What I've been up to, 2018

The big thing this year was the "Political Theory In/ And/ As Political Science conference. It was intellectually terrific and a lot of fun, and I think it may help catalyze some real change in the discipline. Lots of pictures of it here, including a number of the special reception we held to honor Jane Mansbridge being awarded the Skytte Prize. There will be publications and spinoffs and an ongoing workshop series to come; the first spinoff was a theme panel at APSA.

Beyond that I have mostly been working on my next book, Justice in Babylon.

New academic publications:
"Political Libertarianism," in M. Todd Henderson, ed., The Cambridge Handbook of Classical Liberal Thought, Cambridge University Press.
"'Less Than We Think': Politics Without Guarantees," part of a symposium on Teresa Bejan's Mere Civility

Named lectures:
Johan de Beus Lecture, University of Amsterdam, November 19 2018: "Justice In Babylon."
Saurman Distinguished Lecture, San Jose State University, February 28, 2018: "Black Liberty Matters."

Public commentary and online writings:
"'Make America Free Again' Isn't Trump's Agenda," Cato Unbound, December 21, 2018
"Populism's Dangerous Companions," Cato Unbound, December 14, 2018
"The Democrats' Best Response to Republican Power Grabs." The New York Times, December 11, 2018
"Winning Isn't Everything," Niskanen, October 11, 2018. Reprinted in Salon.
"Law and Border," Niskanen, July 25 2018. reprinted in Salon.
"Who's Afraid of Judith Shklar? Foreign Policy, July 2018
"Does Liberalism Require the Right Kind of Religion?" Online Library of Liberty, May 7, 2018
"The Weight of the Words," Niskanen, February 7 2018


Audio and video:
August 2018: "The Evolution of the Ideas of Liberty," Cato University/ C-SPAN 3
August 2018: "Libertarian Conceptions of Order," Cato University
August 2018: "Peace and Toleration," Cato University
August 2018: "Ethics forward" podcast with Avery Kolers (Philosophy, Louisville): Multicultural manners
September 7, 2018: Shawn Apel, CBC Radio Noon, On Steve Bannon, and the anonymous op-ed from within the Trump administration.


New entries published online-first at The Oxford Handbook of Classics in Contemporary Political Theory which I am editing
Emily Nacol on JGA Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment
Eric Schliesser on Jon Elster, Sour Grapes

Finally, three of my former advisees (at various stages) began new tenure-track appointments this year:

Guillaume Bogiaris, University of West Alabama
Mara Marin, University of Victoria
Briana McGinnis, College of Charleston

The Democrats’ Best Response to Republican Power Grabs

[tap tap] Is this thing still on? In case anybody's still got this blog in their RSS feed who doesn't follow me on Twitter or Facebook or BHL, I might as well add a mention here: I have my first piece in the New York Times, on restoring democratic norms as a political strategy.

What I’ve been up to, 2017

Copying this over from here.

Updates, December 2016-December 2017

Academic:

"There Is No Such Thing As Ideal Theory", 33(1-2) Social Philosophy & Policy 312-333 (2016), was published in a special issue of Social Philosophy and Policy on realism and idealism in political theory.

“Contra Politanism” has been published online-first at The European Journal of Political Theory.

“Corps Intermédiaires, Civil Society, and the Art of Association” In Naomi Lamoreaux and John Wallis, eds., Organizations, Civil Society, and the Roots of Development. University of Chicago Press/ National Bureau of Economic Research, 2017

“Against Fraternity: Democracy Without Solidarity.” In Keith Banting and Will Kymlicka, eds., The Strains of Commitment: Solidarity in Diverse Societies. Oxford University Press, 2017

“Toward a Non-Lockean Libertarianism,” in Bas van der Vossen, Jason Brennan, and David Schmidtz, eds., The Routledge Handbook of Libertarianism, London: Routledge, 2017.

Review of Jeremy Waldron, Political Political Theory, in The Review of Politics.

A slightly revised paperback edition of Rationalism, Pluralism, and Freedom was published by Oxford University Press.

In August 2017 I was the Dan and Gwen Taylor Fellow visiting in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Otago (New Zealand).

Entries continue to be published online-first as they are ready at The Oxford Handbook of Classics in Contemporary Political Theory. Thirty-five have been published so far.



Public commentary, primarily but not exclusively in my new capacity as of 2017 as a Senior Fellow of the Niskanen Center:

"Statist just-so stories," Reason, December 2017 (review of James C. Scott, Against the Grain) 

"The Limits of legalism," Niskanen, November 27 2017

"Black liberty matters," Niskanen, September 20, 2017

"All good things," Boston Review, September 2017

"The sovereign myth," Niskanen, June 15 2017

"Why walking out is better than shouting down," The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 25 2017

"The shortcut to serfdom," Niskanen, May 16 2017

"A government of laws, not son-in-laws," Niskanen, April 20, 2017

Federalism, jurisdiction, and resistance," Niskanen, February 22, 2017

"Hypocrisy isn't the problem. Nihilism is." Los Angeles Times, February 8, 2017. Reprinted in The Chicago Tribune. 

"The free society is an open society." Niskanen, January 31, 2017. "Les murs ne bloquent pas seulement les gens à l'extérieur, mais aussi à l'intérieur,"  Slate.fr, February 6, 2017.

"The party declines." Niskanen, January 18, 2017

"The defense of liberty can't do without identity politics." Niskanen, December 13, 2016



  Upcoming: I will spend the winter/spring semester of 2018 on sabbatical at Stanford in the Department of Political Science and the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society. The 2018 Annual Lecture of the Yan P. Lin Centre for the Study of Freedom and Global Orders in the Ancient and Modern Worlds will be given March 29 by Timur Kuran. The 2016 Lecture was given by Orlando Patterson and can be seen here. The 2017 Lecture was given by Saskia Sassen and can be seen here. In May 2018 I will co-chair, with Josiah Ober and Melissa Schwartzberg, a conference on “Political Theory In/ And/ As Political Science.” In January 2019 I will begin a term as Political Theory Field Editor for The Journal of Politics.