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

One seminar, led by Charles Fain Lehman of the Manhattan Institute, introduces fellows to the key approaches and debates of twentieth-century conservative social science through four major policy arenas: family structure, poverty, welfare, and crime.

The second seminar, led by Patrick Brown of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, explores the reciprocal relationship between family and politics—how public policies influence family life and, in turn, how families sustain or challenge the political order.

Image: “Security of the Family,” WPA mural for the Health and Human Services Building, Washington DC, by Seymour Fogel

Charles Fain Lehman on Social Policy at PSP

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.

Patrick T. Brown

Patrick T. Brown is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where his work focuses on developing a robust pro-family economic agenda and supporting families as the cornerstone of a healthy and flourishing society. Prior to joining EPPC, Patrick served as a Senior Policy Advisor to Congress’ Joint Economic Committee (JEC).

Patrick T. Brown

Patrick T. Brown is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where his work focuses on developing a robust pro-family economic agenda and supporting families as the cornerstone of a healthy and flourishing society.

His writing has been published in The New York Times, National Review, Politico, The Washington Post, and USA Today, and he has spoken on college campuses and Capitol Hill on topics from welfare reform to child care and education policy.

He has published reports on paid leave and family policy with the Institute for Family Studies, and edited an essay series featuring working-class voices for American Compass. He is an advisory board member of Humanity Forward and the Center on Child and Family Policy, and a contributing editor to Public Discourse.

Prior to joining EPPC, Patrick served as a Senior Policy Advisor to Congress’ Joint Economic Committee (JEC). There, he helped lead research about how to make it more affordable to raise a family and more effectively invest in youth and young adults. He also previously worked a government relations staffer for Catholic Charities USA.

Patrick graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a degree in political science and economics. He also holds a Master’s in Public Affairs from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He and his wife Jessica have three young children and live in Columbia, S.C.

Preview the Syllabus by Week/Session

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? Was he just “blaming the victim?” Or were liberals blinding themselves to the role that choice plays in pathology?

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?

Readings:

 

Discussion Questions:

  1. What does classical political theory assume about the relationship between parents, their children, and the state? Where are duties and responsibilities grounded, and does that change in the modern era? If so, how?
  2. How does the institution of “family” sit within or outside of the liberal tradition?
  3. How do these readings provide goals for, or boundaries on, contemporary family policy?

Readings:

 

Discussion Questions:

  1. Where do current policy debates reflect these perspectives, and where have they moved beyond them? How do our current arguments treat the differences between men and women as inherited versus constructed?
  2. How might these thinkers help policymakers distinguish between outcomes that reflect genuine preference and outcomes that reflect constrained choice?
  3. Is the decline of marriage best understood as a structural, cultural, or interpersonal shift?

Readings:

 

Discussion Questions:

  1. Oikonomia, Greek for “household management,” is the root of our word “economics.” How should we understand the relationship between economic well-being and family formation? Should we treat declining marriage and fertility rates as an economic or a cultural phenomenon?
  2. What do these readings suggest about the limits of social policy to address changes in family life? Where might they suggest areas to focus?
  3. Does the state have an interest in subsidizing “care work”? In incentivizing it?

Readings:

 

Discussion Questions:

  1. How do these policies reflect or depart from some of the philosophical understandings of the family we have read earlier in the week?
  2. To what degree do these proposals fit comfortably within the liberal tradition? Does the state have a compelling interest in promoting marriage and parenthood, and if so, under what grounds and limits?
  3. Can you address questions of family policy design from a position of value neutrality, or are normative claims unavoidable?

Readings:

 

Discussion Questions:

  1. Are families today “out of favor”? Can public policy take direct blame—or credit—for changes to family structure and formation?
  2. Do the political consequences of low fertility challenge or underscore any of the claims made by this week’s authors?
  3. What does the next decade of family policy look like? What are the principles that will guide those debates?

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Judge Roy Altman

Judge Roy K. Altman, at 36, became the youngest federal district court judge in the country—and the youngest federal judge ever appointed in the Southern District of Florida. He received his BA from Columbia University and his JD from Yale Law School, where he was projects editor of the Yale Law Journal. After law school, Altman clerked on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals for the Honorable Stanley Marcus.

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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.