The Great Recession, institutional dysfunction, a growing divide between urban and rural prospects, and failed efforts to effectively address immigration have paved the way for a populist backlash ...that disrupts the postwar bargain between political elites and citizens. Whether today's populism represents a corrective to unfair and obsolete policies or a threat to liberal democracy itself remains up for debate. Yet this much is clear: these challenges indict the triumphalism that accompanied liberal democratic consolidation after the collapse of the Soviet Union. To respond to today's crisis, good leaders must strive for inclusive economic growth while addressing fraught social and cultural issues, including demographic anxiety, with frank attention. Although reforms may stem the populist tide, liberal democratic life will always leave some citizens unsatisfied. This is a permanent source of vulnerability, but liberal democracy will endure so long as citizens believe it is worth fighting for.
The Practice of Liberal Pluralism defends a theory, liberal pluralism, which is based on three core concepts - value pluralism, political pluralism, and expressive liberty - and explores the ...implications of this theory for politics. Liberal pluralism helps clarify some of the complexities of real-world political action and points toward a distinctive conception of public philosophy and public policy. It leads to a vision of a good society in which political institutions are active in a delimited sphere and in which, within broad limits, families, civil associations, and faith communities may organize and conduct themselves in ways that are not congruent with principles that govern the public sphere. The final section of the book defends liberal pluralism against attacks that it is internally incoherent or that it denies, without justification, key theological premises. Written in a nontechnical style, this book should appeal to professionals in philosophy, political science, law, and policy making.
Across the West, economic dislocation and demographic change have triggered a demand for strong leaders. This surge of populism is more than an emotional backlash; it encourages a political structure ...that threatens liberal democracy. While populism accepts principles of popular sovereignty and majoritarianism, it is skeptical about constitutionalism and liberal protections for individuals. Moreover, populists’ definition of “the people” as homogeneous cannot serve as the basis for a modern democracy, which stands or falls with the protection of pluralism. Although this resurgent tribalism may draw strength from the incompleteness of life in liberal society, the liberal-democratic system uniquely harbors the power of self-correction, the essential basis for needed reforms.
Realism in political theory Galston, William A
European journal of political theory,
10/2010, Volume:
9, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
In recent decades, a ‘realist’ alternative to ideal theories of politics has slowly taken shape. Bringing together philosophers, political theorists, and political scientists, this countermovement ...seeks to reframe inquiry into politics and political norms. Among the hallmarks of this endeavor are a moral psychology that includes the passions and emotions; a robust conception of political possibility and rejection of utopian thinking; the belief that political conflict — of values as well as interests — is both fundamental and ineradicable; a focus on institutions as the arenas within which conflict is mediated and contained; and a conception of politics as a sphere of activity that is distinct, autonomous, and subject to norms that cannot be derived from individual morality. For political realists, a ‘well-ordered society’ is rarely attainable; a modus vivendi without agreement on first principles is often the only practical possibility. Not only will ‘full compliance’ never be achieved, but also it is an assumption that yields misleading accounts of political norms. While realists offer a number of compelling criticisms of ideal theory, there are some lacunae in their stance. It is not yet clear whether realism constitutes a coherent affirmative alternative to idealism. Nor have realists clarified the extent of conflict that is consistent with political order as such. And because both sides accept ‘ought implies can’ as a constraint on the validity of political norms, much of the debate between realists and idealists revolves around deep empirical disagreements that are yet to be clarified.
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Taking the long view of conflicts between truth and political power
What role does truth play in government? In context of recent political discourse around the globe—and especially in the ...United States—it is easy to believe that truth, in the form of indisputable facts, is a matter of debate.
But it’s also important to remember that since ancient times, every religious and philosophical tradition has wrestled with this question. In this volume, scholars representing ten traditions—Western and Eastern, religious and secular—address the nature of truth and its role in government. Among the questions they address: When is deception permissible, or even a good thing? What remedies are necessary and useful when governments fail in their responsibilities to be truthful?
The authors consider the relationship between truth and governance in democracies, but also in non-democratic regimes. Although democracy is distinctive in requiring truth as a fundamental basis for governing, non-democratic forms of government also cannot do without truth entirely. If ministers cannot give candid advice to rulers, the government’s policies are likely to proceed on false premises and therefore fail. If rulers do not speak truthfully to their people, trust will erode.
