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As 2017 closes, I note with sadness the death of Benjamin R. Barber in April. Barber joined the Political Theory editorial team in the journal’s second year, in May 1974, and he served as Editor through the November 1983 issue. The issues that appeared during that decade amount to an education in the field; they include, in addition to landmark essays, a series of electric symposia and exchanges on topics that range from Strauss’s interpretation of Machiavelli to “Sex, Class, and the Market.” Describing political philosophy as “the great conversation,” Barber’s final “Letter from the Editor” spoke both to his time and to ours. He warned against the dangers of parochialism—geographic and intellectual—and concluded that he hoped “that we will never stop talking to one another—and never stop listening to one another.”

This article features comments on Benjamin Barber's scholarship - including Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age (1984) and Jihad vs. McWorld (1995) - by Richard Battistoni, Mark B. Brown, John Dedrick, Lisa Disch, Jennet Kirkpatrick and Jane Mansbridge.

Social and political theorists have increasingly celebrated civility as a civic virtue that is sensitive to value pluralism and yet has the potential to ameliorate deep differences. Using the insights of Norbert Elias, this paper makes three points: first, civility is marked by a deep-seated ambivalence that emerges through historical processes of pacification and distinction; second, we find this ambivalence manifest in the contemporary tension between individual desires and social expectations; and third, current uses of civility exhibit this ambivalence insofar as civility is used both as a means of distinction that authorizes certain forms of dialogue at the expense of others and as a mechanism of pacification whereby constraints are placed on dialogue to give voice to the marginalised. This ambivalence is illustrated by the work of Edward Shils, Mark Kingwell and Benjamin Barber, each of whom advances a conception of civility that responds to the perceived stresses of social conformity in a social milieu that stresses individuality. /// Les sociologues font de plus en plus l'éloge de la civilité comme une vertu du citoyen capable de valoriser le pluralisme culturel et de combler des différences sociétales profondes. Se référant aux idées de Norbert Elias, cet article soulève trois points: Premièrement, la civilité est caractérisée par une ambivalence bien ancrée qui émerge à travers des processus historiques de pacification et de distinction. Deuxièmement, des manifestations de cette dualité se retrouvent dans cette tension actuelle entre les désirs des individus et les attentes de la société. Troisièmement, la civilité dans son usage courant contient un double-sens dans la mesure où elle expose une mesure de distinction qui permet d'une part un dialogue excluant certains et qui d'autre part offre un méchanisme de pacification où l'échange privilégie l'expression des marginaux. Les oeuvres d'Edward Shils, de Mark Kingwell et de Benjamin Barber réflètent cette ambivalence, chacun d'eux conceptualisant une représentation de la civilité faisant écho aux tiraillements du conformisme social dans un milieu social qui promouvoit l'individualisme.

It would be difficult to find two books as similar as Metamorphoses of the City and If Mayors Ruled the World. It would also be difficult to find two authors as dissimilar as Pierre Manent, a political philosopher at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, in Paris, and Benjamin R. Barber, a political theorist and senior research scholar at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

The all-manifest crisis at the beginning of a new millennium has placed State and Law in a difficult position, finding and imposing regulations to address the state of change. Thus, society finds itself in what has been termed as the 'clash of speeds' by Alvin Toffler (2006). The global financial phenomenon is marked by an increasing advocacy of private interests of corporations, banks, as national governments become instruments of the private sector. Law has been generating and amplifying crises, as it has scandalously become subordinated to political influence gained by the banking and finance industry over the law-making and executive powers. Globally, only measures aimed a.o. at salvaging banks and corporations from bankruptcy have been enforced until now, as states have become main shareholders in a peculiar form of capitalism. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Contends that service learning--community service linked to academic courses--adds a valuable experiential dimension to composition classes. Describes service learning at Raritan Valley Community College where in composition it fits as an optional alternative for the research paper assignment that is the culminating course project. Discusses how projects are developed and implemented.

Chrusciel reviews If Mayors Ruled the World. Dysfunctional Nations, Rising Cities by Benjamin R. Barber.

[Benjamin R. Barber]'s variation on the theme, in \"Consumed,\" is to decry consumerism's \"infantilization\" of the culture. Sounding like the grumpiest of social conservatives, Mr. Barber, a proud progressive, blasts the youth-obsessed self-indulgence of an \"infantilist ethos\" that values \"EASY over HARD, SIMPLE over COMPLEX, and FAST over SLOW.\" He even contrasts today's childishness with the good old days of the Protestant ethic, according to which \"work was truly a calling, and investment a mark of prudent altruism and democratic nation-building rather than mere selfishness.\" What an exceedingly strange sentiment for a man of the left: nostalgia for the bourgeoisie! To be sure, capitalism has both fed and profited from this increasing youth-centeredness. What Mr. Barber neglects to mention, however, is that hostility to capitalism and materialistic motivations has also played a major role in instigating the cultural shift he condemns. Has Mr. Barber forgotten the counterculture? \"Don't trust anybody over 30,\" \"if it feels good, do it,\" \"question authority\" -- the romantic rebels of the 1960s who mouthed these slogans had no use for either profits or Protestantism. What Mr. Barber now condemns as puerility they prized as spontaneity and authenticity. Such attitudes put an unmistakable stamp on the world that, for better and worse, we inhabit today.

Sam Roberts reviews the books \"If Mayors Ruled the World: Dysfunctional Nations, Rising Cities,\" by Benjamin R. Barber, and \"A Mayor's Life: Governing New York's Gorgeous Mosaic,\" by David N. Dinkins with Peter Knobler.

Benjamin Barber is the senior consultant of Haring Woods Associates, charged by Arts Council England, East, and other agencies to work with the city council as part of the Perception Peterborough project that aims to \"develop innovative ideas and approaches to the challenges and opportunities facing Peterborough\". There is a sense, he says, that \"Peterborough had not looked in the mirror\" to realize the potential of its assets. That is what, he feels, the workshops have achieved. He hails the workshops as constituting \"a challenging, risky process\". The city is campaigning to become the UK's official \"environment capital\" and is aiming to develop a Green Quarter around its train station that will be home to green businesses.