CONFERENCES & EVENTS

Democracy in the Balance? The Polarized Politics of Political-Economic Reform

November 18, 2021
7:30 p.m.–9:00 p.m. ET
WEBINAR

Jacob S. Hacker, Professor of Political Science at Yale University, and Roger Berkowitz, Professor of Politics, Philosophy, and Human Rights at Bard College, discussed challenges facing American democracy. This event was organized by the Network for Responsible Public Policy.

SPEAKER

JACOB S. HACKER is Stanley Resor Professor of Political Science and a resident fellow of the Institution for Social and Policy Studies at Yale University. An expert on American politics and policy, he is the author or co-author of more than a half-dozen books, numerous journal articles, and a wide range of popular writings. His latest book, written with Paul Pierson, is Let Them Eat Tweets: How the Right Rules in an Age of Extreme Inequality (2020). Previously, the two wrote American Amnesia: How the War on Government Led Us to Forget What Made America Prosper (2016), Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class (2010), and Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy (2005). In addition, Professor Hacker is the author of works on health care reform (The Road to Nowhere (1997)), America’s public-private framework of social benefits (The Divided Welfare State (2002)), and U.S. economic insecurity (The Great Risk Shift (2006; revised and expanded edition, 2019)). A regular policy advisor and expert commentator, Professor Hacker is known for his writings on health policy, especially his development of the so-called public option. His awards include the Robert Ball Award of the National Academy of Social Insurance in 2020 and a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship in 2018. In addition to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he is a member of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, which inducted him as the Robert A. Dahl Fellow in 2021.

MODERATOR

ROGER BERKOWITZ is Founder and Academic Director of the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities and Professor of Politics, Philosophy, and Human Rights at Bard College. Professor Berkowitz authored The Gift of Science: Leibniz and the Modern Legal Tradition (Harvard, 2005; Fordham, 2010; Chinese Law Press, 2011). Berkowitz is editor of The Perils of Invention: Lying, Technology, and the Human Condition (forthcoming 2020) and co-editor of Thinking in Dark Times: Hannah Arendt on Ethics and Politics (2009), The Intellectual Origins of the Global Financial Crisis (2012), and Artifacts of Thinking: Reading Hannah Arendt’s Denktagebuch (2017). His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The American Interest, Bookforum, The Forward, The Paris Review Online, Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, and many other publications. Berkowitz edits HA: The Journal of the Hannah Arendt Center and the weekly newsletter Amor Mundi. He is the winner of the 2019 Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought given by the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Bremen, Germany.

EVENT CO-SPONSORS

Network for Responsible Public Policy
The Academy of Political Science
The Puffin Foundation
The News Literacy Project