Our Constitutional Founding: From Ideas to Institutions
Gain a deeper understanding of our Constitution by studying the political debates surrounding its founding.
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.
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. He also hosts the podcast Institutionalized with cohost Aaron Sibarium.
Lehman was previously a staff writer with the Washington Free Beacon, where he covered domestic policy from a data-driven perspective. His work on criminal justice, immigration, and social issues has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, National Review Online, and Tablet, among other publications, and he is a contributing writer with the Institute for Family Studies. Originally from Pittsburgh, he now lives in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C.
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.
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.
A prominent journalist, analyst, author, and intellectual historian of the right, Mr. Continetti was the founding editor and the editor in chief of The Washington Free Beacon. Previously, he was opinion editor at The Weekly Standard.
Mr. Continetti is the author of three books, including, most recently, The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism (Basic Books, 2022).
He has a B.A. in history from Columbia 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. 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
The Politics of Science
Knowledge & Power: The Challenge of Modern Science
Readings:
- Michael Polanyi, “The Social Message of Pure Science,” The Logic of Liberty (Liberty Fund, 1998), pp. 3–7
- Irving Kristol, “Is Technology a Threat to Liberalism?”, The Public Interest (Spring 2001), pp. 45–52
- Leon Kass, “Introduction: The Problem of Technology,” in Technology in the Western Political Tradition edited by Arthur M. Melzer, Jerry Weinberger, and M. Richard Zinman (Cornell University Press, 1993), pp. 1–25
Discussion Questions:
- What is the relationship between scientific knowledge and technological power? How would Polanyi, Kristol, and Kass answer this question?
- What distinctively modern problems do science and technology pose to liberal democratic society, according to Kristol and Kass?
- Does science provide an “example of the good life,” as Polanyi suggests? Did it ever? Can it still?
Climate Change: Consensus, Certainty, Skepticism
Readings:
- Naomi Oreskes, “The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change: How Do We Know We’re Not Wrong?”, in Climate Modelling: Philosophical and Conceptual Issues, edited by Elisabeth A. Lloyd and Eric Winsberg (Springer Verlag, 2018), pp. 31–64
- Steven E. Koonin, “Introduction” and “The Science,” in Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters, (BenBella Books, 2021), pp. 1–24
- Stephen Turner, “Quasi-Science and the State: ‘Governing Science’ in Comparative Perspective,” The Politics of Expertise (Routledge, 2013) pp. 114–37
Discussion Questions:
- What is a scientific consensus and how is it generated?
- What role should dissent play in scientific inquiry?
- Do consensus and skepticism play different roles in science vs. politics? Should they?
Climate Change: A Technical or Political Problem?
Readings:
- Roger Pielke, Jr., “Stuck Between Climate Doom and Denial,” The New Atlantis, Number 69, Summer 2022, pp. 73–80
- Daniel Sarewitz, “Does Climate Change Knowledge Really Matter?,” WIREs Climate Change, 2 (2011), pp. 475-481
- Eric Merkley and Dominik Stecula, “Unbalanced: How Liberal Elites Have Cued Climate Polarization,” The Breakthrough Journal, Issue 13, March 1, 2021
Discussion Questions:
- Is there a “climate consensus”? Does it matter if there is or isn’t?
- Can more or better scientific evidence resolve the political debate over climate change?
- Are scientific experts “value neutral” in debates about climate change policy? Should they be?
COVID-19: Evidence for Policy
Readings:
- Jonathan Fuller, “Models v. Evidence,” Boston Review, May 5, 2020.
- Symposium on Fuller, “Models v. Evidence,” Boston Review
- Marc Lipsitch, “Good Science Is Good Science,” Boston Review, May 12, 2020.
- John P. A. Ioannidis, “The Totality of the Evidence,” Boston Review, May 26, 2020
- Jonathan Fuller, “From Pandemic Facts to Pandemic Policies,” Boston Review, June 2, 2020
- Devorah Goldman, “Disarming Frontline Doctors,” The New Atlantis, no. 63, Winter 2021
- Arturo Casadevall, Michael J. Joyner, and Nigel Paneth, “A Victory for Scientific Pragmatism,” The New Atlantis, March 25, 2021
Discussion Questions:
- What kind—and how much—evidence is necessary for making policy decisions?
- Do extraordinary circumstances, such as pandemics, require different standards of evidence for making such decisions?
- What should policymakers do when experts disagree about the nature and extent of evidence for policy?
