The proponents of identity politics on the left would argue that assertions of identity on the right are illegitimate and cannot be placed on the same moral plane as those of minorities, women, and ot...
The problem, however, was not with the idea of national identity itself; the problem was the narrow, ethnically based, intolerant, aggressive, and deeply illiberal form that national identity took.
The politics of recognition and dignity had reached a fork by the early nineteenth century. One fork led to the universal recognition of individual rights, and thence to liberal societies that sought...
The low-trust, family-oriented societies with weak intermediate organizations we have observed have all been characterized by a similar saddle-shaped distribution of enterprises. Taiwan, Hong Kong, It...
The inhabitants of warm countries are, like old men, timorous … the people in cold countries are, like young men, brave.
The idea that democracy was the most, or indeed the only, legitimate form of government spread to every corner of the world. Democratic constitutions were rewritten, or written for the first time, in...
The greatest pleasure … is to vanquish your enemies and chase them before you, to rob them of their wealth and see those dear to them bathed in tears, to ride their horses and clasp to your bosom thei...
The father of communism, Karl Marx, famously predicted the withering away of the state once the proletarian revolution had achieved power and abolished private property. Left-wing revolutionaries from...
Shared mental models—most particularly those that take the form of religion—are critical in facilitating large-scale collective action.
On the right, plenty of new white nationalist voices would like to drag the country backward to an identity once again based on race, ethnicity, or religion. It is urgent that
On the left, identity politics has sought to undermine the legitimacy of the American national story by emphasizing victimization, insinuating in some cases that racism, gender discrimination, and oth...
Much of what passes for corruption is not simply a matter of greed but rather the by-product of legislators or public officials who feel more obligated to family, tribe, region, or ethnic group than t...
Modern liberal societies are heirs to the moral confusion left by the disappearance of a shared religious horizon.
Marx’s original definition of bourgeoisie referred to ownership of the means of production. One of the characteristics of the modern world is that this form of property has become vastly democratized...
Many of these problems could be solved if the United States moved to a more unified parliamentary system of government, but so radical a change in the country’s institutional structure is inconceivabl...
Many modern democratic constitutions thus enshrine the principle of equal dignity. They are drawing on the Christian tradition that sees dignity rooted in human moral agency. But that agency is no lon...
Many believed that the Mafia, clientelism, and corruption represented traditional social practices that would gradually erode as the country modernized economically.
Lant Pritchett, Michael Woolcock, and Matt Andrews have argued that one of the big problems with developing countries’ governments is that they engage in what they term isomorphic mimicry, that is, co...
Kojève, interpreting Hegel in the 1930s, suggested that the idea of the modern state, once unleashed in the world, would eventually universalize itself because it was so powerful: those facing it woul...
It is only with the development of political institutions like the modern state that humans begin to organize themselves and learn to cooperate in a manner that transcends friends and family. When suc...