Democracy in America
Examine the political, religious, and social character of American democracy.
Contemporary debates about the moral direction of American social and political life are often described as debates about liberalism. But in this description, liberalism seems to mean an empty proceduralism that values only individual rights and serves only to avoid arguing about other moral goods. That portrait bears little resemblance to the actual practice of liberal societies, and only a passing resemblance to those societies’ theories about themselves.
What might a fuller understanding of liberalism involve? What are its aims and its methods? And what might it mean to understand our debates about the moral substance of our politics as disputes among different kinds of liberals more than between liberals and their enemies?
Image via Billy Wilson, Chelsea Street, South Royalton, Vermont, Flick Creative Commons
Yuval Levin on rebuilding institutions
This course was 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.
Faculty
Yuval Levin
Yuval Levin is a Resident Scholar and Director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute and the Editor of National Affairs magazine. Mr. Levin served on the White House domestic policy staff under President George W. Bush.
Yuval Levin
Yuval Levin is a Resident Scholar and Director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the founding Editor of National Affairs magazine. Prior to joining AEI, he was Vice President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and EPPC’s Hertog Fellow.
He is a Contributing Editor of National Review and The Weekly Standard and a Senior Editor of EPPC’s journal The New Atlantis. Author and editor of numerous books, including The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left (2013), The Fractured Republic: Renewing America’s Social Contract in the Age of Individualism (2016), and he most recently published A Time to Build: From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream (2020). His essays and articles have appeared in numerous publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, and others.
Before joining EPPC, Mr. Levin served on the White House domestic policy staff under President George W. Bush. He has also been Executive Director of the President’s Council on Bioethics and a congressional staffer. He holds a B.A. from American University and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. He is a recipient of a 2013 Bradley Prize for intellectual achievement.
Preview the Syllabus by Week/Session
Liberalism, Ancient & Modern
Readings:
Discussion Questions:
- Is a good person the same as a good citizen? Does the definition of each differ in different regimes?
- To what problem does Aristotle view the mixed regime as a solution?
- How would Locke describe the purpose of politics?
- Is social peace a good in itself?
Liberalism, Ancient & Modern II
Readings:
- Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, pp. 74–85, 146–153, 216–28
- Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, pp. 3–6
- Declaration of Independence
Discussion Questions:
- Is Burke a Lockean? Is he a liberal?
- How would Burke describe the purpose of politics?
- Is the Declaration of Independence more Lockean or Burkean?
- How do the grievances listed at the end of the Declaration relate to the principles articulated at its opening?
Governing Diversity
Readings:
Discussion Questions:
- Is the Constitution a liberal document?
- What does the Constitution suggest is the purpose of politics?
- Is the American regime a mixed regime?
- Does Publius think good institutions can substitute for good motives or morals?
Community & Its Discontents
Readings:
- Robert Nisbet, The Quest for Community, Chs. 1 and 3
- Peter Berger and Richard John Neuhaus, To Empower People, Chs. 1 and 6
Discussion Questions:
- What does Nisbet mean by alienation?
- Does the hunger for community suggest a problem with the liberal state?
- Are Berger and Neuhaus liberals? Anti-liberals? Post-liberals?
- Is pluralism possible in theory? Has it been achievable in practice?
Liberalism as a Tension
Readings:
- Irving Kristol, “When Virtue Loses All Her Loveliness,” The Public Interest, 1970
- Carl Scott, “The Five Conceptions of American Liberty,” National Affairs, 2014
- Daniel Burns, “Liberal Practice v. Liberal Theory,” National Affairs, 2019
Discussion Questions:
- Is the liberal society capable of keeping what Kristol describes as its promises?
- Why do we tend to couch our political principles in terms of freedom?
- Is political practice applied political theory? If it isn’t, then what is the point of political theory?
- Can the liberal society produce good citizens? Can it produce good people? Did it produce you?
