Andrew Arato, Author at Public Seminar

North America

The Four Hurdles and The Four Temptations of Bernie Sanders

February 25, 2020 • by Andrew Arato

The final hurdle is the Constitution. This involves the separation of powers, a powerful Supreme Court, and federal decentralization. Each hurdle also suggests a temptation inherent in populist politics, which Sanders represents on the left, as Trump does on the right. Securing the Democratic nomination in 2020 is a tall order for ...

The Four Hurdles and The Four Temptations of Bernie Sanders

Latin America & Caribbean

Coup, Revolution, or Negotiated Regime Change

What is happening in Bolivia?

December 4, 2019 • by Andrew Arato

At the same time, I fervently hope that what is occurring in Bolivia is not a revolution. Of course that hope may well be disappointed, especially if the right wing (supposedly interim) government seeks to perpetuate itself by blocking the road to genuinely free elections through the repression, media manipulation, ...

Coup, Revolution, or Negotiated Regime Change

Feature

A Ticket for the Rome Express

A Strategy for Democracy

September 27, 2019 • by Andrew Arato

In Budapest, and shortly before local elections, some of my friends now speak of the Istanbul Express. As readers know, in that enormous city, followers of the slightly left Republican People’s Party (CHP), of the Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) and a small nationalist grouping, “the Good Party,” united to ...

Feature

On the Death of My Dear Friend, Agnes Heller

“Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas”

August 9, 2019 • by Andrew Arato

Such was Agnes’ principle: she valued her friends and of course her loved ones, but truth was always her highest value. For me, friends have always come first. Hers was the principle of the philosopher, mine that of the political. In philosophy, truth is everything. But in politics nothing is ...

Education

When Title IX Hits Home

Addressing Our Troubles

December 20, 2017 • by Andrew Arato

As I see it, there are two dimensions of the problem and they should be separated. First, as it is clear now, problems of harassment, as well as apparently improper intimate relationships have existed at the New School as well as other institutions of higher learning. How bad the problems ...

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How We Got Here

Transition failures, their causes, and the populist interest in the constitution

October 11, 2017 • by Andrew Arato

The answers to these questions are related. In the following, in the form of six theses, I start with what I mean by “populism”. Next, I wish to point to the two deficits of liberal democracy that provide the context for the rise of populist politics. These deficits have been ...

Education

The Coming Crisis in Healthcare and its Possible Solutions

An Open Letter to Colleagues at the New School and Beyond

January 1, 2017 • by Andrew Arato and Clara Mattei

The subjects we propose to consider are in the area of health policy, and the instruments are in the domain of federalism, to avoid misunderstanding, “progressive federalism,” meaning normatively attractive forms of experimentation on the level of the states. While we strongly believe that similar initiatives are needed in the ...

Uncategorized

American Elections: A Conversation on the Left

In 2016 Andrew Arato and Nancy Fraser looked at the coming election. This is what they had to say.

September 26, 2016 • by Nancy Fraser and Andrew Arato

This dialogue was originally published on September 26 2016: as we make the turn into a new election year, Public Seminar returned to how these influential political theorists imagined left politics. Arato: Nancy we have had a conversation about the elections a week ago in Great Evremond, Mass, and one thing you ...

American Elections: A Conversation on the Left

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After the Brexit Vote: Federations, Federal States or Back to the Bad Past?

June 29, 2016 • by Andrew Arato

The electorate of the United Kingdom has voted for an exit from the European Union, suggesting that we may now have to rethink everything on the question of federations. Thus this follow up on my last post. The good news for me is that nothing in my original piece requires fundamental ...

After the Brexit Vote: Federations, Federal States or Back to the Bad Past?

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The Promise and Logic of Federations, and The Problem of Their Stability

June 22, 2016 • by Andrew Arato

Historians are right to describe the 19^th century as the age of nationalism. While many also depict the 20^th as the triumph of the nation-state, with more justice it could be called the century of its failure, despite the vast proliferation of the form. If collapsing empires brought us the first World ...

The Promise and Logic of Federations, and The Problem of Their Stability

Uncategorized

How Many Divisions? Pope Francis, Antonin Scalia and Justice

February 14, 2016 • by Andrew Arato

How many divisions does the pope have? asked Iosif Vissarionowich Dzhugasvilli (alias: Stalin) Pope Pius apparently had few. Pope Francis, a much greater man, however seems to have many. It is the duty of practicing Catholics to obey the pope on moral issues. Pope Francis has eloquently declared, to be sure not ...

Uncategorized

Hannah Arendt, Constitutionalism and the Problem of Israel/Palestine

January 2, 2014 • by Andrew Arato

The following was the keynote lecture at the XXVII Encuentro Internacional de Ciencias Sociales in Guadalajara, Mexico, December 5, 2013.

On October 3, 2013 the Supreme Court of Israel ruled that there is no Israeli identity, since there is “objectively” no Israeli ethnicity. The 21 litigants will have to continue ...