July 8-18, 2013
Tisch College, Tufts University
The fifth annual Summer Institute of Civic Studies will be an intensive, two-week, interdisciplinary seminar bringing together advanced graduate students, faculty, and practitioners from diverse fields of study.
Organized by Peter Levine, Tisch College, and Karol Sołtan, University of Maryland, the Summer Institute features guest seminars by distinguished colleagues from various institutions and 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 syllabus for the fourth annual seminar (in 2012) is below. The 2013 syllabus will be modified but will largely follow this outline. You can also read more about the motivation for the Institute in the Framing Statement.
The daily sessions will take place from July 8-18, 2013, at the Tufts campus in Medford, MA. The seminar will be followed (from July 18 at 6 pm until July 20 at 3 pm) by a public conference–Frontiers of Democracy 2013–in downtown Boston. Participants in the institute are required to stay for the public conference. See information on the 2012 conference here.
Tuition for the Institute is free, but students are responsible for their own housing and transportation. A Tufts University dormitory room can be rented for $230-$280/week. Credit is not automatically offered but special arrangements for graduate credit may be possible.
The 2013 seminar is now full. It is an annual opportunity, and we will welcome applications in 2014 for the 2014 Institute. You may up for occasional announcements below.
Completing this form does not mean that you have applied; that requires emailing Peter Levine with your materials.
2012 Syllabus
(Links are mostly to copyrighted documents and require class registration for access.)
Monday July 9
9:30-11:30 AM: Introductions and Inspirations (PL and KS)
- Framing Statement for the Summer Institute
- Vaclav Havel, Address at Wroclaw University (December 21, 1992)
- Vincent Ostrom, “Citizen Sovereigns” (the 2005 John Gaus Lecture), PS, 39 (2006): 13-17
- Seamus Heaney, “In the Republic of Conscience”
- Images: fist of Otpor and open hand from Chandigarh
1 pm – 3:00 pm: Seminar on Civic Theory
Theorist: Elinor Ostrom and the commons [KS]
- Thomas Dietz, Nives Dolsak, Elinor Ostrom, and Paul C. Stern, “The Drama of the Commons,” in Elinor Ostrom, ed., Drama of the Commons, pp. 3-26.
- Elinor Ostrom, “Covenants, Collective Action, and Common-Pool Resources“
- Peter Barnes, Capitalism 3.0: A Guide to Reclaiming the Commons. Pp. ix-xvi, 3-11. Available online.
3:30-5:30 pm Seminar on Civic Practice: The venues of civic work
Venue: The person in development as a citizen [PL]
- David Elkind, “Erik Erikson’s Eight Ages of Man.” (NY Times article from 1970)
- Karl Mannheim, “The Problem of Generations” (excerpt)
- Joel Westheimer and Joseph E. Kahne, “Educating the ‘Good Citizen’: Political Choices and Pedagogical Goals,” PS Online
- Hugh McIntosh and James Youniss, “Toward a Political Theory of Political Socialization of Youth.”
No visitor
Tuesday, July 10
10 AM – 12 noon: Seminar on Civic Theory
Theorist: Jürgen Habermas and critical social theory [PL]
- Jürgen Habermas, “The Public Sphere: An Encylopedia Article,” New German Critique, 3 (1974), pp. 49-55
- Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding Politics, pp. 1-22
- James Finlayson, Habermas: A Very Short Introduction, Chapters 1, 2, 4 (pp. 1-27, 47-61);
2-4 pm Seminar on Civic Practice: The venues of civic work
Venue: Negotiation and deliberation [KS and PL]
- Roger Fisher and William Ury, Getting to Yes (2d ed.), Chapter 1 “Don’t Bargain Over Positions” pp. 3-14.
- Archon Fung, “Recipes for Public Spheres: Eight Institutional Design Choices and Their Consequences” in Journal of Political Philosophy, vol. 11, No. 3. (September 2003), pp. 338-67.
- Bernard Manin “Deliberation: Why We Should Focus on Debate Rather Than Discussion.”
- Jane Mansbridge et al. “The Place of Self-Interest and the Role of Power in Deliberative Democracy,” Journal of Political Philosophy, 18, no 1 (2010): 64-100.
Visitor
Dr. Ben Hertzberg (Health Policy, Harvard)
Wednesday, July 11
10 AM – 12 noon: Seminar on Civic Theory
Theorist: Robert Putnam and social capital [PL]
- Robert D. Putnam, “Community-Based Social Capital and Educational Performance,” in Ravitch and Viteritti, eds., Making Good Citizens, pp. 58-95;
- Jean L. Cohen, “American Civil Society Talk,” in Robert K. Fullinwider, ed., Civil Society, Democracy, and Civic Renewal, pp. 55-85
2-4 pm Seminar on Civic Practice: The venues of civic work
Venue: Community organizing and popular education [PL]
- John Gaventa, Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley, pp. 3-32
- Saul Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, 1946 (1969 edition), pp. 76-81; 85-88; 92-100, 132-5, 155-158.
