The authors assert that higher education has a significant role to play in the reinvigoration of American democracy, and that narrow specialization of academic interests, technocratic practices and assumptions, and privatizing values throughout colleges and universities limit the ability of higher education to play this role. These dynamics also…

In this paper, the author provides a buffet of ideas to make a coherent case for a democracy in which citizens can be truly sovereign by becoming the agents of their own destiny. He traces the history of various trends which threaten the development of civic agency: technocracy, specialism, and a consumer-view of the citizen, among others. He also…