Communal Democracy and its History

Communes and communal thought are an essential part of the history of democracy. By recognizing this we can re-discover the connection between democracy and local, small-scale self-government, and see that democracy has a communitarian as well as a liberal foundation.     

The Communal Basis of Swiss Liberty

This article examines the relationship between liberty and itscommunal basis in Switzerland. The author identifies the basiccultural values shared by the Swiss that have served to guaranteea republican form of government. These values are an expectationof "nonpersonalized" government and a preference for small-scaleorganization. These, together with the multilingual compositionof the country, have combined to produce Swiss republicanismfrom which liberty is a byproduct. More recently, the Swissnotion of liberty has evolved from communal liberty into onethat is oriented toward individual rights, which has also certainnegative implications.     

Rethinking Representation from a Communal Perspective

Most foundational theories of congressional representation were developed during an era of less polarized and less partisan politics. These theories viewed the incumbency advantage as buttressed by the fact that some constituents were willing to support legislators from the opposite party because of their “home styles.” But in an era of policy immoderation in Congress, this perspective leads to an assumption that citizens evaluate their members of Congress based on what those legislators do for them individually, rather than what they do for their districts more broadly. In this paper, we ask whether citizens take the interests of their fellow constituents into account when evaluating their members of Congress. Using both survey data and an experiment, we uncover support for the notion that citizens take a more communal view of representation as at least part of their evaluations of their representatives. This suggests individuals may have a more nuanced understanding of representation than purely self-interested approaches tend to assume.     

义门郑氏的礼法实践及其当代启示

浦江义门郑氏家族文化的内容结构体现为诚心正意、尚廉主德的立身品格,孝悌为本、敬宗收族的家族道义,广施仁爱、赈济乡里的睦邻意识,廉洁奉公、执政为民的政治操守。其实践路径在于:以礼仪与教化强化道德自觉,自律自治与协作监督并重,始终抱持与时俱进的通变思维。囿于历史的局限性,义门郑氏的礼法实践在价值取向、族人参与及规则约束等方面还存有不足。当前中国特色社会主义廉政文化建设在汲取传统家范智慧之时,需根据时代要求赋予其新的内涵,进行创造性转化。     

Making Sense of Our Lives

Williams, B. (2005) In the Beginning Was the Deed: Realism and Moralism in Political Argument , ed. G. Hawthorn. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.
Williams, B. (2006) The Sense of the Past: Essays in the History of Philosophy , ed. M. Burnyeat. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.
Williams, B. (2006) Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline , ed. A. W. Moore. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.     

Exemplary Lives and the Normative Theory of Culture

This article defends an essentialist account of culture against the recent turn toward nonessentialism in contemporary liberal multiculturalism. It does so by drawing on Friedrich Nietzsche's early period and argues that Nietzsche provides an alternative to the dominant tradition of Volk conceptions of culture that derive from J. G. Herder. Nietzsche's alternative—what I call the “Exemplar Account” of culture—defines culture in terms of the patterns of human excellence that constitute it. This alternative overcomes standard concerns about essentialism by embracing the nonessentialist insight into the fluidity and variability of any culture's beliefs, values, and practices, yet holds that exemplary lives transcend the flux of culture and individuate one culture from another. I suggest in conclusion a practical benefit of this conception of culture for contemporary multiculturalism—namely, it fares better than other conceptions in fostering integration among diverse cultures, a pressing worry facing the current project of multiculturalism.     

After Enactment: The Lives and Deaths of Federal Programs

While many scholars have focused on the production of legislation, we explore life after enactment. Contrary to the prevailing view that federal programs are indissoluble, we show that programmatic restructurings and terminations are commonplace. In addition, we observe significant changes in programmatic appropriations. We suggest that a sitting congress is most likely to transform, kill, or cut programs inherited from an enacting congress when its partisan composition differs substantially. To test this claim, we examine the postenactment histories of every federal domestic program established between 1971 and 2003, using a new dataset that distinguishes program death from restructuring. Consistent with our predictions, we find that changes in the partisan composition of congresses have a strong influence on program durability and size. We thus dispel the notion that federal programs are everlasting while providing a plausible coalition-based account for their evolution.