Drawing the Line: Public and Private in America

(Hardback)

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With the growth of the U.S national government under the Obama administration, the perennial debate over where to draw the line between public and private has come to the fore yet again. This time around, however, the stakes are higher than ever as unprecedented amounts of public money are poured into private corporations. In Drawing the Line, Andrew Stark takes a fresh and provocative look at how Americans debate the border between the public realm and the private. Are these arguments specific to policy and community, or do they reveal something bigger about politics and society

Reviews

"As our political discourse becomes more hysterical and polarized by the day, we're veryfortunate to have this sober and insightful book about American ideology by Andrew Stark. He shows that there is more common ground between conservatives and liberals than either side admits. Written with grace and wit, this book actually says something new about the political debates of our time." Mark Lilla, Professor of the Humanities, Columbia University

"Governance in the twenty-first century is a complex mixture of the public and private.Andrew Stark has written an extremely useful book about this new world, in which heexplores the moral and ethical dilemmas that confront practitioners and scholars as theyattempt to define and understand boundaries that were once clear but that are increasingly ambiguous. This is a must-read for scholars and practitioners alike." Elaine C. Kamarck, Harvard Kennedy School

"A meticulous and ironic exploration of American political self-deception. Stark takes thoseall-important ideological captions 'public' and 'private' and capsizes them under a tsunami of mind-bending examples of people using words to mean just what they wish them to mean." David Frum, American Enterprise Institute

"American politics will become less combustible when we realize that we are not dividedbetween conservatives who prefer the private to the public and liberals who insist on theopposite. In this compelling book, Andrew Stark shows us how we can improve our political discourse." Alan Wolfe, Boston College

"An illuminating account of what Americans argue about when they rely on competingconceptions of what's properly private and what's properly public in defending their policypreferences. As Andrew Stark elegantly demonstrates, these largely unexamined differences powerfully inform debates about welfare, health care, education, or the use of space. Anyone interested in rethinking social policy will find this book hard to put down." David L. Kirp, author of The Sandbox Investment: The Preschool Movement and Kids-First Politics

Author Bio

Andrew Stark teaches ethics and strategic management at the University of Toronto. He is the author of The Limits of Medicine (Cambridge University Press, 2006) and Conflict of Interest in American Public Life (Harvard University Press, 2000).