Call for Applications

(open for applications from USA, Germany and Ukraine)

We are happy to invite you to participate in the Institute of Civic Studies and Learning (ICSLD) for Democracy that will take place in Augsburg, Germany, from August 19 – 28, 2022. The ICSLD is organized by a team from North Carolina State University (Prof. Chad Hoggan), the University of Augsburg (Dr. habil. Tetyana Hoggan-Kloubert), with the support by Tufts University (Prof. Peter Levine) und University of Maryland (Prof. Karol Soltan).

Objectives and topics

The Institute of Civic Studies and Learning for Democracy is an intensive, ten-day, seminar and residential retreat—bringing together practitioners, graduate students, and faculty from the U.S., Germany, and Ukraine, and from diverse professions and fields of study. Participants will be staying in the same hotel and participating in workshops, planning sessions, and social events all day and evening throughout the ten days. Costs for hotel and meals will be covered by ICSLD.

The ICSLD deals with issues related to the development of civil society, the role of the individual/citizen in society, the role of education in promoting democracy, the role of institutions in the development of a civil society, and questions related to the ethical foundation of civic issues in a (democratic) society. These topics will be examined in international and comparative perspectives, considering European (especially German und Ukrainian) and U.S.-American civic traditions.

The ICSLD engages participants in challenging discussions such as:

• What kinds of citizens (if any) do good regimes need?
• What should such citizens know, believe, and do?
• What practices and institutional structures promote the right kinds of citizenship?
• What ought to be the relationships among empirical evidence, ethics, and strategy?

The Institute of Civic Studies and Learning for Democracy is a continuation of the Summer Institute of Civic Studies, which was organized annually by Peter Levine, Karol Soltan, and Tetyana Hoggan-Kloubert from 2015-2019 (and at Tufts University since 2009).

How to apply

All application materials must be submitted in English. The application must include the following:

• A cover letter telling us why you want to participate in the ICSLD and how the seminar will help you promote civic capacities and engagement in the area in which you live (currently or in the future) (maximum 2 pages)
• A curriculum vitae
• All application material can be sent as an email attachment in DOC or PDF format to tetyana.kloubert@phil.uni-augsburg.de.

Decisions will be announced before the end of May 2022. The total number of participants will be limited to 20 (approximately 5 from the U.S., 10 from Germany, and 5 from Ukraine. We are interested in applicants who have a long-term interest in developing the civic potential in their respective countries.

The working language of the Summer Institute will be English. Your mastery of the English language must be sufficient to read and understand complex texts from multiple disciplines, and to take part in a lively discussion.

Deadline

For best consideration apply by May 20, 2022.

Expenditures

Selected participants will be provided with accommodation, meals, and full event access. (In cases of urgent need, reimbursement for travel costs may be possible.)

Contact

For more information about the Institute of Civic Studies and Learning for Democracy, please contact tetyana.kloubert@phil.uni-augsburg.de. We encourage you to share this message with your networks of people who might be interested in attending.

The idea that liberty and equality are in tension has distinguished sources. As Danielle Allen wrote years ago,

By the Cold War, both communists and libertarians structured their ideas, to an important degree, around the tenet that there is “an Eternal Conflict” between liberty and equality, to quote the title of a 1960 article from the Freeman, a publication of the Foundation for Economic Education. Iconic thinkers on the right adopted the theme and built economic theories around it: Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. But liberals and thinkers on the left — Isaiah Berlin, John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin — also assumed a basic opposition between liberty and equality, even if they sought to undo it.

On the left–that is, left of the liberals whom Allen named–it has been common to deny that equity and liberty are at odds. Karl Marx writes at least as vividly about freedom (or “emancipation”) as about equity, and anarchists are even more likely to see the two values as consistent. In today’s leftist social movements, people talk more about liberation than equity, and (in my experience) they often reject the suggestion that these may be rival goods. To some extent, they may define freedom or liberty differently from classical liberals, seeing it as something other than individual choice. But I also think that some contemporary leftists support the freedom of classical liberalism–freedom to do what you prefer–and believe that it is fully compatible with equity, or even depends on it.

I agree that these two goods do not have a zero-sum relationship. For one thing, it is possible to improve institutions so that they yield more freedom along with more equity. That can result from reducing corruption, rent-seeking, and discrimination and making institutions better at learning and more responsive to valid ideas and arguments.

Besides, it is unlikely that an ordinary increase in equity will cause a proportional decrease in freedom, or vice-versa. For instance, a 5-percent increase in a given tax will probably not cause liberty to lessen by some comparable measure. Taxing wealthy people to fund education and healthcare for poor people may even enhance the freedom of the latter without really affecting the former appreciably. Or it might not be helpful. The outcome is an empirical question; mileage may vary. I am just making the familiar point that there is no inevitable relationship.