- Myles Horton and Paulo Freire, We Make the Road by Walking, pp. 115-138
Visitors: Uche Amaechi and Jedd Cohen from the OneVille Project
Thursday, July 12
10 AM – 12 noon: Seminar on Civic Theory
Theorists: Dewey and Selznick and pragmatism [PL and KS]
- John Dewey, The Public and its Problems, Chapter 5, “Search for the Great Community.”
- Philip Selznick, Moral Commonwealth, Chapters 1 and 11
2-4 pm Seminar on Civic Practice: The venues of civic work
Venue: Work (including public work), the professions [PL]
- Harry C. Boyte, “Constructive Politics as Public Work: Organizing the Literature,” Political Theory, 2011
- Albert Dzur, Democratic Professionalism, pp. 35-51, 105-134, 173-206
Visitor: Albert Dzur
Friday, July 13
10 AM – 12 noon: Seminar on Civic Theory
Theorist: Bent Flyvbjerg and social science as phronesis [PL]
- Bent Flyvbjerg, “Social Science that Matters” (2006)
- Bent Flyvbjerg, “Making Organization Research Matter: Power, Values and Phronesis” (2006)
- Bent Flyvbjerg, Making Social Science Matter. Chapter 10, pp. 141-65
- David Garvin, “Making the Case“
2-4 pm Seminar on Civic Practice: The venues of civic work
Venue: Social movements [KS]
- Charles Tilly, Social Movements, 1768-2004
- Bikhu Parekh, Gandhi, Chapter 4 (“Satyagraha”), pp. 51-62;
- Marshall Ganz, “Why David Sometimes Wins: Strategic Capacity in Social Movements,” in Jeff Goodwin and James M. Jasper, Rethinking Social Movements: Structure, Meaning, and Emotion (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004) pp.177-98.
- Timothy Garton Ash, “Velvet Revolution: The Prospects,” New York Review of Books, December 3, 2009
No visitor
(Weekend)
Monday, July 16
10 AM – 12 noon: Seminar on Civic Theory
Theorist: Roberto Mangabeira Unger and democratic experimentalism [KS]
- Roberto Unger, False Necessity, Chapter 1 (pp. 1-40)
- Roberto Unger, Democracy Realized, “A Manifesto” (pp. 263-77)
2-4 pm Seminar on Civic Practice: The venues of civic work
Venue: Government or Governance [PL]
- Theodore J. Lowi, The End of Liberalism (second ed., 1979), pp. 42-63; 295-313
- Michael C. Dorf and Charles F. Sabel, “A Constitution of Democratic Experimentalism,” with a focus on pp. 270-338
Art Gallery tour of the “Boston-Jo’burg Connection” exhibition
Tuesday, July 17
10 AM – 12 noon: Seminar on Civic Theory
Theorist: James Madison and thinking constitutionally [KS]
- The Federalist, numbers 9, 10, 51
- Stephen Elkin, Reconstructing the Commercial Republic, pp. 19-73 and 107-11.
- Stephen Elkin, “Thinking Constitutionally: The Problem of Deliberative Democracy” Social Philosophy and Policy, 21: 39-75.
2-4 pm Seminar on Civic Practice: The venues of civic work
Venue: The American Republic [PL]
- Michael Schudson, The Good Citizen, introduction and chapter 5
- Matthew A. Crenson and Benjamin Ginsberg, Downsizing Democracy: How America Sidelined its Citizens and Privatized the Public, pp. 1-46
Speaker TBA, Prof. Carmen Sirianni, Brandeis
Wednesday, July 18
10 AM – 12 noon: Seminar on Civic Theory
Theorists: Edmund Burke, Friedrich von Hayek and human limits [KS]
- Robert Nisbet, Conservatism: Dream and Reality, pp. 1-46
- William Ophuls (with A. Stephen Boyan), Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity Revisited, pp. 281-307.
- Friedrich Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, Chapters 1, 4 and Postscript, pp. 11-21, 54-70, 397-411.
- James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, Introduction (pp. 1-8), Chapter 3 “Authoritarian High Modernism”, Chapter 9 “Thin Simplification and practical Knowledge: Metis” (pp.309-41)
2-4 pm Seminar on Civic Practice: The venues of civic work
Venue: Other republics [KS]
- Arend Lijphart, “Constitutional Design for Divided Societies,” Journal of Democracy, 15(2004): 96- 109
- Bruce Ackerman, “The New Separation of Powers“, Harvard Law Review, 113 (2000): 642-729
Speaker: Dennis Barr, Facing History and Ourselves
Thursday, July 19
10 AM – 12 noon: Seminar on Civic Theory
Theorists: Amartya Sen, Martha C. Nussbaum and the capabilities approach [KS]
- Martha Nussbaum, Creating Capabilities. Chapters 2-4 (pp. 17-100)
2-4 pm Seminar on Civic Practice: The venues of civic work
Venue: The world [KS]
- Peter Singer, One World, 2d. ed. Chapter 5 (“One Community”), pp. 150-195;
- James Nickel, “Human Rights,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, online
- Andrew Clapham, Human Rights Obligations of Non-State Actors. Section 11.1 “Dignity,” pp. 535-48
- James Speth, The Bridge at the Edge of the World, “A New Consciousness” pp. 199-216
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights
- The Earth Charter
No Speaker: Public Conference Begins in Downtown Boston
