Culture & Society

What Is Democracy Beyond Elections?

The following is an excerpt from Natasha Piano's new book, Democratic Elitism: The Founding Myth of American Political Science, now out at Harvard University...

Behind Populists’ Anti-Technocratic Fervor and Its Consequences for Liberal Democracy

Populist leaders like United States President Donald Trump are zealously challenging the authority of independent technocrats and judges. This backlash follows decades of steadily increasing delegation of policymaking authority to unelected experts, bureaucratic agencies, and the judiciary. In new research, Gabriele Gratton and Jacob Edenhofer argue that such backlash is a predictable development in political environments where majorities are unstable and new political coalitions frequently favor policies at odds with those crafted by social welfare-maximizing technocrats.

The Deafening Silence of Big Business in Washington

Wendy Li writes that business leaders must rediscover past unity and put pressure on politicians to defend against President Donald Trump’s attacks on businesses and civil society and prevent democratic backsliding.

The FTC Is Threatening Free Speech

Aaron Edlin and Carl Shapiro respond to Federal Trade Commission Chair Andrew Ferguson’s keynote speech at the 2025 Stigler Center antitrust and competition conference, in which he lays out his approach to regulating the content moderation policies of the major social media platforms. They explain why Ferguson’s approach threatens the exercise of free speech, is inconsistent with antitrust law, and politicizes the agency.

Transcript: Tom Ginsburg Keynote

The following is a transcript of Tom Ginsburg's keynote address at the 2025 Stigler Center Antitrust and Competition Conference—Economic Concentration and the Marketplace of Ideas.

Trump May Change how the EU Thinks About Antitrust and Free Speech

The new Trump administration has thrust antitrust’s role in protecting free speech into the spotlight. Jan Polański discusses how this development should inform the European Union’s own debates about antitrust and free speech.

Teaching Bezos a Lesson in Free Markets

Luigi Zingales invites guest contributors to the Washington Post’s op-ed pages to boycott the opinion section in response to the recent decision by the...

Donald Trump’s Authoritarian Playbook Is Based on Failures of US Corporate Democracy, not Foreign Dictators

Sarah Haan writes that to understand American authoritarianism, it’s less useful to analyze the strategies of elected dictators around the globe than to look at how corporate leaders in the United States have rigged corporate democracy.

Pluralism in Media Markets Is About Democracy, Not Economics

Media pluralism is a core democratic value in Europe. Upholding it requires that media concentration is scrutinized beyond its impact on competition in the traditional economic formulation. By addressing the challenges posed by dominant media players and fostering a diverse information ecosystem, Europe aims to uphold media plurality as a democratic value and ensure that citizens can engage in informed decision-making. From this angle, the European approach to protecting media pluralism might offer an interesting comparative  perspective for the United States debate, write Maciej Bernatt and Marta Sznajder.

Peltzman Finds “Marriage Premium” in Happiness Data

New research by Sam Peltzman finds that married individuals consistently report significantly higher happiness levels than unmarried individuals across all demographics. Using five decades...

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