Each author in this book addresses a common set of issues: the nature of truth; the morality of truth-telling; the nature of government, which shapes each tradition’s understanding of the relationship between governance and truth; the legitimacy and limits of regulating speech; and remedies when truth becomes divorced from governance.
Truth and Governance will open readers’ eyes to the variety of possible approaches to the relationship between truth and governance. Readers will find views they thought self-evident challenged and will come away with a greater understanding of the importance of truth and truth-telling, and of how to counter deliberate deception.
Liberal democracy is under pressure and on the defensive. Well before the covid-19 outbreak, antiliberal politicians and intellectuals had issued a complex bill of particulars against liberalism. ...Populists charged that liberalism had become a cloak for antidemocratic elitism that took power away from rank-and-file citizens while undermining their economic interests. Nationalists alleged that liberalism bred international institutions and laws that invaded nations' sovereignty and hobbled the pursuit of legitimate national interests. Cultural traditionalists claimed that liberal individualism eroded moral and religious communities and that liberal freedom erased the distinction between liberty and license. Yet these populist, nationalist, and cultural-traditionalist critiques are based on misunderstandings of liberalism. Like every other form of government, liberal democracy has inherent structural weaknesses that the difficulties of the moment exacerbate but do not create. Wise leadership can mitigate these weaknesses, but it cannot eliminate them.
The Populist Moment Galston, William A.
Journal of democracy,
04/2017, Volume:
28, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
American exceptionalism is a sturdy if contested trope of cultural analysis. But large shifts in US politics since the end of World War II have been anything but exceptional. Rather, the US has moved ...in tandem with other Western democracies. In the three decades after 1945, democracies on both sides of the Atlantic built systems of social provision and protection, which Europeans call social democracy and Americans the welfare state. A broad consensus across party lines supported this policy. Starting in the mid-1970s, this political phase slowed in the face of rising concerns about the impact of an interventionist government on public finances and private-sector growth. The Crisis of Democracy, a much-discussed 1975 report by the nonpartisan expert conference known as the Trilateral Commission, voiced fears of democratic overload -- public demands exceeding the capacity of government to finance and administer social programs. That an event has never happened is no guarantee that it will not happen.
After decades of neglect, civic education is back on the agenda of political science in the United States. Despite huge increases in the formal educational attainment of the US population during the ...past 50 years, levels of political knowledge have barely budged. Today's college graduates know no more about politics than did high school graduates in 1950. Recent research indicates that levels of political knowledge affect the acceptance of democratic principles, attitudes toward specific issues, and political participation. There is evidence that political participation is in part a positional good and is shaped by relative as well as absolute levels of educational attainment. Contrary to findings from 30 years ago, recent research suggests that traditional classroom-based civic education can significantly raise political knowledge. Service learning—a combination of community-based civic experience and systematic classroom reflection on that experience—is a promising innovation, but program evaluations have yielded mixed results. Longstanding fears that private schools will not shape democratic citizens are not supported by the evidence.
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This multi-authored book explores the ways that many influential ethical traditions - secular and religious, Western and non-Western - wrestle with the moral dimensions of poverty and the needs of ...the poor. These traditions include Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism, among the religious perspectives; classical liberalism, feminism, liberal-egalitarianism, and Marxism, among the secular; and natural law, which might be claimed by both. The basic questions addressed by each of these traditions are linked to several overarching themes: what poverty is, the particular vulnerabilities of high-risk groups, responsibility for the occurrence of poverty, preferred remedies, how responsibility for its alleviation is distributed, and priorities in the delivery of assistance. This volume features an introduction to the types, scope, and causes of poverty in the modern world and concludes with Michael Walzer's broadly conceived commentary, which provides a direct comparison of the presented views and makes suggestions for further study and policy.
William Galston is a distinguished political philosopher whose work is informed by the experience of having also served from 1993–5 as President Clinton's Deputy Assistant for Domestic Policy. He is ...thus able to speak with an authority unique amongst political theorists about the implications of advancing certain moral and political values in practice. The foundational argument of this 2002 book is that liberalism is compatible with the value pluralism first espoused by Isaiah Berlin. William Galston defends a version of value pluralism - liberal pluralism - and argues, against the contentions of John Gray and others, that it undergirds a kind of liberal politics that gives weight to the ability of individuals and groups to live their lives in accordance with their deepest beliefs about what gives meaning and purpose to life.
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