Notre Dame Con Studies Public Lecture Series

This debate features two articulate law professors and former government officials with very different political perspectives:Professor John Yoo is the Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, a Republican, former deputy assistant attorney general in the George W. Bush Administration, former general counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee, who has served in all three branches of national government, and who is a regular commentator on Fox News.Harry Litman is the senior legal affairs columnist for the Opinion page at the Los Angeles Times; the host and creator of the Talking Feds podcast; a regular commentator on MSNBC, CNN, and CBS News; a Democrat who advised the Kerry-Edwards campaign in 2004 and (post-election) the Obama-Biden campaign in 2008; and a former U.S. Attorney and deputy assistant attorney general.Visit the Center for Citizenship & Constitutional Government: https://constudies.nd.edu/***The views and opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the University of Notre Dame, the College of Arts and Letters, or the Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Government.

Ronald D. DeSantis serves at the forty-sixth Governor of Florida. A graduate of Yale University, Governor DeSantis subsequently earned his J.D. degree from Harvard Law School and a commission in the United States Navy.As an active-duty Judge Advocate General (JAG) officer, he supported operations at the terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and deployed to Iraq as an adviser to U.S. Navy SEALs in Fallujah, Ramadi, and the Al Anbar province. He continues to serve in the U.S. Navy Reserve. He received the Bronze Star Medal for meritorious service and the Iraq Campaign Medal.Following his military service, the Governor served as a federal prosecutor, where he targeted and convicted child predators. In 2012, he was elected to Congress to represent Florida’s Sixth District. While serving in Congress, Governor DeSantis sought to enact term limits, the No Budget/No Pay Act, and to cut taxes.He also sponsored legislation to facilitate prosecution of sexual assault in the military and authored the bill ending secret taxpayer-funded slush funds enabling members of Congress to provide hush payoffs in cases of sexual harassment. Eschewing special privileges for politicians, he refused to accept his Congressional pension and health insurance plan.Visit the Center for Citizenship & Constitutional Government: https://constudies.nd.edu/***The views and opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the University of Notre Dame, the College of Arts and Letters, or the Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Government.

Jay Bhattacharya is a Professor of Health Policy at Stanford University and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economics Research. He directs Stanford’s Center for Demography and Economics of Health and Aging. Dr. Bhattacharya’s research focuses on the health and well-being of vulnerable populations, with a particular emphasis on the role of government programs, biomedical innovation, and economics.Dr. Bhattacharya’s recent research focuses on the epidemiology of COVID-19 as well as an evaluation of policy responses to the epidemic. His broader research interests encompass the implications of population aging for future population health and medical spending in developed countries, the measurement of physician performance tied to physician payment by insurers, and the role played by biomedical innovation on health.He has published 135 articles in top peer-reviewed scientific journals in medicine, economics, health policy, epidemiology, statistics, law, and public health among other fields. He holds an MD and PhD in economics, both earned at Stanford University.Visit the Center for Citizenship & Constitutional Government: https://constudies.nd.edu/Event is co-sponsored by the Notre Dame College of Science: https://science.nd.edu/***The views and opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the University of Notre Dame, the College of Arts and Letters, or the Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Government.

Aurelian Craiutu is Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Indiana University, Bloomington. His most recent book is Why Not Moderation? Letters to Young Radicals, from Cambridge University Press.

In previewing his talk, Craiutu says "Moderation is a contested concept that, with surprisingly few exceptions, is absent from our public debates. Today, the single famous line that people sometimes may remember belongs to Barry Goldwater: 'Extremism in the pursuit of liberty is no vice, moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.'

Although Goldwater’s skepticism toward moderation did not fare well in the 1964 presidential election, his witty words continue to provoke. They invite us to rethink the nature of moderation and examine who is afraid of this misunderstood virtue and why. In my lecture, I argue that moderation is a complex virtue with many ethical and institutional facets and a distinguished genealogy which is often neglected.

