william galston | The Brookings Institution (original) (raw)
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Papers by william galston
The San Diego law review, 2014
The Philosophical Forum, 1982
Liberal Pluralism, 2002
THE LIBERAL PLURALIST STATE AND FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION A liberal pluralist state will contain num... more THE LIBERAL PLURALIST STATE AND FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION A liberal pluralist state will contain numerous associations embodying very different conceptions of the ways in which human beings ought to relate to one another and of the goals they ought to pursue. This raises the issue of the proper relation between the state's general public principles and the particular principles that guide the diverse subcommunities. Before exploring this issue systematically, I want to reflect briefly on the reasons that it seems so pressing in the United States today. To begin with, the past decade has witnessed an increasing awareness of the existence and importance of civil society – that network of intimate, expressive, and associational institutions that stand between the individual and the state. The indigenous American discussion of this sphere goes back to Tocqueville; interest in it has been reinforced by Catholic social thought, by the events of the past decade in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, and by the felt inadequacies both of contemporary hyperindividualism and of our national public life. At the same time, three converging trends have turned this sphere into a flash point. U.S. civil society is becoming increasingly diverse; previously marginalized or minority groups are becoming increasingly assertive; and the reach of public authority is expanding into areas that were once considered substantially private. The application of general public principles to diverse associations, never a simple matter, is perhaps more complex now than ever before.
Journal of Democracy, 2018
For those who believe in liberal democracy, it is sobering to review the events of the past quart... more For those who believe in liberal democracy, it is sobering to review the events of the past quarter-century. Twenty-five years ago, liberal democracy was on the march. The Berlin Wall had fallen; the Soviet Union had collapsed; new democracies were emerging throughout Europe, and Russia seemed to be in transition as well. South Africa's apartheid regime was tottering. Even though China's government had brutally repressed a democracy movement, it was possible to believe that a more educated and prosperous Chinese middle class would eventually (and irresistibly) demand democratic reforms. Liberal democracy had triumphed, it seemed, not only in practice but also in principle. It was the only legitimate form of government. There was no alternative. Today, the global scene is very different. Liberal democracy faces multiple external challenges-from ethnonational autocracies, from regimes claiming to be based on God's word rather than the will of the people, from the success of strong-handed meritocracy in places such as Singapore, and, not least, from the astonishing economic accomplishments of China's market-Leninist system. But there is also an internal challenge to liberal democracy-a challenge from populists who seek to drive a wedge between democracy and liberalism. Liberal norms and policies, they claim, weaken democracy and harm the people. Thus, liberal institutions that prevent the people from acting democratically in their own interest should be set aside. It is this challenge on which I wish to focus.
What Should Constitutions Do?
American Political Science Review, 2000
The morning I began writing this review, the Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision in Bo... more The morning I began writing this review, the Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale. James Dale, an Eagle Scout and assistant scoutmaster, had his membership revoked when the Boy Scouts learned that he was gay. (A New Jersey newspaper had reported that he was copresident of the Rutgers gay and lesbian student organization.) Dale brought suit under a New Jersey law that bans discrimination based on sexual orientation in public accommodations. A narrow majority of the Court found that the New Jersey statute violated the Boy Scouts' First Amendment right of "expressive association," that is, its right to organize around the articulation of its preferred core values and to select members and leaders consistent with those values. Boy Scouts v. Dale was decided against a complex threefold background of contested issues: a constitutional debate about the often competing claims of associational liberty and individual equality; a normative/theoretical debate about the nature of civil society and its relation to liberal democracy; and an empirical debate sparked by Robert Putnam about changing patterns of associational life in the United States and the probable effects of these shifts. The articles in Freedom of Association help frame the broader constitutional and normative/theoretical issues and suggest considerations that empirical researchers would be well advised to consider. In parallel critical examinations of the leading Court decision in this area (Roberts v. United States Jaycees), George Kateb and Nancy Rosenblum offer spirited defenses of conceptions of freedom of association broad enough to support the majority opinion in Boy Scouts v. Dale. In her penetrating introduction, Amy Gutmann points out that freedom of association is not a constitutional absolute and that hard questions arise when it clashes with other core constitutional principles. She observes that it is not always clear when an association is "expressive" or should be regarded as a "public accommodation." In a detailed examination of issues and cases, Kent Greenawalt argues that constitutional claims based on religious association are often stronger than are other sorts of expressive associational claims, and this differential treatment is "reasonably defensible" from a wider normative point of view (pp. 137-8). Peter de Marneffe agrees, but with a qualification: It would be morally wrong for a government to compel the Catholic Church to ordain women as priests in violation of canon law and conscience, but it would not be wrong to override "uncodified local tradition" (p. 156). More broadly, he argues, there is no correct general account of associational rights; from a moral as well as constitutional standpoint, there is no alternative to a case-by-case approach that weighs the competing interests and arguments at play in specific controversies.
