Spring 2008, No. 8

At the height of the holiday season, we here at Democracy received a gift of our own—The Utne Independent Press Awards named us the best new publication of 2007! Competing against the several hundred magazines and journals launched last year, we consider this a real honor. “This quarterly ‘journal of ideas’ has consistently presented fresh perspectives on American foreign policy and politics,” the award panel wrote. “Democracy fills a void in today’s media landscape: It’s an intelligent, wide-ranging political magazine.”

Look at this most recent issue and you’ll see why we were picked. Our lead article is a lengthy symposium featuring 20 of the progressive world’s leading thinkers, each of whom presents a fresh idea for tackling some of the nation’s most pressing problems, from retiring Baby Boomers to water shortages. Alongside it are two exciting foreign-policy essays: The first, by Carnegie Endowment scholar Joshua Kurlantzick, on the pluses and minuses of sovereign wealth funds, and the second, by the Asia Society’s Jamie Metzl, on the unrecognized danger lurking at the intersection of genetic engineering and international relations. Alongside our features are several thoughtful book review/essays, including a hilarious, and hilariously smart, piece by Guardian America editor Michael Tomasky on the isolationist tendency in American conservatism.

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Symposium

What's Next? The New Progressive Agenda

For at least a decade, progressive thinking has been imprisoned. The fighting faith of the twentieth century has been paralyzed by the need to protect its past achievements and by a divided political landscape that has left it capable of...

By Kenneth Baer and Andrei Cherny

2 MIN READ

End Foreign Aid As We Know It

By Larry Diamond

4 MIN READ

New Economy Safety Net

By Lael Brainard

4 MIN READ

Expand the House of Representatives

By Larry Sabato

3 MIN READ

Cap and Lease Carbon

By John Irons

4 MIN READ

A Helsinki Process for the Middle East

By Michael McFaul

4 MIN READ

Progressive Consumption Tax

By Robert Frank

4 MIN READ

Smart Development Subsidies

By Brad Carson

4 MIN READ

Affordable Long-Term Care

By Jeanne Lambrew

3 MIN READ

Public Diplomacy Cabinet Post

By William Galston

4 MIN READ

Middle-Class Schools for All

By Richard Kahlenberg

4 MIN READ

Tradable Water Rights

By Michael Greenstone

4 MIN READ

Home Guard

By Lawrence Korb

3 MIN READ

Pay-As-You-Drive Car Insurance

By Jason Bordoff

4 MIN READ

An SBA For Non-Profits

By Shirley Sagawa

4 MIN READ

After-School Coupons

By Andrew Rotherham

4 MIN READ

A Third Age Bill

By Gara LaMarche

4 MIN READ

Total Tax Credit

By Michael Lind

3 MIN READ

Reinvent Medicare

By David Kendall

4 MIN READ

Deepen Gun Ownership

By Jim Kessler

4 MIN READ

Community Insurance

By Robert Lawrence

3 MIN READ

Features

A Fistful of Dinars

For a nation reeling from the subprime crisis, sovereign wealth funds can be more a blessing than a curse—but only if we make the right moves now.

By Joshua Kurlantzick

26 MIN READ

Brave New World War

Genetic engineering will soon turn science fiction to fact. Why we need a new global treaty to control it.

By Jamie Metzl

17 MIN READ

Book Reviews

Grid to the Twenty-First Century

Will a more networked society be a less free society?

By Reed Hundt

13 MIN READ

Separation Anxiety

Can the American approach to religion work outside the West?

By Yehudah Mirsky

16 MIN READ

Well-Regulated

The future of progressive governance depends on the unglamorous, little-noticed world of regulation.

By Anne Joseph O'Connell

14 MIN READ

Bolívar's Ghost

Latin America is a dynamic continent at a political crossroads. The next president's policy will help lead it toward greater prosperity or lead it to a dangerous populism.

By Ted Piccone

14 MIN READ

Ron Paul's America

The promise and peril of the isolationist strain in American Conservatism.

By Michael Tomasky

14 MIN READ

Responses

Faith No More

The Bush Administration has proven once and for all that church and state must be kept far apart. A response to Mary Jo Bane.

By Susan Jacoby

10 MIN READ

The Foolishness of Crowds

Importing the wiki model of policymaking will mean less democracy, not more. A response to Beth Simone Noveck.

By Andrew Keen

10 MIN READ

Recounting

A Democratic Primary

It's time to give all voters a voice and have a national primary.

By Kenneth Baer

10 MIN READ

Editor's Note

Editors' Note

Kenneth Baer and Andrei Cherny introduce Issue #8.

By Kenneth Baer and Andrei Cherny

4 MIN READ

Letters

Letters to the Editor

Letters from our readers

By Democracy Readers

5 MIN READ

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