Call for Papers: Facts, Values, and Strategies in Citizen Politics

Tufts’ University’s Tisch College of Civic Life and the journal The Good Society seek proposals for papers to be presented at a conference at Tufts on May 18, 2017 and then published in The Good Society as part of a special issue edited by Tisch Associate Dean Peter Levine. Tisch College can offer travel and lodging for presenters at the conference.

Framing:

Current global crises of democracy raise fundamental questions about how citizens can be responsible and effective actors, whether they are combating racism in the United States, protecting human rights in the Middle East, or addressing climate change. If “citizens” are people who strive to leave their communities greater and more beautiful (as in the Athenian citizen’s oath), then their thinking must combine facts, values, and strategies, because all three influence any wise decision. Mainstream scholarship distinguishes facts, values, and strategies, assigning them to different branches of the academy. Many critics have noted the philosophical shortcomings of the fact/value distinction, but citizens need accounts of how facts, values, and strategies can be recombined, both in theory and in practice. John Dewey, Hannah Arendt, Mahatma Gandhi, Jürgen Habermas, Amartya Sen—and many other theorists of citizenship—have offered such accounts.

Actual civic movements also combine facts, values, and strategies in distinctive ways. For instance, the American Civil Rights Movement used the language of prophesy, and Second Wave Feminism strategically advocated new ways of knowing. This special issue invites theoretical, methodological, historical, empirical, and case-study articles related to the question: how should citizens put facts, values, and strategies together?

Paper proposals of up to 300 words should be sent to Peter Levine at peter.levine@tufts.edu and to Good Society editor Trygve Throntveit at tthrontv@umn.edu by November 1, 2016. Prospective authors must be willing to present drafts by May 1 2017, attend a one-day conference at Tufts on May 18, and revise for final publication by September 2017.

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About Peter

Associate Dean for Research and the Lincoln Filene Professor of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Tufts University's Tisch College of Civic Life. Concerned about civic education, civic engagement, and democratic reform in the United States and elsewhere.