Winter 2008, No. 7

A few weeks before going to press, Democracy: A Journal of Ideas got some great news: We’ve been nominated for an Utne Independent Press Award for Best New Publication. Though our competition is stiff—including Meatpaper, a magazine about, well, meat—we hope you’ll cross your fingers when the winners are announced in January. We sure will!

Why did we get nominated? Just take a look at our latest issue, which you just received. Our lead article, by Wilson Center fellow Matthew Dallek, explores the history of homeland security in the United States and discovers a progressive alternative to the Bush Administration’s weak and overpoliticized approach. In fact, history runs as a theme throughout the issue. Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson disassemble the “Vietnam analogy” that, war supporters claim, tells us to stay in Iraq—on the contrary, they find, if anything Vietnam tells us we should leave now. Jim Sleeper, aPulitzer Prize-winning journalist, examines the life of teachers’ union leader Albert Shanker, while Brandeis professor Peniel Joseph unpacks the complex relationship between the civil rights movement and American democracy. And be sure to check out journalist Rick Perlstein’s essay on the 1972 George McGovern campaign and what it can, and cannot, teach liberals today.

Back Issues Archive

Features

Civic Security

Why FDR's bottom-up brand of civic defense should inspire progressive plans for homeland security today.

By Matthew Dallek

17 MIN READ

Viet Not

The history of the Vietnam War teaches that to preserve American strength and prestige, we must begin withdrawing from Iraq now.

By Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson

25 MIN READ

Wiki-Government

How open-source technology can make government decision-making more expert and more democratic.

By Beth Simone Noveck

24 MIN READ

Imperial March

President Bush has added more power to the imperial presidency than previously imagined. It's time to recalibrate the checks and balances between Congress and the president.

By Aziz Huq

22 MIN READ

Badlands

Twentieth-century government was all about public goods. This century will be all about public bads.

By Thomas Schaller

25 MIN READ

Book Reviews

Keeping the Faith

Why faith-based progressivism might not just be possible but desirable.

By Mary Jo Bane

12 MIN READ

The Myths of McGovern

Thirty-five years later, what the 1972 campaign can and can't teach liberals today.

By Rick Perlstein

15 MIN READ

Podhoretz's Complaint

Neoconservatism has failed. How liberal internationalism can triumph in its place.

By Anne-Marie Slaughter

15 MIN READ

Teaching Toughness

Al Shanker was more than just a punchline. He embodied a noble strain of liberalism that deserves a second look.

By Jim Sleeper

16 MIN READ

Lift Every Voice

The civil rights movement wasn't just about racial equality. It was about expanding American democracy.

By Peniel Joseph

16 MIN READ

Responses

Sunny Dazed

Optimism alone won't save the environment. A response to Gregg Easterbrook.

By Carl Pope

7 MIN READ

Recounting

The Word War

Whatever happened to the "War on Terror"?

By Andrei Cherny

9 MIN READ

Editor's Note

Editors' Note

For a country so young, America is fascinated with history and its less distinguished cousin, nostalgia. From the blockbuster Ken Burns series "The War" airing on endless loop on PBS to the Tony Award-winning "Jersey Boys" that recreates the doo-wop of...

By Kenneth Baer and Andrei Cherny

3 MIN READ

Letters

Letters to the Editor

Letters from our readers

By Democracy Readers

5 MIN READ

Back Issues Archive