COVID-19: Pandemic Politics
Readings:
- Ari N. Schulman, “The Coronavirus and the Right’s Scientific Counterrevolution,” The New Republic, June 15, 2020
- Anthony Mills, “Unmasking Scientific Expertise,” Issues in Science & Technology, 37, no. 4 (Summer 2021), pp. 84–88
- Jonathan Fuller, Daniel J. Hicks, Taylor Dotson, and Philip Wallach, “A Veneer of Objectivity,” Issues in Science and Technology, 38, no. 1 (Fall 2021)
- Taylor Dotson, “Radiation Politics in a Pandemic,” The New Atlantis, June 18, 2020
Discussion Questions:
- What role do value disagreements play in making and assessing pandemic policies?
- How can expert institutions regain the public’s trust? Do they deserve to?
- What lessons might Covid-19 offer for thinking about the politics of climate change?
Social Policy
Session I: The Crisis in Social Policy
Readings:
- Adam Keiper, “The Public Interest at 50,” National Affairs, Fall 2015
- Robert Martinson, “What Works? Questions and Answers About Prison Reform,” The Public Interest, Spring 1974
- James Coleman, “Equality of Educational Opportunity,” National Center for Education Statistics, 1966
- Daniel Patrick Moynihan, “Defining Deviancy Down,” The American Scholar, Winter 1993
- James Q. Wilson, “Crime Amidst Plenty: The Paradox of the Sixties,” in Thinking About Crime (Basic Books, 1975)
Discussion Questions:
- What were the social problems that prompted conservative critiques?
- Where did Kennedy-Johnson liberalism go awry?
- What lessons can we draw from this experience for analysis today?
Session II: “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action”
Readings:
- Greg Weiner, “Moynihan and the Neocons,” National Affairs, Winter 2016
- Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Chs. 2 & 4, “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action,” Office of Policy Planning and Research, United States Department of Labor, March 1965
- William Julius Wilson, Ch. 3, The Truly Disadvantaged (University of Chicago, 1987)
- Daniel Patrick Moynihan, “How the Great Society ‘Destroyed the American Family,’” The Public Interest, Summer 1992
- Ta-Nehisi Coates, “Revisiting the Moynihan Report,” The Atlantic, June 17, 2013
Discussion Questions:
- Was Moynihan’s focus on family structure merited? Or was he “blaming the victim?”
Session III: The Unheavenly City
Readings:
- Robert J. Samuelson, “The Gift of a Good Teacher,” Washington Post, October 14, 1999
- James Q. Wilson, “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” The Weekly Standard, October 18, 1999
- Daniel DiSalvo, “Edward Banfield Revisited,” National Affairs, Summer 2017
- Edward Banfield, Chs. 3, 9, & 10, The Unheavenly City Revisited (Little, Brown and Co., 1974)
- Peter H. Rossi, “The City as Purgatory,” Social Science Quarterly, 51, No. 4, March 1971
- R. Marmor, “Banfield’s Heresy,” Commentary, July 1972
- Thomas Sowell, “The Unheavenly City at Fifty,” Claremont Review of Books, Fall 2020
Discussion Questions:
- Is it persuasive to believe that individual behavior produces a persistent underclass?
- How much trust should we have in institutions to resolve the problems of the worst off?
Session IV: Losing Ground
Readings:
- Robert VerBruggen, “The Influencer,” City Journal, Summer 2022
- Charles Murray, Chs. 10, 12, 13, & 16, Losing Ground (Basic Books, 1984)
- Christopher Jencks, “How Poor Are the Poor?,” New York Review of Books, May 9, 1985
- Charles Murray and Christopher Jencks, “‘Losing Ground: An Exchange,’” New York Review of Books, October 24, 1985
- Mickey Kaus, Ch. 7, The End of Equality (Basic Books, 1992)
- Amy A. Fowler & Douglas J. Besharov, “The End of Welfare as We Know It?,” The Public Interest, Spring 1993
Discussion Questions:
- Was Murray right that welfare drove people to the dole? Or was he, as Jencks put it, a social Darwinist?
Session V: “Broken Windows”
Readings:
- Peter H. Schuck, “James Q. Wilson and American Exceptionalism,” National Affairs, Winter 2016
- Charles Fain Lehman, “Contra ‘Root Causes,’” City Journal, Summer 2021
- George L. Kelling and James Q. Wilson, “Broken Windows,” The Atlantic, March 1982
- Bernard Harcourt, Ch. 1, Illusion of Order: The False Promise of Broken Windows Policing (Harvard 2005)
- Bernard E. Harcourt and David E. Thacher, “Is Broken Windows Policing Broken?” Legal Affairs, October 17, 2005
- George L. Kelling, “How New York Became Safe: The Full Story,” City Journal, Special Issue 2009
Discussion Questions:
- Does the “broken windows” model work? Is it just? And should it remain the model for policing today?
