State of Democracy
The State of Democracy Lectures Series is dedicated to providing a forum for meaningful dialogue over public issues that cut across the disciplinary boundaries of the social sciences. The series is a centerpiece of the Maxwell School. It enables the intellectual exploration of current events and issues while fostering discussion and debate, which is the heart of meaningful democratic citizenship.
All events begin at 4:00 and are followed by an open reception at 5:30, unless otherwise noted.
2009-2010 Series
November 19, 2009
4:00 PM
Maxwell Auditorium
Len Burman, The Maxwell School
Is the United States Headed for a Catastrophic Budget Failure?
This year’s federal budget deficit is a record $1.4 trillion, but the flood of red ink is only just beginning. An aging population, rising health care costs, and a political establishment that seems incapable of making tough choices threaten to turn the United States into the largest insolvent debtor nation in history, with catastrophic consequences for the US and world economies. This lecture will address the causes and consequences of catastrophic budget failure and what we can do to avoid it.
Leonard Burman is the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Professor of Public Affairs at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, director emeritus of the Tax Policy Center, and affiliated scholar at the Urban Institute.
September 10, 2009
Claudia Goldin, Harvard University
The Race Between Education and Technology
Goldin’s recently published book, The Race between Education and Technology (with L. Katz; The Belknap Press, 2008), provides a careful historical analysis of the co-evolution of educational attainment and the wage structure in the United States through the twentieth century. The authors propose that the twentieth century was not only the American Century but also the Human Capital Century. That is, the American educational system is what made America the richest nation in the world. Its educational system had always been less elite than that of most European nations. Winner of the 2008 R.R. Hawkins Award for the most outstanding scholarly work in any discipline. Winner of the 2008 Richard A. Lester Prize for the Outstanding Book in Labor Economics and Industrial Relations.
2008-2009 Series
The 2008-2009 series was sponsored by Betsy Levitt Cohn and Alan Cohn.
Nancy Foner
Video Archive
"What's New About Contemporary Immigration?"
A hundred years ago a massive wave of immigration dramatically changed the United States. Today, a similar influx is again transforming the nation. In what ways is history being repeated? And what -- and how much-- is different from the past? The talk will explore both parallels and contrasts between immigration then and now as well as ways that the legacy of the past has helped to shape the immigrant experience -- and reaction to immigration -- today.
Nancy Foner is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She is a leading scholar of immigration, whose work has been concerned with comparing immigration today and in the past and in different urban and national contexts. Her many books include In a New Land: A Comparative View of Immigration (NYU Press, 2005), From Ellis Island to JFK: New York's Two Great Waves of Immigration (Yale University Press, 2000), and Not Just Black and White: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Immigration, Race, and Ethnicity in the United States, edited with George Fredrickson (Russell Sage Foundation, 2004).
Charles Murray
Video Archive
Charles Murray first came to national attention in 1984 with the publication of Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950–1980. This was followed by In Pursuit: Of Happiness and Good Government (1988), The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life (with Richard J. Herrnstein, 1994), What It Means to be a Libertarian: A Personal Interpretation (1996), Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950 (2003), and In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State (2006). His new book, Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America's Schools Back to Reality, was released on August 19, 2008.
2007-2008 Series
Michael E. Toner
October 26, 2007
Video Archive
Mr. Toner heads Bryan Cave’s Election Law and Government Ethics Practice. He is also a senior advisor to Bryan Cave Strategies. Mr. Toner joined the firm in 2007 after serving as chairman of the Federal Election Commission in 2006. He was nominated to be an FEC commissioner by President George W. Bush on March 4, 2002, and was appointed to the FEC on March 29, 2002. The United States Senate confirmed Mr. Toner as an FEC commissioner on March 18, 2003. Prior to serving on the FEC, Mr. Toner was chief counsel of the Republican National Committee. He joined the RNC in 2001 after serving as general counsel of the Bush-Cheney transition team in Washington, D.C., and general counsel of the Bush-Cheney presidential campaign in Austin, Texas. Before his tenure on the Bush-Cheney campaign,
James Hunter
November 30, 2007
Video Archive
James Davison Hunter is LaBrosse-Levinson Distinguished Professor of Religion, Culture and Social Theory at the University of Virginia. Mr. Hunter has written 8 books, edited 3 books, and published a wide range of essays, articles, and reviews all variously concerned with the problem of meaning and moral order in a time of political and cultural change in American life. Most recently, he published The Death of Character: Moral Education in an Age without Good or Evil (2000) and Is There A Culture War? A Dialogue on Values and American Public Life, (with Alan Wolfe, 2006). These works have earned him national recognition and numerous literary awards.