I will also address the following questions: What kind of virtue is political moderation and how can we study it? What does it mean to be a moderate voice in politics? What are the limits and benefits of moderation? Finally, we will examine whether moderation might be a winning card in our hyper-polarized political world."

Visit the Center for Citizenship & Constitutional Government: https://constudies.nd.edu/

***The views and opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the University of Notre Dame, the College of Arts and Letters, or the Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Government.

Antón Barba-Kay is Distinguished Fellow at the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law, as well as Senior Fellow at the Institute for Practical Ethics at UC San Diego.

A Web of Our Own Making—his book about what the internet is and what a difference it makes—was published in 2023 by Cambridge University Press.

One of the dominant commonplaces of the early 21st century was that digital technology would make the world more democratic. And, while we have added an asterisk or two to this assessment, digital platforms and services are still routinely touted as if they are democratic or might be used for democratic purposes. Why have we thought this? In what ways does digital technology transform the practice of liberal democratic politics?

Can liberal democracy survive its ongoing digitalization?

Visit the Center for Citizenship & Constitutional Government: https://constudies.nd.edu/

***The views and opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the University of Notre Dame, the College of Arts and Letters, or the Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Government.

Is there an obligation to obey the law? If so, why? What about when the reasons behind the law don't apply? What about unjust laws?

In his new book by Notre Dame Press, The Nature of Law, Villanova professor Daniel Mark critiques prevailing theories of legal authority and offers a reconstruction of the nature of law to account for its unique features. In his talk, Dr. Mark will explore competing understandings of authority and obedience and argue why his thesis should matter to both academic and general audiences.

This lecture will be delivered by Daniel Mark, Associate Professor of Political Science at Villanova University. Daniel Mark teaches political theory, philosophy of law, American government, and politics and religion. Since 2014 he has also served as a member of the bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, which monitors the universal right to freedom of religion or belief abroad and makes policy recommendations to the President, Secretary of State and Congress. He was elected Vice Chairman of the Commission last year.

Visit the Center for Citizenship & Constitutional Government: https://constudies.nd.edu/

***The views and opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the University of Notre Dame, the College of Arts and Letters, or the Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Government.

Is democracy dying, in America and abroad? Pundits say so, and polls show that most Americans believe that their country’s system of governance is being “tested” or is “under attack.” But is the future of democracy necessarily so dire?

In The Civic Bargain, Brook Manville and Josiah Ober push back against the prevailing pessimism about the fate of democracy around the world. Instead of an epitaph for democracy, they offer a guide for democratic renewal, calling on citizens of democracies to recommit to a “civic bargain” with one another that guarantees political rights of freedom, equality, and dignity, but requires them to fulfill the duties of democratic citizenship.

This episode centers on the key ideas raised in The Civic Bargain, specifically the long progression toward self-government through four key moments in democracy’s history: Classical Athens, Republican Rome, Great Britain’s constitutional monarchy, and America’s founding. Democracy isn’t about getting everything we want; it’s about having no “boss” other than our fellow citizens, and agreeing on a shared framework for pursuing our often conflicting aims. Crucially, citizens need to be able to compromise, and to treat one another not as political enemies but as civic friends. And we must accept imperfection; democracy is never perfect and never finished. If the civic bargain is maintained—through deliberation, bargaining, and compromise—democracy will survive and thrive.

This lecture will be delivered by Josh Ober, the Constantine Mitsotakis Chair in the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University. Ober specializes in the areas of ancient and modern political theory and historical institutionalism. His primary appointment is in Political Science; he holds a secondary appointment in Classics and courtesy appointments in Philosophy and the Hoover Institution. His most recent books are "The Greeks and the Rational: The discovery of practical reason" (University of California Press 2022) and "Demopolis: Democracy before liberalism in theory and practice" (Cambridge University Press 2017).

Visit the Center for Citizenship & Constitutional Government: https://constudies.nd.edu/

***The views and opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the University of Notre Dame, the College of Arts and Letters, or the Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Government.