Overview

One of America’s most distinguished political theorists examines what happens when national politics enters a small New England town After the election of 2016, many citizens looked at the economic and cultural divisions that were causing deep disruptions in American politics and asked, “What is happening to us?” Paul W. Kahn explores these fundamental changes as they show themselves in a small New England town—his home of twenty-five years, Killingworth, Connecticut. His inquiry grounds a democratic theory that puts volunteering, not voting, at its center. Absent active participation, citizens easily lose the capacity for judgment that comes from working with others to solve real problems. Volunteering, however, is under existential threat today. Changes in civil society, commerce, employment, and public opinion formation have isolated families from each other and from their communities. Even middle-class families live under financial stress, uncertain of their children’s future, and without the support of civil society. Local media has disappeared. Residents do not have the time, information, or interest to volunteer. Under these conditions, national polarization enters local politics, which becomes yet another site for national conflict. To save our democracy, Kahn concludes, we need to find ways of matching opportunities for participation to the ways we live our lives today.

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Paul Kahn is one of America's most interesting thinkers and Democracy in Our America 2020 is just the latest proof of that. It offers a compelling account of political life in one town and the unfolding national political life that shapes and transforms it. This book provides nuanced treatment of contemporary concerns filtered through the prism of a wise person and a gifted writer. -Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence & Political Science, Amherst College Through this subtle and compellingly Tocqueville-ian account of governing small-town America, Kahn shows us the challenge in rebuilding a democracy in America generally. He forces us to see what we like to avoid. And in so doing, he helps us understand something critical about the challenges that we face. -Lawrence Lessig, author of America, Compromised Through an intimate account of community life in one New England town-his town-Paul Kahn, one of our finest political thinkers, has produced a profound mediation on the practices and bonds on which democratic self-government depends. -Benjamin L. Berger, author of Law's Religion: Religious Difference and the Claims of Constitutionalism Paul Kahn is one of America's most interesting thinkers and Democracy in Our America is just the latest proof of that. It offers a compelling account of political life in one town and the unfolding national political life that shapes and transforms it. This book provides nuanced treatment of contemporary concerns filtered through the prism of a wise person and a gifted writer. -Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence & Political Science, Amherst College -- Austin Sarat Through this subtle and compellingly Tocqueville-ian account of governing small-town America, Kahn shows us the challenge in rebuilding a democracy in America generally. He forces us to see what we like to avoid. And in so doing, he helps us understand something critical about the challenges that we face. -Lawrence Lessig, author of America, Compromised -- Lawrence Lessig

Author Information

Paul W. Kahn is Robert W. Winner Professor of Law and the Humanities and director of the Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights at Yale Law School. He lives in Killingworth, CT.

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