While lawyers, political scientists and others recognize the more explicitly religious components of America?s current polarization, we fail to appreciate the extent to which conflicting policy preferences are rooted in religiously-shaped normative frameworks. Much like the blind men and the elephant, we encounter different parts of the animal. We see a tree, a wall, a snake?but we fail to apprehend the size, shape and power of the whole elephant.
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Category Archives: Academic Papers
Tilting the Level Playing Field
Normative notions of fairness are shaped by—and reflected in—a nation’s legal system. The idea of equality is a bedrock element of the American legal and political systems; we strive for a meritocracy and affirm the obligation of government to treat similarly situated citizens equally. The ‘level playing field’ is a favorite metaphor.
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Benefit or Blackmail?
The past ten years have given rise to an almost unprecedented building boom involving new stadiums and arenas for professional sports teams. By the year 2002 at least 60 percent of the 121 major sports franchises will be playing their home games in a facility built or remodeled since 1991. With construction costs in…
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Reducing Identity politics in the Workplace
The official American vision of equality has been one of a society in which group identity is legally irrelevant, where individual conduct is the only proper concern of government, and individual merit the only determinant of reward in the workplace. In such a meritocracy, individuals are rewarded or punished …
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Back to Basics
The study of public affairs is inevitably particularistic; that is, it is focused upon analysis and management of the public’s business as that business is defined by a particular society at a particular time. Such a study must begin with the rules a given society has established to direct and constrain its government; that is, with analysis of constitutional assumptions about the roles, rights and responsibilities of government and its citizens, and the relationship between them.
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