Seminar with Professor Wilson and Commentators

Date: 

Friday, November 4, 2005 (All day)

Location: 

Wiener KSG

Speaker: James Q. Wilson, Ronald Reagan Professor of Public Policy, Pepperdine University
Alan Wolfe, Professor of Political Science; Director, The Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life, Boston College
Lizabeth Cohen, Howard Mumford Jones Professor of American Studies, Harvard University

Liz Cohen argued that we are experiencing extreme polarization and that this is primarily because moderates have taken themselves out of the debate and extreme views on all sides have taken center-stage. Republicans have learned how to mobilize through churches and through Evangelicals seeking to change individual behavior. What previously worked for Democrats, the charisma of FDR on the radio, ethnic organizations with face-to-face communities and AFL-CIO unions, is now working for Republicans, who have learnt how to mobilize and communicate directly with the people through religious institutions.

Alan Wolfe argued that polarization, to the extent it exists, is an elite phenomenon. He denied that there is a culture war over stem cell research (beyond disagreements among the elite) and calls the 2004 presidential vote not a sign of a polarized nation but a classical American election. To the extent that we are witnessing polarization, it remains event-specific, provoked by particular circumstances such as the undecided election of 2000, which haunted the country; the terror of 9/11 and the anxiety about Supreme Court vacancies. Whereas Bin Laden united America, Iraq has divided it. It is the Left that started the culture war and the Right that has been continuing it.

See also: Ethics