My research, writing, teaching and activism are motivated by the following core question: What sort of political-economic institutional arrangements would best promote and sustain widely shared values such as democratic equality, individual liberty, social cohesion, and ecological sustainability?
Research and Writing
Such a broad question invites many more specific ones, and as such I have written about a wide array of topics with relevance to political theory, political science, and public policy. Three major writing projects merit particular attention:
In 2004, I completed my Ph.D dissertation at Harvard, titled "Sprawl, Justice and Citizenship: A Philosophical and Empirical Inquiry." Drawing on original empirical research using the 2000 Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, I argue in the thesis that the dominant pattern of urban socio-spatial development in the United States--sprawl-- undermines both the practice of active citizenship and prospects for meaningful social solidarity of the kind needed to sustain an egalitarian polity based on strong norms of democratic equality. I am currently in the process of writing a book based on the thesis.
In 2002, Routledge Press published my book Making a Place for Community: Local Democracy in a Global Era, co-authored with David Imbroscio of the University of Louisville and Gar Alperovitz of the University of Maryland. The book outlines a detailed policy agenda aimed at rooting capital in local communities, with the aim of stabilizing local econoimc life. Such local economic stability, in turn, is a precondition for meaningful local level democratic practice. At the heart of the book is a hopeful yet sober look at the potential of new democratically structured economic institutions such as employee-owned firms, community development corporations, and municipal enterprises to contribute to local economic stability.
In 1998, the National Center for Economic and Security Alternatives published What Comes Next? Proposals for a Different Society. The book is an annotated bibliography of a variety of progressive visions for major social change, ranging from mainstream liberal publications to far-reaching radical proposals. Simply put, if you are not a fan of corporate capitalism, but are troubled by the historic failures of "socialism" in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, and concerned about the ever-weakening welfare state in most contemporary industrial societies, where should you turn? Is there (or could there be) a forward-looking progressive political "project" in the new century, beyond simply resistance movements? This book, in many ways my broadest project to date, reviews and scrutinizes a number of different answers to those questions. The book has been out-of-print for some time; with the permission of the publisher, I will soon be making it available online as a free download. I plan at some point in the not-too-distant future to write and/or edit a new version of the book.
For more information about each of these projects, including reviews, see the links on the left. Also available on this website are links to a number of scholarly and popular articles available online, organizations with which I am or have been affiliated, recommended reading, as well as biographical information.
Also found on this site is material related to three additional major interests which have occupied my ongoing interest: religion, and in particular propsects for progressive Christianity and for cross-cultural religious dialogue in the global community; music, that indispensable fuel for the soul; and sports, which I enjoy as a fan and weekend athlete and have written about both as a journalist and a sociologist, with particular interest in the well-being of the North Carolina Tar Heels, the Boston Red Sox and the Manchester City Blues! The site also contains a special section devoted to my writing on Carolina basketball, including the book More Than a Game: Why North Carolina Basketball Means So Much to So Many.
Teaching
In July of 2005 I joined the faculty of the Jepson School of Leadership Studies, University of Richmond, where I teach theories of social justice and social change as well as a foundational course in leadership studies and democratic theory.
In 2004-05, I taught as a Lecturer in the undergraduate honors program in Social Studies at Harvard. Current courses being taught include the required yearlong sophomore tutorial, "Introduction to Social Theory," which covers the thought of major social theorists such as Weber, Smith, Durkheim, Marx, Tocqueville, Foucault, and Habermas; and a junior tutorial, "Democratic Aspirations in the Contemporary American Metropolis," which is focused on contemporary urban politics in the United States. I also taught in courses at Harvard devoted to contemporary American government, the origins and political theory of constitutional democracy in America, and theories of justice.
Activism and Popular Writing
My research and work as a scholar and writer is inseparable from my political, theological, and moral commitments as a citizen and a human being to do my part to contribute to the formation of a more just society and a more just world. I also believe that "politics" is not a dirty word, and that civic engagement--even when it's exhausting, infuriating, and frustrating--is a constituent part of the well-lived life.
Most of my activist energies in recent years have been channelled into Dollars & Sense: The Magazine of Economic Justice, where I am now an "associate", after seven years as a member of the volunteer editorial board (which we call "the collective"). The magazine, based in Cambridge, MA, publishes six magazines a year as well as a variety of books and readers for use in economics classrooms. Dollars & Sense provides a vital, readable alternative on economic affairs to the mainstream press, and is a great resource for progressive activists who wish to understand economics and economic arguments better.
In the past I have contributed articles and reviews to a wide variety of popular publications, including newspapers, The Nation, Tikkun, Monthly Review, In These Times, www.commondreams.org, and numerous others.
