, stable, well- governed market democracy. The center is failing to hold, and the passionate intensity of our worst impulses is filling the vacuum.
Our policy vision represents a sharp break from the prevailing orthodoxies of left and right. We also seek a sharp break from the status quo: Effectively addressing the social and economic dysfunctions of the present will require the embrace of bold measures. We want to recapture the daring, reformist spirit of generations past. Like the liberal reformers of the 18th and 19th centuries, we are eager to attack inherited concentrations of privilege that are the modern equivalents of the feudal structures that theorists like Adam Smith were so hostile to.
Second Reading Assignment Link
Beneath the well reasoned analysis and academic prose of The Center Can Hold: Public Policy for an Age of Extremes lurks the equivalent of a time bomb. It is in reality a manifesto challenging the traditional ideological foundations of the conservative movement and the legitimacy of the contemporary Republican Party. Within its short fifteen pages this "policy essay" attempts to replace the conventional small government-laissez faire dogmatism that has been the hallmark of conservative ideology with a pragmatic recognition of the complementary relationship between government and the free market. Looking through this new "'lens" the writers encourage readers to set aside non-factual, utopian visions in favor of an empirical analysis of the actual relationship between the role of government regulation and the free market in the creation of the "open society." The end result is the creation of a "free market welfare state" in which government social insurance mitigates the sometimes adverse effects of the free market and in which "soft" government regulation is flexible enough to protect the health and safety of the population while also encouraging innovation and competition. All of this is to be accomplished in a spirit of "bold moderation" which recognizes that "conflict--political, social, intellectual---is productive and valuable" and that "both sides hold a partial view of the good, which when balanced within a well-designed constitution can correct each other's pathologies."
You might be interested in the following reactions to The Center Can Hold.
Session Five ~ Tribalism Triumphant
Charlottesville VA, August 2017
In this particular session we will set aside for the moment the more classical anthropological definitions of tribalism in favor of its more poplar, vernacular usage in today's political environment. Where as the latter is concerned with the social organization of bands or clans claiming a common ancestry or other cultural denomination in historic space-time, think of the foundational tribes of Rome or Athens, the former denotes a constellation of individuals who coalesce around a common set of cultural, religious, or political values, and at times, one or several leaders who are seen to represent them. Used in this sense, tribal membership may be more or less fluid and may wax or wane in its political significance over time. In any of these instances it is characterized by a rigidity of thinking that reflects foundational values which are perceived as absolutes, not subject to rational examination.
When political tribalism is ascendant and expresses itself through established political parties there can be severe repercussions for the stability of the party system. Witness, in the UK, the paralysis in the conservative Tory party between leavers and remainers and a host of others who espouse some variety of the many flavors of Brexit. In the US we see a similar phenomenon in the Democratic Party as it tries to define its core values in response to Trumpism as it prepares for the 2020 election. The Republican party represents a different paradigm, what amounts to an almost a hostile takeover of the party apparatus sidelining the doyens of Republicanism along with a wholesale reversal of traditional Republican values. Like the Whigs of the 1850's one wonders where the likes of George Will, Peggy Noonan, David Brooks and Pete Wehner will end up. [1] Will they migrate, as the Whigs [2] did going to one or another wing of the Democratic party, or will they rise from their own ashes to constitute something new on the political horizon. I doubt that scaling the redoubts of Trumpism and taking back the party of Reagan is in the offing if Trump is successful in 2020.
In the light of the above it seems obvious that the traditional two party structure is often not a very good fit for the varieties of tribalism on hand at any given moment. We often refer to the polarization which dominates the public space, but it may be more nuanced than we suspect. To that end we will examine what in reality are the underlying tribal groups that constitute our contemporary political society. Fortunately, there has been a recent long term study done by a newly established think tank, More In Common, which has received wide notice and comment. In their own words
More in Common is a new international initiative, set up in 2017 to build communities and societies that are stronger, more united and more resilient to the increasing threats of polarisation and social division.
