The Institutional Configuration of Deweyan Democracy
Professor William H. Simon, Visiting Professor of Law, Columbia Law School
After more than two decades of effort to recover and adapt John Dewey’s thought for a reformed liberal politics, the institutional implications of his ideas remain elusive. This essay argues that a distinctive set of modern business practices and an incipient public policy architecture embody key precepts of Dewey’s political theory. The practices and architecture have developed independently of Dewey’s ideas, but they elaborate the ideas implicitly, and they are illuminated by them.
Professor William H. Simon is a Visiting Professor of Law from Columbia Law School. His areas of expertise include professional responsibility and social policy. Recent publications include: "The Market for Bad Legal Advice: Academic Professional Responsibility Consulting as An Example," 60 Stanford Law Review 1555 (2008); "Legal Accountability in the Service-Based Welfare State: Lessons from Child Welfare Reform," Law and Social Inquiry (forthcoming 2009) (with Kathleen Noonan and Charles Sabel).