Key Concepts

Justice by Means of Democracy: The surest path to a just society in which all find the support necessary to flourish is the protection of political equality. Justice is therefore best achieved by means of democracy. Importantly, the social ideals and organizational design principles that flow from recognizing political equality and democracy as fundamental to human well-being provide an alternative framework not only for justice but also for political economy. See the book, Justice by Means of Democracy. See also Amartya Sen's Development as Freedom.

Power-Sharing Liberalism: Liberalism more broadly is the philosophical commitment to a government grounded in rights that protect people in their private lives and empower them to help govern public life. Over the course of U.S. history, both Democrats and Republicans have been liberals of various flavors. There have been classical liberals (the more conservative, pro-market variant), New Deal liberals (the big-state Democratic Party variant), and neoliberals (the economically globalizing, democracy spreading, technocratic variant). Each one has held power at different points in history, shaping U.S. policy in different ways. Each of these variants was also built on intellectual paradigms that led advocates to believe they could advance the rights of all while reserving power to the few. Power-sharing liberalism is instead a reconstructed mode of liberalism based on a principle of full inclusion and non-domination (aka non-monopoly) in politics, economy, and society. It strives for a full-sharing of power and responsibility for all of us, across all three sectors. It also brings with it a commitment to a culture of civic engagement and empowerment. See the blog, Introducing Power-sharing Liberalism.

Difference without Domination: The protection of freedom facilitates the emergence of social difference. If social difference comes to articulate with domination, however, it undermines freedom. If we wish to unify protection of political equality and protection of the other basic liberties (on the principle of shared non-sacrificeability), we need to think about a principle to guide our rule-setting for the economic and social realms to avoid the emergence of domination. The relevant principle is “difference without domination.” In brief, the principle entails that we scrutinize our institutions to diagnose patterns of difference, work to ascertain whether they arise from or support domination, and, if they do, redesign the rules of governance through political institutions, the rules providing undergirding charters for the economy, the rules organizing the microinteractions of the economy or the organizational protocols of civil society, to remove or at least lessen the operating forces of domination. Many have debated whether discussions of justice should consist of substantive or procedural matters. The argument here is that the job of rule-setting turns the procedural into the substantive, and that our rule-setting across all three domains (political, economic, and social) should be guided by the principle of difference without domination. This would permit us to establish a virtuous cycle linking political, social, and economic domains in support of the kind of human flourishing that rests on autonomy, both private and public. See Justice by Means of Democracy, chapter 2 and the book, Difference without Domination.

Aspirational Federalism: A vision for federalism that, as in the Constitutional Convention, tips to the national and lodges key powers at the national level, yet also recognizes that legislative decision-making at subnational jurisdictional levels is necessary for issues and challenges that aren’t best scaled up to the national level. Aspirational federalism tips to the national in order to guarantee the protection of minorities across all jurisdictions. Aspirational federalism also tips to the national to assign authority and responsibility to drive harmonization of policy across jurisdictions. In legal terms, the name for this method of harmonization is “collaborative” federalism: the federal government sets standards and goals, and then empowers their delivery, through both funding and the distinctive capacity of a national government—enabled by a bird’s eye view perspective—to spur strategic coordination across jurisdictions.

In particular, the vision of aspirational federalism includes five elements:

1. national power has among its rights and responsibilities the job of steering harmonization across jurisdictional levels (federal, state, regional, county, and municipal);

2. rights and responsibilities for the national power include the authority and competencies to ensure equal protection of the laws and access to a republican form of government for all;

3. public recognition exists that will-formation (and therefore legislative direction-setting) will forever be necessary at different jurisdictional levels in order to tackle the full diversity of collective action problems and the different scales at which they emerge; consequently will-formation cannot simply be concentrated at a single national level;

4. legitimate methods exist for revisiting over time which collective action problems should be the subject of national will-formation (and national legislative direction-setting), and which should be the subject of state, county, or municipal will-formation and legislative direction-setting; the exception to revisability would be that the requirement to ensure equal protection of the laws and access to a republican form of government cannot be moved from the national level to a subsidiary level; and

5. the combined tools of federalism achieve a fusion of inclusion and effectiveness in governance and decision-making.

See the essay, "In Defense of Federalism," and Chapter 4 of the book, Democracy in the Time of Coronavirus.

