In the final week of Political Studies, fellows will turn to contemporary issues of domestic policy, with a focus on understanding how ideas influence policy.

One seminar will introduce students to the approaches and ideas of 20th-century conservative social science through four great debates in social policy: family structure, poverty, welfare, and crime. The second seminar will explore the philosophical and political issues raised by the nature of modern science and its place in our democratic society. In both seminars, fellows will debate the merit of various policy ideas and reflect on what is required for an idea to become politically impactful.

Tony Mills on the Perils of Politicized Science

This course is part of our residential Political Studies Program. Fellows participate in morning seminars and meet prominent men and women in public life over afternoon and evening sessions. Up to 32 fellows will be selected.

Faculty

Charles Fain Lehman

Charles Fain Lehman is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, working primarily on the Policing and Public Safety Initiative, and a contributing editor of City Journal. His work on criminal justice, immigration, and social issues has appeared in the Wall Street Journal and Tablet, among other publications.

Matthew Continetti

Matthew Continetti is the director of domestic policy studies and the inaugural Patrick and Charlene Neal Chair in American Prosperity at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where his work is focused on American political thought and history, with a particular focus on the development of the Republican Party and the American conservative movement in the 20th century.

M. Anthony Mills

Anthony (Tony) Mills is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he studies the federal government’s role in scientific research and innovation as well as how to integrate scientific expertise into our governing institutions. Dr. Mills holds a PhD and an MA in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame and a BA in philosophy, French, and comparative literature from Northwestern University.

M. Anthony Mills

Anthony (Tony) Mills is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he studies the federal government’s role in scientific research and innovation as well as how to integrate scientific expertise into our governing institutions. He also focuses on the relationship between expert knowledge and democratic governance. Dr. Mills is concurrently a senior fellow at Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy and a scholar associate at the Society of Catholic Scientists.

Before joining AEI, Dr. Mills was a resident senior fellow at the R Street Institute, where he launched and led a program on science policy and also served as associate vice president for policy. Previously, he was managing editor of RealClear Media Group and editor of RealClearPolicy. Dr. Mills has worked for numerous publications, including The New Atlantis, Big Questions Online, and several academic publications, and has held positions at Williams & Jensen, the Manhattan Institute, and the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation.

Dr. Mills’ writings on science, technology, public policy, philosophy, and religion have appeared in Politico, Slate, RealClearPolitics, The Hill, The Fulcrum, National Review, Washington Examiner, Law & Liberty, National Affairs, City Journal, First Things, Issues in Science and Technology, The New Atlantis, and various peer-reviewed journals. He is currently writing a book about federal science policy.

Dr. Mills holds a PhD and an MA in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame and a BA in philosophy, French, and comparative literature from Northwestern University, where he also completed an MA in French.

Preview the Syllabus by Week/Session

Readings:

Discussion Questions:

  1. What is the relationship between scientific knowledge and technological power? How would Polanyi, Kristol, and Kass answer this question?
  2. What distinctively modern problems do science and technology pose to liberal democratic society, according to Kristol and Kass?
  3. Does science provide an “example of the good life,” as Polanyi suggests? Did it ever? Can it still?

Readings:

Discussion Questions:

  1. What is a scientific consensus and how is it generated?
  2. What role should dissent play in scientific inquiry?
  3. Do consensus and skepticism play different roles in science vs. politics? Should they?

 

Readings:

Discussion Questions:

  1. Is there a “climate consensus”? Does it matter if there is or isn’t?
  2. Can more or better scientific evidence resolve the political debate over climate change?
  3. Are scientific experts “value neutral” in debates about climate change policy? Should they be?

Readings:

Discussion Questions:

  1. What kind—and how much—evidence is necessary for making policy decisions?
  2. Do extraordinary circumstances, such as pandemics, require different standards of evidence for making such decisions?
  3. What should policymakers do when experts disagree about the nature and extent of evidence for policy?

Readings:

Discussion Questions:

  1. What role do value disagreements play in making and assessing pandemic policies?
  2. How can expert institutions regain the public’s trust? Do they deserve to?
  3. What lessons might Covid-19 offer for thinking about the politics of climate change?

Readings:

 

Discussion Questions:

  1. What were the social problems that prompted conservative critiques?
  2. Where did Kennedy-Johnson liberalism go awry?
  3. What lessons can we draw from this experience for analysis today?

Readings:

 

Discussion Questions:

  1. Was Moynihan’s focus on family structure merited? Or was he “blaming the victim?”

Readings:

 

Discussion Questions:

  1. Is it persuasive to believe that individual behavior produces a persistent underclass?
  2. How much trust should we have in institutions to resolve the problems of the worst off?

Readings:

 

Discussion Questions:

  1. Was Murray right that welfare drove people to the dole? Or was he, as Jencks put it, a social Darwinist?

Readings:

 

Discussion Questions:

  1. Does the “broken windows” model work? Is it just? And should it remain the model for policing today?

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Adam J. White

Adam J. White is the Laurence H. Silberman Chair in Constitutional Governance and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on the Supreme Court and the administrative state. Concurrently, he codirects the Antonin Scalia Law School’s C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State.

Gary J. Schmitt

Gary J. Schmitt is a senior fellow in the Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies program at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he studies issues related to the American presidency, the U.S. constitution and its principles, and American civic life.

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Robert C. Bartlett

Robert C. Bartlett is the Behrakis Professor of Hellenic Political Studies at Boston College. His principal area of research is classical political philosophy, with particular attention to the thinkers of ancient Hellas, including Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle. He is the co-translator of a new edition of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.