Every year, the AAPSS welcomes a group of accomplished scholars and public servants into the Academy as Fellows. In the past, this group’s accomplishments and contributions have been honored at an induction ceremony and gala dinner. For the 2020 Fellows, however, the event has been reimagined and moved online, and the AAPSS looks forward to engaging our incoming Fellows in a discussion of contemporary society in which each will weigh in from their disciplinary perspective on a matter of particular public concern–namely, democracy and inequality.
“Can Democracy Survive Growing Inequality?” will be an online panel discussion, moderated by David Leonhardt of The New York Times and featuring the five scholars elected to the AAPSS as 2020 Fellows:
- Katherine Cramer, Political Scientist, University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Eric Foner, Historian, Columbia University
- Helen Milner, Public and International Affairs, Princeton University
- Mario Luis Small, Sociologist, Harvard University
- Bruce Western, Sociologist, Columbia University
This free, public, online conversation will take place on January 14, 2021, at 1:00 p.m. EST. The discussion will take up some of the most salient topics of our time: How have we come to live in an America marked by the confluence of racial unrest and extreme inequality? How do we understand this moment in historical context, and how does inequality destabilize American democracy? What is the relationship between criminal justice and racial inequality in America? What of instability in democracies around the world, and how is inequality related to the rise of extreme Right political regimes?
Our newly elected Fellow panelists will make brief presentations that both touch on these themes and discuss public policy opportunities for the Biden administration, and time will be allotted for Q&A with attendees.
