Trust and Diversity:          Robert Putnam, George W. Bush and the American Idea                                                 Sheila Suess Kennedy                                         Professor of Law and Public Policy                               School of Public and Environmental Affairs                           Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis                                     801 W. Michigan Street #4061 [...]

                                                                        For: Religion and American Culture                                     Whose ‘Reality-Based’ Community?   How we explore the various intersections of religion and politics in contemporary America depends to a considerable extent upon how we define both terms. We know, for example, that people who attend church services more frequently are more likely to vote Republican. Whether frequent [...]

                              Social Change, Public Policy and Law                                                         Abstract   Public administration practices and public policies are inevitably rooted in the philosophical assumptions that animate a particular society’s legal structures. The thesis of this paper is that certain constitutive decisions—particularly decisions allocating authority for public and private decision-making—will increase [...]

In 1996, Congress passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, reforming welfare “as we know it.” Among its provisions was a section called “Charitable Choice,” requiring states to contract with faith-based social service providers on the same basis as they contract with other nonprofits. The bill specified that “pervasively sectarian” organizations were not [...]

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