The Reconstruction Papers

Written by Pulaski Institution president & CEO and Liberal Currents contributing editor Alan Elrod, read by Tessa Flannery. 
Elrod proposes an ambitious federal national service program to overcome the erosion of civil society and reduce the personal and emotional tolls of political polarization.

Written by Michigan State education professor Brendan Cantwell, read by Tessa Flannery. 
Cantwell explains the accumulated difficulties that institutions of higher education faced in America before the present crisis, and outlines a framework for reform.

Written by associate professor of political science and the Herbert Kurz Chair of Constitutional Rights at CUNY Brooklyn College Anna Law, read by Tessa Flannery. 
Law writes about the desperately needed reforms to our immigration system, a problem at the heart of the entire Trump era. Law discusses not just the specific changes that must be made to the law but also the necessary changes in how Congress approaches its role in maintaining that law.

Written by author and analyst Jude Doyle, read by Tessa Flannery.
Doyle explores the question of gender and outlines a liberal vision of how the state should relate to this deeply personal matter, from education to legal rights to bodily autonomy.
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Written by Analogue Group founder Aishwarya Khanduja and Executive Director of the Good Science Project Stuart Buck, read by Tessa Flannery.
Khanduja and Buck present a bold rethinking of the enterprise of American science and research. Drawing on the metaphor of a garden, they argue that the government must aim to produce and protect the conditions that allow scientific advancement to flourish, rather than overengineering what is asked for of each specific research project.
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Written by economist Ed Dolan, read by Tessa Flannery.
Dolan lays out a vision for rules-based fiscal policy, noting that the credibility that such approaches provide have helped finance generous social democratic states such as Sweden’s.
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Written by Steve Randy Waldman, read by Tessa Flannery.
Waldman talks about the perils of the unbalanced trade regime that America has run for decades, and offers an elegant solution for it. The imbalances of foreign trade are, despite neoliberals’ protestations, inextricable from our current economic and political woes.
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Written by economics graduate and Master's student in urban economics Maia Mindel, read by Tessa Flannery.
Mindel diagnoses the failures of our current economic regime, which are in no small part responsible for the current authoritarian surge. The artificial scarcity of housing, the rising costs of essentials, the gaping inequality of the asset economy: These are all connected. Mindel’s solution? Woke abundance.

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Written by Yale University political theorist and lecturer Kevin J. Elliott, read by Tessa Flannery.
This essay discusses the ways we might bring the Senate more in line with the logic of a system that is overall partisan and majoritarian rather than deliberative and collegial.
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Written by Liberal Currents publisher Adam Gurri, read by Tessa Flannery.
Drawing inspiration both from peer countries with federalist systems developed after America's and from the basic logic of the Fifteenth Amendment and the Voting Rights Act, Gurri proposes a radical overhaul of the relationship between federal and state governments on the one hand, and state and local governments on the other.
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