Yet I do believe that the two goods conflict, and I think that sophisticated social democrats and left-liberals implicitly realize that. After all, the most impressive social democratic societies tolerate a great deal of inequality. They have social classes and social hierarchies, wealthy citizens and welfare recipients.

Sweden, for example, has a GINI coefficient of about 29. This is one of the lowest in the world, much lower than the USA’s 41.5. It nevertheless represents a great deal of inequality, which persists inter-generationally. Sweden stopped creating nobles in the 17th century. Despite the industrial revolution, emigration, democracy, and socialism, families whose names indicate noble heritage are still richer than other Swedes. Indeed, mobility is about the same in Sweden as in the USA when measured by the odds that children will attain different percentile rankings than their parents, although there is a smaller absolute gap between the richest and the poorest in Sweden.

At the same time, social democracies offer a lot of individual freedom. The conservative Heritage Foundation ranks Sweden 11th in the world in freedom, above the USA at 25. This example reinforces the point that freedom and equity do not simply trade off–Sweden does well on both dimensions. But it also reminds us that social democratic states are not very equitable, even though they are quite free.

To make Sweden much more equitable, as measured by the GINI coefficient or a metric of mobility, someone would have to take a lot of wealth away from the upper strata. Once everyone had the same wealth (or everyone had resources equally proportional to their needs), someone who have to keep that situation stable, intervening whenever individuals moved above the mean due to luck, talent, or anything else. That “someone” might be a state, which would face opposition and would have to use tools like police and prisons to accomplish its agenda. Or it might be an energized mass movement, like the mobilized workers of the Chinese Cultural Revolution (presuming those workers weren’t arms of the state). Either way, the force that accomplished equity and then policed it–I use the verb advisedly–would pose a threat to liberty. It would be coercive, probably violent, and certainly involved in everyone’s business all the time.

This is not an objection to the social democratic ideas of people like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. These leaders want to increase taxes and regulations somewhat and increase government spending somewhat. They are also fierce defenders of specific liberties. I am sure they would oppose (on principled grounds) the amount of coercion, surveillance, and control necessary to accomplish real equity. They are in the liberal vein of Isaiah Berlin, John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin–the writers Allen named as proponents of a tradeoff between freedom and equity. They implicitly recognize this tradeoff and wouldn’t sacrifice much freedom to achieve equity.

In short, we can strive to have more equity and more liberty than we have now. That is the objective of left-liberals in the US. (State-capacity libertarians also share this goal, albeit with different practical assumptions.) However, we should not deny the conflict between equity and liberty when either is pushed near its limit. In those situations, I maintain that liberty is more important, which makes me a liberal. I would claim that Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are also liberals, in this sense. Liberals should acknowledge that we are not radical egalitarians; we are just more egalitarian than most US elected officials are.

See also: explore equity and inequity in the USA; debating equity; defining equity and equality; sorting out human welfare, equity and mobility; better governments tend to be bigger; when social advantage persists for millennia; why some forms of advantage are more stubborn than others; the Nordic model; six types of freedom;

Two recent studies:

• Skinner-Dorkenoo, Sarmal, Rogbeer, André, Patel & Cha find that showing White Americans information about “the persistent inequalities that produced COVID-19” resulted in respondents reporting lower fear of COVID-19, less “empathy for those vulnerable to COVID-19,” and less “support for safety precautions.” White people who were already more aware of racial disparities were already less concerned about COVID-19; giving them more information further reduced their concern. This study builds on previous findings that informing White people about racial disparities in the criminal justice system reduces their commitment to reform.
• Julian E. Barnes and Edward Wong report in The New York Times that “a group of Ukrainian activists, government officials and think tanks, called the Information Strategies Council of Ukraine, has sent emails and social media messages to 15 million Russian men of draft age, between 18 and 27.” These activists find that “Russians tend to dismiss messages highlighting Russian war crimes as American propaganda …, and pictures of Russian casualties run the risk of inciting anger at Ukraine, rather than the Kremlin.” Instead, “The most successful posts [focus] on the incompetence and corruption of Russian military leaders,” which highlights the suffering of Russian soldiers.

On one hand, we must speak freely and frankly about injustice. We must be able to address the powerful with moral critiques. Otherwise, crucial issues will be absent from the public debate, moral growth will be near-impossible, truths will be hidden, and those who suffer will lose their voice.*

On the other hand, it is a pretty safe bet that telling human beings they have unfair advantages is a good way to alert them to privileges they will want to protect. I am hard pressed to think of examples of progress that resulted from telling people they held advantages–no matter how eloquently or cleverly.