Irshad Manji
February 15, 2008
Video Archive
The New York Times calls Irshad Manji “Osama bin Laden’s worst nightmare.” Oprah Winfrey has given her the first annual Chutzpah Award for “audacity, nerve, boldness and conviction” She takes both as a compliment. Irshad is Director of the Moral Courage Project at New York University. It aims to develop leaders who will speak truth to power. They include reform-minded Muslims, whom Irshad is strengthening through her books and films. She is the internationally best-selling author of the Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim’s Call for Reform in Her Faith. Irshad is also creator of the acclaimed PBS documentary, Faith Without Fear, which follows her journey to reconcile Islam with freedom and human rights.
2006-2007 Series
Jacob Hacker
Video Archive of Hacker Lecture
“The New Economic Insecurity – and What Can be Done About It”
Jacob Hacker, Ph.D., Yale University, 2000, is Peter Strauss Family Assistant Professor of Political Science. He is also a Fellow at the New America Foundation and sits on the American Political Science Association's public presence Task Force on Inequality and Democracy. His research interests include the politics of U.S. social policy, American political development, and the comparative political economy of the welfare state.
Shibley Telhami
Video Archive of Lecture
“The Middle East Five Years Later: Assessing Democracy, Terrorism and Prospects for Peace”
Sponsored by The Horowitch Family Foundation
Shibley Telhami is the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland, College Park, and non-resident senior fellow at the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution. Before coming to the University of Maryland, he taught at several universities, including Cornell University, the Ohio State University, the University of Southern California, Princeton University, Columbia University, Swarthmore College, and the University of California at Berkeley, where he received his doctorate in political science.
Thomas Mann
Video Archive of Lecture
"Will the November Elections Help Mend the Broken Branch?"
Thomas E. Mann is the W. Averell Harriman Chair and Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at The Brookings Institution. Between 1987 and 1999, he was Director of Governmental Studies at Brookings. Before that, Mann was executive director of the American Political Science Association.
Deborah Stone
Video Archive of Lecture
"Toward A Politics of Altruism"
Deborah Stone is Research Professor of Government at Dartmouth College. She earlier taught politics and public policy at Duke, M.I.T., and Brandeis, where she held the Pokross Chair in Law and Social Policy until 1999. She is the author of Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making, winner of the American Political Science Association's Aaron Wildavsky Enduring Contribution Award for the study of public policy; The Disabled State; and The Limits of Professional Power: National Health Care in the Federal Republic of Germany.
2005-2006 Series
Toby Moffett
SOD Video Archive
CEO of Livingston, Moffett Global Consultants, an international consulting company representing a number of private sector and nonprofit organizations in Washington, DC and around the world. The company has affiliates in more than twenty countries and regions including Europe, Central Europe, India, Africa, the Far East and Latin America.
Sponsored by The Horowitch Family Foundation
Harvey C. Mansfield
Video archive-Mansfield
William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Government at Harvard, is among the leading political philosophers of our time. He has published on topics ranging from Edmund Burke and Machiavelli to the nature of good governance, the extent and limits of executive power, and the nuances of American constitutionalism. His book, Manliness, is a provocative treatment of what Mansfield terms that "lost virtue."
2006 Constitution Day Lecture: Peter Schuck,
Video from September 16
Simeon E. Baldwin Professor at Yale Law School. Professor Schuck's talk, "Managing Diversity: A Changing Constitutional Conundrum," addressed various aspects of diversity in American society and law--Schuck argued that American society must learn how to deal with this in a productive way, both in our constitutional debates and informal political and social discussions. Though law is not the only tool for managing diversity, many recent disputes--over affirmative action, gay marriage, and a host of other issues--about diversity are worked out in the courts.
Thomas Carothers
Video Archive-Carothers
Senior Associate and Director of the Democracy and Rule of Law Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, is a recognized authority on democratization worldwide as well as an expert on U.S. foreign policy. Carothers' Maxwell appearance focused on ongoing efforts, by the Bush Administration as well as NGOs based in the U.S. and overseas, to promote democracy across the globe.
2004/2005
Michele Moody-Adams
E.J. Dionne
Michael Walzer
2003/2004
Jeffrey Rosen
Jonathan Schell
Kay Hymowitz