The American Historical Review, 1981
American Political Science Review, 1981
The San Diego law review, 2017
A liberal is a man too broad-minded to take his own side in a quarrel."-Robert Frost 1 "This will... more A liberal is a man too broad-minded to take his own side in a quarrel."-Robert Frost 1 "This will always remain one of the best jokes of democracy, that it gave its deadly enemies the means by which it was destroyed."-Joseph Goebbels 2 * © 2017. William A. Galston. William A. Galston holds the Ezra K. Zilkha Chair in the Brookings Institution's Governance Studies, where he serves as a senior fellow. 1. Frost appears to have used these words in discussing the newly-elected John F. Kennedy, whom he did not regard as a liberal in this sense. He may well have gotten the thought behind these words from a close friend, Harvard philosophy professor William Ernest Hocking, whose book What Man Can Make of Man, contains the line, "He lends himself to the gibe that he is 'so very liberal, that he cannot bring himself to take his own side in a quarrel.'" William Ernest Hocking, What Man Can Make of Man 45 (2d ed. 1942); see also THE WORDSWORTH DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS 133
Toward a Global Civil Society
Economics made possible by the generous support of
Justice and Equality Here and Now, 2019
Duke Law Journal’s 45th Annual Administrative Law Symposium explores rising dysfunction within th... more Duke Law Journal’s 45th Annual Administrative Law Symposium explores rising dysfunction within the federal appointments process. “Shortening Vacancies” with Anne Joseph O’Connell & William A. Galston“Effects of Senate Confirmation Delays in the Agencies” with Nina A. Mendelson & David E. LewisJohn M. de Figueiredo, moderator
Political Ideas in the Romantic Age, 2014
The San Diego law review, 2014
The Philosophical Forum, 1982
Liberal Pluralism, 2002
THE LIBERAL PLURALIST STATE AND FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION A liberal pluralist state will contain num... more THE LIBERAL PLURALIST STATE AND FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION A liberal pluralist state will contain numerous associations embodying very different conceptions of the ways in which human beings ought to relate to one another and of the goals they ought to pursue. This raises the issue of the proper relation between the state's general public principles and the particular principles that guide the diverse subcommunities. Before exploring this issue systematically, I want to reflect briefly on the reasons that it seems so pressing in the United States today. To begin with, the past decade has witnessed an increasing awareness of the existence and importance of civil society – that network of intimate, expressive, and associational institutions that stand between the individual and the state. The indigenous American discussion of this sphere goes back to Tocqueville; interest in it has been reinforced by Catholic social thought, by the events of the past decade in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, and by the felt inadequacies both of contemporary hyperindividualism and of our national public life. At the same time, three converging trends have turned this sphere into a flash point. U.S. civil society is becoming increasingly diverse; previously marginalized or minority groups are becoming increasingly assertive; and the reach of public authority is expanding into areas that were once considered substantially private. The application of general public principles to diverse associations, never a simple matter, is perhaps more complex now than ever before.
Journal of Democracy, 2018
For those who believe in liberal democracy, it is sobering to review the events of the past quart... more For those who believe in liberal democracy, it is sobering to review the events of the past quarter-century. Twenty-five years ago, liberal democracy was on the march. The Berlin Wall had fallen; the Soviet Union had collapsed; new democracies were emerging throughout Europe, and Russia seemed to be in transition as well. South Africa's apartheid regime was tottering. Even though China's government had brutally repressed a democracy movement, it was possible to believe that a more educated and prosperous Chinese middle class would eventually (and irresistibly) demand democratic reforms. Liberal democracy had triumphed, it seemed, not only in practice but also in principle. It was the only legitimate form of government. There was no alternative. Today, the global scene is very different. Liberal democracy faces multiple external challenges-from ethnonational autocracies, from regimes claiming to be based on God's word rather than the will of the people, from the success of strong-handed meritocracy in places such as Singapore, and, not least, from the astonishing economic accomplishments of China's market-Leninist system. But there is also an internal challenge to liberal democracy-a challenge from populists who seek to drive a wedge between democracy and liberalism. Liberal norms and policies, they claim, weaken democracy and harm the people. Thus, liberal institutions that prevent the people from acting democratically in their own interest should be set aside. It is this challenge on which I wish to focus.