Egalitarian Participatory Constitutional Democracy: An egalitarian participatory constitutional democracy is not defined simply by majority vote. It is instead defined by mechanisms of participation—a tool kit that includes but is not limited to majority vote. This tool kit must give the citizenry final control over collective decision-making. Typically, the anchor of this popular control is the requirement that government decision makers must face elections wherein they gain or retain decision-making rights by winning a vote among eligible voters through majority or plurality rule, with a presumption that the franchise approaches universal adult suffrage among legal citizens.

Majority vote is just one mechanism for operationalizing popular sovereignty. It is one among many mechanisms that might be used for ensuring both that the whole body of the citizenry is steering or setting the direction of the polity and that power has been equalized within the polity. Minority-protecting mechanisms are just as important as majority vote. This tool kit of mechanisms—both majoritarian and minority-protecting ones—must be refined and redesigned over time to respond to demographic changes that constantly impact the balance of power within the citizenry. In this definition of democracy, the steering function of the people taken as a whole—incorporating minorities as well as majorities in that steering—is the core element making democracy, democracy. See chapter 3 of Justice by Means of Democracy. See also Our Declaration.

Effective Governance: Responsive representation requires not only that all be included in the structures of decision-making by which a polity is steered but also that the steering of the polity leads to practical success in dealing with real issues and challenges facing the members of the society. Efforts over the last few decades to increase stakeholder engagement and inclusion have too often led to forms of vetocracy that block effective decision-making. Inclusion and effectiveness appear to be in tesnion with each other. Effective governance resolves this tension through improved mechanisms for aligning participation, inclusion, and efficacy.

Connected Society: A connected society recognizes the hybridity, fluidity, and intersectionality of personal identity, and seeks to maximize bridging relationships in society while also supporting healthy forms of bonding, via communities of affinity, that reinforce the value of also seeking bridging relationships. A connected society reorganizes authority and responsibility as well as organizational processes in civil society organizations to support bridging opportunities and power-sharing across lines of difference. An ethos of political friendship sustains relationships in a connected society. The concept of social connectedness replaces the concept of social cohesion by establishing a framework for healthy social bonds in contexts of social heterogeneity. The pursuit of social cohesion has too often depended on an expectation of social homegeneity. See Chapter 4 of Justice By Means of Democracy, the 2004 book Talking to Strangers, and the essays, "Toward a Connected Society" and "How Democracies Live."

Empowering Economies: An empowering economy supports people's ability to function as citizens by securing the material bases of empowerment. To paraphrase George Marshall in his announcement of the post–World War II Marshall Plan, we need an economy that works—that delivers growth and productivity and stable transactions and prices (the opposite of Venezuela)—“so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist." Since 21st c free institutions incorporate the principle of full inclusion, the goal is not only a dynamic but also an inclusive economy—where all are empowered. There is no room for domination in this economy. Four design principles are key. First, an empowering economy organizes the productive structure of the economy in accordance with the principle of difference without domination; this means focusing on building an economy around free labor and democracy-supporting firms and aiming for a good-jobs economy. Second, an empowering economy supports investments in bridging relationships that cut across cleavages that otherwise emerge as a result of market competition or social competition; this commitment orients policy toward productive collaborations among the public sector, market organizations, and nonprofit concerns (including universities), avoiding domination by any one of those sectors. Third, an empowering economy depends on democratic steering of the economy—through fiscal policy, public-goods investment, chartering authority over monetary policy, and rule-making— rather than on unchecked delegation to technocrats. Experts should be valued advisers but should not themselves rule. Fourth, an empowering economy rests on charters and rules that protect equal basic liberties, both positive and negative, both directly and indirectly. See chapter 6 in Justice by Means of Democracy and the related essay in Combating Inequality.

Foundations for Flourishing: An empowering economy focuses on integrating all members of society into the productive foundation of society. This integration requries a set of building blocks that form the foundation for an empowering economy. Those builing blocks forming the infrastructure of an empowering economy include housing, transportation, good schools, good jobs, justice and safety. These building blocks will support a produtive economy and should also be constructed to support a healthy climate, personal and public health, and democracy.

Civic Strength: Healthy constitutional democracies require not only the ability to protect themselves in the international arena (an area of concern for the Council on Foreign Relations), nor only the ability to thrive in a competitive global economy (an area of concern for the Council on Competitiveness) but also social cohesion or, better, social connectedness (an area of concern for the newly forming Council on Civic Strength).

TABLES SUMMARIZING THE RELATIONS AMONG THESE IDEAS

TABLE WITH COMPARISON TO EARLIER PARADIGMS FOR POLITICAL ECONOMY AND POLITICS