Last night, I was part of The United States at 250: A Tufts Faculty Panel. In a full room of students, Tufts historians and political scientists with various specialities addressed the question: “Where are we as a nation and what’s next?” I offered the following argument. I have derived it from other people’s scholarship, and […]
(Columbus) These are my notes for a talk today at Ohio State University on the assigned topic of “civic partisanship”: If “partisanship” means active membership in a political party, then it is desirable. Parties can be worthy components of our civil society, especially when parties are internally diverse and meaningfully organized at the local and […]
Not one major phenomenon is driving US and global politics today. Several powerful and somewhat contradictory currents must be navigated together. I list the following trends in no particular order. The references in square brackets link to previous posts on the same themes. Costs of neoliberalism: The global market economy harms people in wealthy countries […]
Juan Linz observed that only one presidential republic–a system in which the president is separately elected from the legislature–has survived over a long period (Linz 1990). That exception was the USA, but a lucky contingency may have prevented the collapse of our constitution, and that factor is now weakening. In a presidential system, the executive […]
As impeachment dominates the headlines, many social studies teachers are assigning it as a topic of discussion and analysis in their classrooms. That is appropriate. Since students and their families are already discussing impeachment, it is a great “hook” for teaching about the US Constitution and the media. Students should learn how to analyze the […]