What Should Constitutions Do?
American Political Science Review, 2000
The morning I began writing this review, the Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision in Bo... more The morning I began writing this review, the Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale. James Dale, an Eagle Scout and assistant scoutmaster, had his membership revoked when the Boy Scouts learned that he was gay. (A New Jersey newspaper had reported that he was copresident of the Rutgers gay and lesbian student organization.) Dale brought suit under a New Jersey law that bans discrimination based on sexual orientation in public accommodations. A narrow majority of the Court found that the New Jersey statute violated the Boy Scouts' First Amendment right of "expressive association," that is, its right to organize around the articulation of its preferred core values and to select members and leaders consistent with those values. Boy Scouts v. Dale was decided against a complex threefold background of contested issues: a constitutional debate about the often competing claims of associational liberty and individual equality; a normative/theoretical debate about the nature of civil society and its relation to liberal democracy; and an empirical debate sparked by Robert Putnam about changing patterns of associational life in the United States and the probable effects of these shifts. The articles in Freedom of Association help frame the broader constitutional and normative/theoretical issues and suggest considerations that empirical researchers would be well advised to consider. In parallel critical examinations of the leading Court decision in this area (Roberts v. United States Jaycees), George Kateb and Nancy Rosenblum offer spirited defenses of conceptions of freedom of association broad enough to support the majority opinion in Boy Scouts v. Dale. In her penetrating introduction, Amy Gutmann points out that freedom of association is not a constitutional absolute and that hard questions arise when it clashes with other core constitutional principles. She observes that it is not always clear when an association is "expressive" or should be regarded as a "public accommodation." In a detailed examination of issues and cases, Kent Greenawalt argues that constitutional claims based on religious association are often stronger than are other sorts of expressive associational claims, and this differential treatment is "reasonably defensible" from a wider normative point of view (pp. 137-8). Peter de Marneffe agrees, but with a qualification: It would be morally wrong for a government to compel the Catholic Church to ordain women as priests in violation of canon law and conscience, but it would not be wrong to override "uncodified local tradition" (p. 156). More broadly, he argues, there is no correct general account of associational rights; from a moral as well as constitutional standpoint, there is no alternative to a case-by-case approach that weighs the competing interests and arguments at play in specific controversies.
The American Historical Review, 1981
American Political Science Review, 1981
The San Diego law review, 2017
A liberal is a man too broad-minded to take his own side in a quarrel."-Robert Frost 1 "This will... more A liberal is a man too broad-minded to take his own side in a quarrel."-Robert Frost 1 "This will always remain one of the best jokes of democracy, that it gave its deadly enemies the means by which it was destroyed."-Joseph Goebbels 2 * © 2017. William A. Galston. William A. Galston holds the Ezra K. Zilkha Chair in the Brookings Institution's Governance Studies, where he serves as a senior fellow. 1. Frost appears to have used these words in discussing the newly-elected John F. Kennedy, whom he did not regard as a liberal in this sense. He may well have gotten the thought behind these words from a close friend, Harvard philosophy professor William Ernest Hocking, whose book What Man Can Make of Man, contains the line, "He lends himself to the gibe that he is 'so very liberal, that he cannot bring himself to take his own side in a quarrel.'" William Ernest Hocking, What Man Can Make of Man 45 (2d ed. 1942); see also THE WORDSWORTH DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS 133
Toward a Global Civil Society
Economics made possible by the generous support of
Justice and Equality Here and Now, 2019
Duke Law Journal’s 45th Annual Administrative Law Symposium explores rising dysfunction within th... more Duke Law Journal’s 45th Annual Administrative Law Symposium explores rising dysfunction within the federal appointments process. “Shortening Vacancies” with Anne Joseph O’Connell & William A. Galston“Effects of Senate Confirmation Delays in the Agencies” with Nina A. Mendelson & David E. LewisJohn M. de Figueiredo, moderator
Political Ideas in the Romantic Age, 2014