I can think of fairly large groups of people who have demonstrated moral growth, but generally at a slow pace and without major cost to themselves. For instance, the Federal Republic of Germany now recalls its Nazi past responsibly, but that happened well after World War II. First, foreign nations destroyed the Nazi regime; then Germans gradually accomplished moral growth. “In Germany, despite Allied efforts at de-Nazification, many Germans in the immediate postwar era maintained strong prejudice against Jews, even as they denied all knowledge of Hitler’s crimes,” writes Robert S. Wistrich. It took another generation and favorable political and economic circumstances for opinions to shift.

This does not mean that radical and rapid change is impossible; it frequently occurs. There are alternatives to moral persuasion. Advantaged people can be forced to change (as in the WWII case), they can be paid off, or they can be persuaded that they will benefit from change.

For instance, in the current war, Ukrainians are not, for the most part, trying to persuade Russians of any moral case. Instead, they are trying to destroy Russian battalion tactical groups, aircraft, and ships in order to defeat the invasion. Meanwhile, if Russians can be persuaded that they are suffering unnecessarily at the hands of their own government, so much the better. That message may give the Kremlin some headaches. (And it is true, even though it is extremely selective.)

The great Bayard Rustin criticized people who

survey the American scene and find no forces prepared to move toward radical solutions. From this they conclude that the only viable strategy is shock; above all, the hypocrisy of white liberals must be exposed. These spokesmen are often described as the radicals of the movement, but they are really its moralists. They seek to change white hearts. … To believe this, of course, you must be convinced, even unconsciously, that at the core of the white man’s heart lies a buried affection for Negroes–a proposition one may be permitted to doubt. But in any case, hearts are not relevant to the issue; neither racial affinities nor racial hostilities are rooted there. It is institutions–social, political, and economic institutions–which are the ultimate molders of collective sentiments. Let those institutions be reconstructed today, and let the ineluctable gradualism of history govern the formation of a new psychology.

“From Protest to Politics: The Future of the Civil Rights Movement” (Commentary, 2/39, Feb. 1965).

Both morality and politics matter. They are related but not identical. Morality demands speaking truth to power. But politics is about accomplishing beneficial change. Often, politics is more urgent; morality is better addressed in the wake of political success.

*To be sure, people sometimes make unfair or invalid critiques, but those should be aired, too, so they can be rebutted

It’s possible to organize a group of people so that goods and time are shared and decisions are consensual. Such groups avoid relying on two other prevalent forms of organization: authority (some tell others what to do) and exchange (individuals regard their goods and time as private property and trade them transactionally). We even see sharing and consensus arise in familiar locations like corporate offices, where workers will voluntarily share a stapler without keeping score, so long as morale is reasonably high.

With apologies for the oversimplification, I would assign the consensus-based commons to two categories: traditional ones–often agricultural villages of long standing–and experimental ones: intentional alternatives to the dominant society.

An example of traditional commons (one of many) is a longhouse in the Iroquois nations, “where most goods were stockpiled and then allocated by women’s councils, and no one ever traded arrowheads for slabs of meat” (Graeber, 2011, p. 47). Such institutions are not chosen by their participants; people grow up in them. They presumably encompass a range of personality-types and opinions, but they tend to socialize their children to be useful participants. That means that they may inculcate strongly communitarian values, even to the point where I might object to a lack of concern for autonomy and diversity.

In contrast, experimental commons are set up by founders (individuals or groups) who recruit volunteer participants. Here I have in mind New Harmony, IN from 1814-1827 and many other Victorian utopian socialist communities, workers’ co-ops, Black Mountain College (1933-1957) and other experimental schools, Gandhian ashrams, hippie communes, kibbutzes, #occupy encampments, and many more.

Traditional commons have set extraordinary records for durability (Ostrom 1990). Some of the experimental commons also survive for quite long periods. A house in my neighborhood has been a successful commune since the early 1970s; the original residents are now aging in place. However, the overall record of utopian experiments seems disappointing. Even the ones that survive fail to spread widely–perhaps because of organized opposition, but perhaps also because they do not appeal to most people.

