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Democracy’s 10 Year Retrospective

A collection of our favorite essays and book reviews.

By The Editors

A Message to our Readers, by Kenneth Baer & Andrei Cherny (Issue No.1, 2006) : our founders’ first salute to Democracy readers in 2006.

Families Valued
, by Karen Kornbluh (Issue No.2, 2006): on reforming our social insurance system for the needs of the twenty-first century family.

Unsafe at Any Rate, By Elizabeth Warren (Issue No.5, 2007): Warren lays out the case for what is now the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Rising Tide Economics, by Gene Sperling (Issue No.6, 2007): on why we need an economy that let’s us “grow together.”

Wiki-Government, by Beth Simone Noveck (Issue No.7, 2008): on the wisdom of the “expert public” for government decision-making.

Pay-As-You-Drive Car Insurance, by Jason Bordoff (Issue No.8, Symposium, 2012): the case for PAYD, and how to implement it.

Equality, by Orlando Patterson (Issue No.11, Symposium, 2008):  although the Obama presidency did not spell the end of segregation, it could help usher in a new era of integration, Patterson argued.

Our Bodies, Our World, by Dayo Olopade (Issue No.14, 2009): a review of The Means of Reproduction by Michelle Goldberg; and an indictment of the U.S. religious right’s role in fostering restrictive global abortion laws.

What Happened to Women?, by Katha Pollitt (Issue No.16, Symposium, 2010): why the individual and the social must come hand-in-hand in the fight for feminism.

In Front of His Nose, by Martin Kettle (Issue No.18, 2010): a review of Christopher Hitchens’s Hitch-22: A Memoir; reflections on a sometimes paradoxical life in political and intellectual thought.

The Un-Reluctant Fundamentalist, by Michelle Goldberg (Issue No.18, 2010): a review of Nomad by Ayaan Hirsi Ali; the author finds much to admire in Hirsi Ali, yet plenty to decry in her embrace of the American conservative movement.

Our Foreign Policy Blind Spots, by Leslie H. Gelb (Issue No.22, Symposium, 2011): on why the United States must temper its passions, and foster moderation, when engaging abroad.

The Roberts Court v. America, by Jedediah Purdy (Issue No.23, 2012): on why the courts must stop equating market freedom with personal freedom.

Our Country, Our Critic, by Christopher Byrd (Issue No.23, 2012): a review of  Alfred Kazin’s Journals;  and how the author’s life compelled him to stick to his socialist roots, unlike many of his contemporaries.

A New Progressive Federalism, by Heather K. Gerken (Issue No.24, 2012): on why progressives need no longer view local and state government as a harbinger of disempowerment and racism.

Arabian Fights, by Hussein Ibish (Issue No.24, 2012): a review of Liberation Square by Ashraf Khalil and The Arab Uprising by Marc Lynch; and why it was still too early to make broad-sweeping conclusions about the so-called “Arab Spring.”

Fortress Unionism, by Rich Yeselson (Issue No.29, 2013): in support of a “less is more” approach to halting the erosion of union membership—as we await the next mass labor movement.

An Elite Deserving of the Name, by Chrystia Freeland (Issue No.29, 2013): Freeland reviewed Mark Mizruchi’s The Fracturing of the American Corporate Elite; and finds his faith in the potential of the socially-conscious CEO soberly naive in the age of global capitalism.

The Tech Intellectuals, by Henry Farrell (Issue No.30, 2013): on the contradictory existence, and consequences, of today’s “public” intellectual.

Winter Has Come, by Andrew S. Weiss (Issue No.30, 2013): on what’s gone wrong in the U.S.-Russia relationship, and how the Obama Administration might start fixing it.

Battlefield Earth, by Heather Hurlburt (Issue No.31, 2014): on how de-emphasizing the threat of terrorism could help us better fight it.

Demography is not Destiny, by Jamelle Bouie (Issue No.31,2014): on why future demographic shifts won’t necessarily guarantee the Democratic electoral success we often assumed.

The Voluntarism Fantasy, by Mike Konczal (Issue No.32, 2014): on the conservative fallacy that charity can better provide for our needs than can government, and that it has done so in the past.

The Reformicons, by E.J. Dionne Jr. (Issue No.33, 2014): defining the modern-day conservative reform movement, and what it must learn in order to succeed.

The Inequality Puzzle, by Lawrence H. Summers (Issue No.33, 2014): a review of Thomas Piketty’s Capital:  despite emphasizing the importance of  his contribution, Summers does not share Piketty’s pessimism about the nature of capitalism.

Shared Security, Shared Growth, by Nick Hanauer & David Rolf (Issue No.37, 2015): on creating a “social contract” for the twenty-first century workforce.

How to Be American, by Eric Liu (Issue No.38, 2015): on the value of an American “cultural core,” that reflects both its diversity and contradictions, past and present.

The Editors of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas are Michael Tomasky (Editor), Jack Meserve (Managing Editor), and Delphine d'Amora (Associate Editor).

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Bernard Schwartz, 1925-2024

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