Our approach is to:
Link to the Assigned Reading
Hidden Tribes: A Study of America's Polarized Landscape was published in October 2018 and was followed by an Update midterms election report in November of 2018. The original 135 page version is available here if you wish to take a look. For our purposes we will use the Midterm Update, 21 pages.
Before beginning I encourage you to take the eight minute long Hidden Tribes quiz to see just where you fit in. https://hiddentribes.us/quiz
I also encourage you to read the following article by George Packer in the New Yorker which discusses this report in particular as well as tribalism in general.
Stephen Hawkins, Director, Research
Since 2016, Stephen has led More in Common’s studies on polarization and division in the United States and across Europe. Stephen has a as Microsoft and Ford, and public sector organisations such the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and UNHCR. He received his Masters in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and is curious about how beliefs and ideology shape people’s experience of the world.
Daniel Yudkin, Senior Associate, More in Common USA
Dr. Daniel Yudkin is a postdoctoral researcher in social decision-making at Yale University, investigating how transformative experiences change people's values and behaviours. He obtained his PhD from New York University and was a Fellow at Harvard University. His research centres on how people assess and influence their surroundings, including how group membership influences moral judgement.
Miriam Juan-Torres González, Senior Researcher
A multidisciplinary researcher, Míriam has conducted field studies in West Africa and worked for UNHCR in Ghana and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Colombia. She is a qualified lawyer in Spain, where she worked in public law for the firm Baker & McKenzie and obtained a master’s degree in international relations from Yale University.
Tim Dixon, Co-founder
Tim Dixon is a social movement builder who was born in Australia, worked for several years in New York and is now based in London, where he co-founded Purpose Europe. He trained as an economist and tech sector lawyer, built a leading Australian educational publishing business that was bought by Pearson in 2004 and worked as chief speechwriter and economic adviser for two Prime Ministers. He has helped start and grow social movement organisations around the world to protect civilians in Syria, engage citizens in the peace process in Colombia, address modern day slavery, promote gun control in the US, reduce inequality, and engage faith communities in social justice. He is on the boards of the International Budget Partnership, the Syria Campaign, the Chifley Research Centre and faith-based justice organisation Sojourners.
Session Six ~ Nationalism Resurgent
Nationalism has, for the most part, been held in low repute in the post World War II liberal West. Its close association with the regimes of Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco assured its status as the intellectual under pinning of the war that followed. Events of the past several years, including the establishment of authoritarian governments in Poland, Hungary, and Turkey, the rise of far right nativist parties in the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Italy, and the passage of Brexit and the election of Trump have all led to an avalanche of journalistic warnings that we have gone this route before. This in turn has led to a reexamination of nationalism per-se and its "bad-boy" status among the world's "isms." Is there a "good" nationalism? What is the nexus between nationalism, patriotism, and populism? In our discussion of the following readings we may hopefully clarify and add to our own understanding of the uses and abuses of nationalism in today's political landscape.
First Reading
The Ethics of Globalism, Nationalism, and Patriotism, Jonathan Haidt· Center for Humans & Nature. From: Minding Nature: Fall 2016, Volume 9, Number 3.
https://www.humansandnature.org/filebin/pdf/minding_nature/sep_2016/Ethics_of_Globalism_Jon_Haidt.pdf
Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist at the NYU-Stern School of Business. His research examines the intuitive foundations of morality, politics, and religion. He was named a “top 100 global thinker” by Foreign Policy magazine, and one of 65 “World Thinkers″ by Prospect Magazine. He is currently writing Three Stories about Capitalism: The Moral Psychology of Economic Life.
Beginning with a discussion of the competing demands of globalism and nationalism, Haidt goes on to relate both to underlying aspects of human nature. He then moves on to a reexamining our understanding of parochialism and patriotism ending with the hope that a patriotism that is both "passionate" as well as "welcoming" may help us to mitigate their differences.