I think part of the problem is that self-conscious utopian experiments attract principle-driven idealists. Such people can be effective collaborative workers, but I doubt that idealism correlates with effectiveness. You have to be very lucky to find a full complement of participants who are both committed to building utopia and good at getting the work done. Even those rare types tend to be overly concerned about abstract principles, and thus too reluctant to compromise and too sensitive to hypocrisy or imperfect processes. The record shows many cases of controversy and disintegration, or a drift toward intolerant extremism and capture by the radical fringe, or–ironically–dominance by a charismatic leader who thrives in an atmosphere without sharp and clear limits on power.

Years ago, I used to speculate about an alternative form of college or university in which all the faculty shared the essential work of administration and student affairs. There would be no distinctions among instructors, administrators, and staff, but roles would be rotated or shared, and decisions would be made by committees.

I still think that this could work and it might cut costs and improve results. But I believe you would need a crew of easy-going pragmatists to get it done. They would have to be the kind of people who address pressing problems without generating unnecessary new ones; who notice serious injustices toward others but don’t stand on ceremony when it comes to themselves; who think ahead about what needs to be done and are quick to volunteer to do it; who balance their own needs with the common good in a sustainable way; and who may even demonstrate some impatience with fine questions of principle.

The problem is, it’s hard to attract people like that to a risky experiment, and it’s hard to keep ideologues out. If someone figures out a solution to this selection problem, we will be more likely to see successful experiments that influence the mainstream.

David Graeber, Debt: The First Five Thousand Years (Melville House, Kindle Edition, 2011); Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). See also: making college much cheaper; the death of an ancient commons?; what a libertarian commune says about political socialization and freedom. (I am mildly amused to find that I made a similar argument in 2015 but forgot it completely.)

June 24, 2022, 9 am-4:30 pm, live in Boston or online

In 2022, the annual Frontiers of Democracy conference at Tufts University’s Tisch College of Civic Life has a special format. The main activity will be to deliberate in small groups—at tables or on Zoom—about the issues raised in selected “civic cases.”  

Individuals may choose to attend either in-person or remotely. The entire conference will take place between 9 am and 4:30 pm on June 24. The in-person version will be held in Tufts’ downtown Boston campus.

If you have not done so already, please purchase a ticket for the event now, choosing an in-person or remote ticket.

If registration for the face-to-face version looks unexpectedly low, or if the pandemic situation worsens, it may be necessary to cancel the in-person version. In that case, in-person tickets will be refunded in full. The status of the face-to-face meeting will be reviewed on May 13.

In-person attendees will be required to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination and to follow other Tufts procedures in force in June, as described here.

“Civic cases”

Civic cases describe difficult choices faced by real groups of activists, social-movement participants, or colleagues in nonprofit organizations. By discussing what we would do in similar situations, we can develop civic skills, explore general issues, and form or strengthen relationships with other activists and thinkers.

Most of the cases for Frontiers 2022 have been developed by the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University, Justice in Schools, or the Pluralism Project at Harvard, which are co-sponsors of Frontiers this summer. Selected cases can be found here, and more options will be available by June. Unlike most cases about business, public policy, or ethics, these stories involve groups of voluntary participants who must make decisions together. This website (based on Peter Levine’s new book,What Should We Do?) provides an optional framework for such discussions. You will be able to indicate your preference for which cases to discuss. Each group will discuss a case either online or face-to-face (not in a hybrid format). There will be time for two case discussions on June 24, plus plenary sessions meant for both remote and in-person attendees together.

About Frontiers

Frontiers of Democracy has been held annually since 2009, with a hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It traditionally attracted about 140 activists and scholars or advanced students from many countries for relatively informal discussions of civic topics. The 2022 version is intentionally shorter and hybrid in format.

I am very happy to serve on this committee and would be open to questions about it:

The Scholars at Risk (SAR) Program at Tufts is dedicated to helping scholars, artists, writers, and public intellectuals from around the world escape persecution and continue their work by providing ten-month-long academic fellowships at Tufts University. Tufts has been a member of the international Scholars at Risk (SAR) network, which is chaired by Tufts Trustee Lisa Anderson, since 2011. Tufts has hosted several scholars in the past in both Medford and Boston. These scholars have made positive contributions to our academic life and offered important perspectives to our students and faculty.

Details are here. There may also be opportunities to conduct funded research or to teach from Ukraine (or from other countries in crisis) without coming to Tufts, but that is still being considered.

The Florida College and University Faculty Assembly (FL-CUFA) invites proposals for scholarship to be presented at its Annual Meeting, which will be held during the Florida Council for the Social Studies Annual Conference.  FL-CUFA’s program will include papers, symposiums, contemporary issues dialogue, and research-into-practice sessions focused on empirical research or conceptual analyses of social studies education. 

Deadline: Sunday, July 31, 2022 @ 11:59 p.m. 

