US politics are failing twenty-first-century Americans, with both parties blind to how America has changed over the past half century and why the dysfunctions of the nation's fragmented national life will need to be answered by the strengths of its decentralized, diverse, dynamic character. What are the prospects for political renewal? Yuval Levin argues that what is needed is a modernizing political revival through the middle layers of society in order to achieve not a single solution to the problems of our age, but multiple and tailored answers fitted to the daunting range of the challenges faced today.

Yuval Levin is the Hertog Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and Editor of National Affairs. He is also a senior editor of The New Atlantis, and a contributing editor to National Review and the Weekly Standard. He has been a member of the White House domestic policy staff (under President George W Bush), Executive Director of the President’s Council on Bioethics, and a congressional staffer. His essays and articles have appeared in numerous publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, and others, and he is the author of The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left and The Fractured Republic: Renewing America's Social Contract in the Age of Individualism.

Michael McQuarrie (@mgmcquarrie) is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at LSE. He is primarily interested in urban politics and culture, nonprofit organizations, and social movements. He has recently been awarded a Hellman Fellowship at the University of California and a Poiesis Fellowship at the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University.

Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey (@Cheryl_SB) is Professor in Political Science in the Government Department at LSE, where she teaches courses in the politics of economic policy and legislative politics. Her research interests are in political economy and quantitative textual analysis. By measuring the words, arguments and deliberation of politicians and policy makers, she aims to gauge the extent to which ideas, interests and institutions shape political behavior.  She is author and editor of several books including most recently Deliberating Monetary Policy. Her articles have appeared in the American Political Science Review, World Politics, the British Journal of Political Science, Presidential Studies Quarterly, Political Analysis, PS: Political Science and Politics, and Parliamentary History. 

Peter Trubowitz (@ptrubowitz) is Department Head of International Relations and Director of the US Centre at LSE and Associate Fellow at Chatham House, Royal Institute of International Affairs. 

The United States Centre at LSE (@LSE_US) is a hub for global expertise, analysis and commentary on America. Its mission is to promote policy-relevant and internationally-oriented scholarship to meet the growing demand for fresh analysis and critical debate on the United States.  

Suggested Twitter hashtag for this event: #LSELitFest

This event forms part of the LSE Space for Thought Literary Festival 2017, taking place from Monday 20 - Saturday 25 February 2017, with the theme "Revolutions".

Podcast

A podcast of this event is available to download from The Fractured American Republic and the Possibilities for Political Renewal

Podcasts and videos of many LSE events can be found at the LSE Public Lectures and Events: podcasts and videos channel.