Second Reading
Why Nationalism Works And Why It Isn’t Going Away, Andreas Wimmer, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2019 Issue
Download PDF here
"Andreas Wimmer's research brings a long term historical and globally comparative perspective to the questions of how states are built and nations formed, how individuals draw ethnic and racial boundaries between themselves and others, and which kinds of political conflicts and war results from these processes. Using new methods and data, he continues the old search for historical patterns that repeat across contexts and times. He has pursued this agenda across the disciplinary fields of sociology, political science, and social anthropology and through various styles of inquiry: ethnographic field research (in Mexico and Iraq), comparative historical analysis, quantitative research with cross-national or survey data, network studies, and formal modeling. For more information as well as downloadable articles and datasets see http://www.columbia.edu/~aw2951/ "1
In Wimmer's estimate, nationalism has received a bad reputation. In his essay he reminds us that nationalism and patriotism share "common roots . . .they are ideological brothers, not distant cousins." In associating nationalism with the extremes of the political right we ignore its foundational role regarding both liberal and conservative ideologies. While acknowledging the abuses of nationalism he argues that we can build a "better nationalism" by overcoming civic alienation and restoring "inclusive coalitions". "In order to promote better forms of nationalism, leaders will have to become better nationalists, and learn to look out for the interests of all their people."
Third Reading
The Importance of Elsewhere: In Defense of Cosmopolitanism, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2019
Download pdf here
"Born to a British mother and a Ghanaian father, Kwame Anthony Appiah grew up traveling between his two homelands, an experience that shaped his wide-ranging scholarship and writing on everything from ethnicity and identity to ethics and language. He is the author of numerous books, including Cosmopolitanism and The Lies That Bind, and has won scores of prizes, among them the National Humanities Medal. He is now a professor of philosophy and law at New York University"
Appiah raises a spirited defense, indeed a celebration, of the virtues of globalism while establishing its compatibility with nationalism. He reminds us that we are part of a "nested" world where allegiances to family, locality, nation and world are simultaneous and necessary ..."the cosmopolitan task, in fact, is to be able to focus on both far and near." This has become even more necessary in a world increasingly dominated by populist demagogues who practice the "politics of withdrawal," and especially so in a warming world.
Fourth Reading
False Flags: The myth of the Nationalist Resurgence. Jan-Werner Müller, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2019
Download PDF here
"Jan-Werner Müller studied at the Free University, Berlin, University College, London, St. Antony’s College, Oxford, and Princeton University. From 1996 until 2003 he was a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford; from 2003 until 2005 he was Fellow in Modern European Thought at the European Studies Centre, St. Antony’s College. Since 2005 he has been teaching in the Politics Department, Princeton University. He is the author of Another Country: German Intellectuals, Unification and National Identity, A Dangerous Mind: Carl Schmitt in Post-War European Thought; he is also the editor of Memory and Power in Post-War Europe: Studies in the Presence of the Past and German Ideologies since 1945: Studies in the Political Thought and Culture of the Bonn Republic. His book Constitutional Patriotism was published by Princeton University Press in 2007.His public affairs commentary and essays have appeared in the London Review of Books, the New York Review of Books, Foreign Affairs, The Guardian, the New York Times, and Project Syndicate." 1
As his title states, it is Müller's belief that the current hew and cry over resurgent nationalism raises a "false flag," and more to the point, to the extent that liberals buy into this narrative they are in fact allowing these "populist poseurs" to shape the political debate. As the political debate unfolds we find ourselves in the curious situation of having amplified the nationalistic-populist message. As the disgruntled rural resident who was angry at the lack of medical services in his area is exposed to more and more of the cultural populist rhetoric he comes to adopt that framework as his political identity. "Eventually, as mainstream parties opportunistically adapt their messages and media commentators lazily repeat populist talking points, the entire political spectrum can shift rightward."
Further Reading if you are so inclined . . .
A New Americanism: Why a Nation Needs a National Story, Jill Lepore. Foreign Affairs, March/April 2019.
Download PDF here