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Democratic Happiness

Roger Berkowitz looks at two essays presenting differing views on democracy.

Gerrymandering and State Power

Roger Berkowitz takes a look at political power in American in light of last week's Supreme Court decision on partisan gerrymandering.

Concentration Camps
 

Roger Berkowitz talks to The Independent about comments made by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez about detention centers along the U.S.—Mexico border.

Between Mill and Plato

Roger Berkowitz and Samantha Hill take a look at Jonny Thakkar's examination of political correctness.

Arendt’s Political Relevance

Roger Berkowitz shares John Thomason's examination of Arendt's ideas applied to the present time.

Immortality and Politics

Roger Berkowitz writes about immortality, Arendt, and Amber Scorah's reflections on grief.

The New Aristocrats

By Roger Berkowitz
Matthew Stewart in The Atlantic rehearses the truth that the top one percent of Americans are villains and the bottom 99 percent are the good guys. The reality, he argues, is more complicated. Stewart divides us instead into three classes. There is the top 0.1 percent who are masters of the universe and the bottom 90 percent who are losing out in a race to the bottom. In between is the top 9.9 percent who Stewart calls “the new aristocrats.”  While it is easy to claim to be part of the 99%, many who do so are part of this new aristocracy who Stewart argues are “accomplices in a process that is slowly strangling the economy, destabilizing American politics, and eroding democracy.”

A Disjunctive or  Disruptive President?

By Roger Berkowitz
Jack Balkin of Yale Law School recently described Donald Trump as a disjunctive president. Using a model developed by Stephen Skowroneck, Balkin argues that Trump represents the “last gasp of the vanishing Reagan era that began in 1980.” He writes...

Hannah Arendt’s Ethics

By Samantha Hill
Two pieces on Hannah Arendt’s analysis of Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil appeared this week. In a review essay for Contemporary Political Theory John Macready offers a probing critique of Deirdre Lauren Mahony’s Hannah Arendt’s Ethics...