Presentation Formats 

Paper Presentations (20 minutes) 

An individual paper presentation gives authors an opportunity to present abbreviated versions of their empirical or theoretical/conceptual scholarship. After the papers are presented, time will be provided for audience interaction, focusing on commentary on key revelations, vexations, and themes raised by the papers. For the sake of effective presentation and discussion, individual papers should be limited to 3,000 words, excluding references. The typical structure for a session with two papers includes a brief introduction by the chairperson or the presenters themselves, 20 minutes for each author’s presentation, and 10 minutes of audience participation. 

Symposium Sessions (50 minutes) 

A symposium offers presenters and audience members the opportunity to explore a particular problem or theme from various perspectives. Organizers of symposium sessions typically establish the topic, identify and solicit participation from appropriate scholars, and assemble and submit a single proposal representing the collective work of participants. Symposium proposals should include no more than four participants. The organizer must obtain permission and input from each individual represented in a symposium proposal. Symposium papers should be limited to 3,000 words. The lead presenter will determine how time is to be allocated to each presenter for symposium sessions. 

Contemporary Issues Dialogue (50 minutes) 

The contemporary issues dialogue format offers conference attendees an opportunity to explore contemporary issues or dilemmas in social education via a unique forum not represented by paper sessions and symposiums. Contemporary issues dialogues can include informal discussions, town hall meetings, roundtables, papers-in-progress, structured poster sessions, research planning and methodological activities, video presentations and performances, and book talks. Sessions that promote active participation and open dialogue among audience members are strongly encouraged. Proposal authors will determine how time is to be allocated during contemporary issues dialogues. 

Research-Into-Practice Sessions (50 minutes) 

Research-into-practice sessions offer FL-CUFA members the opportunity to discuss and demonstrate the implications of research for educational practice. Given their association with the regular FCSS Conference program, audience members typically are classroom teachers, teacher educators, supervisors, and school administrators. With that audience in mind, presentations should feature scholarly, yet accessible, discussions and activities of interest to practicing educators. Proposal authors will determine how time is to be allocated during research into practice sessions. 

Submission Guidelines 

Presenters must provide, in an email to the Program Chair, Scott Waring (swaring@ucf.edu), the following: 

1. The names of all presenters and corresponding affiliations 
2. Lead presenter’s mailing address, email, and phone number 
3. A Microsoft Word compatible document, as described below, that includes a narrative of 3,000 words or fewer, excluding title, abstract, and references. 

Because proposals will be reviewed in a blind peer review process, please do not include the names or affiliations of authors and presenters in the proposal document and ensure that no identifying information is embedded in the proposal document as metadata. 

The Program Chair reserves the right to reject without review any proposal that exceeds the 3,000-word limit. The Program Chair reserves the right to disqualify submissions in which authors’ identifying information is revealed. 

The submission deadline is Sunday, July 31, 2022 @ 11:59 p.m. 

Individual Paper and Symposium Proposal Contents 

Each proposal should include the following elements: a) the title; b) an abstract of 35 words or less; c) the purposes and/or objectives of the study; d) the theoretical framework or perspective; e) research design and/or methods of inquiry; f) findings or arguments and their warrants; g) the importance of the work’s contribution to scholarship; and h) references. To preserve the integrity of the blind peer review process, please do not include the names or affiliations of authors and presenters in the proposal document. The Program Chair reserves the right to disqualify submissions in which authors’ identifying information is revealed. The review criteria will incorporate the clarity, organization, and perceived scholarly significance of elements c) through g) above.  

Contemporary Issues Dialogue and Research Into Practice (RIP) Proposal Contents 

Contemporary Issues Dialogue and RIP session proposals should include the following elements, as appropriate: a) the title of ten words or less; b) an abstract of 35 words or less; c) the purposes and objectives of the session; d) theory and research in which the session is grounded; e) methods of presentation or modes of activity for the session; f) findings or arguments and their warrants; and g) references.  

To preserve the integrity of the blind peer review process, please do not include the names or affiliations of authors and presenters in the proposal document. The Program Chair reserves the right to disqualify submissions in which authors’ identifying information is revealed. The review criteria will incorporate the clarity, organization, and perceived significance of elements c) through f) above. 

Participation Requirements 

It is expected that all authors or presenters represented in a proposal will register for the FCSS Annual Meeting and attend and participate in conference sessions. If an emergency or other unforeseen circumstance precludes a participant from attending, she or he should immediately contact the Program Chair, Scott Waring, at swaring@ucf.edu. To promote diversity among perspectives and participants, no presenter shall appear as author or co-author on more than two proposals.