The Politics and Culture book series addresses the fragility of liberal democracy in late modernity. With the public trusting less in those who govern them and the Enlightenment rules and authority by which they govern, liberal democracies suffer from a crisis of legitimacy. This series explores the changing moral foundations of democracies and global democratic institutions, as well as the effect of realizing liberal democratic ideals in the late modern world. Published by Yale University and authored by prominent scholars and public intellectuals, the series is edited by the Institute’s executive director, James Davison Hunter and senior fellow, John M. Owen, IV.

See the full series here. 

The Thriving Cities Lab (TCL) is developing a new paradigm for urban analysis, community assessment, and civic engagement based on a holistic framework of community well-being. An initiative of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia, TCL is committed to turning research-based insights into action-oriented tools that will empower key stakeholders—including foundations, city officials, city planners, religious leaders, politicians, educators, business people, academics, non-profits, and citizens—to ask and answer the question: What does it mean for my city to thrive for all of its citizens, and how can I help?

Historically, democratic polities could rely on relatively established sources of authority—whether the standards of reason, religious texts, or the conventions of “common sense”—to adjudicate matters of public interest. Those sources of authority no longer carry sway in the broader public. Without recovering some sources of authority that are widely accepted, the legitimacy of any democratic regime, not to mention any kind of day-to-day governance, will be difficult to achieve. This project aims to diagnose the disappearing foundations of political authority and propose solutions to restore democratic trust and recover widely accepted sources of authority.