The Pulaski Institution
Liberal values and institutions are under assault in many of the world’s richest democracies. Modern globalization has tended to concentrate capital and services in a handful of metropolitan centers. This has bred a resentment and distrust in many heartland areas. Moreover, an extreme, often illiberal, politics of nationalism and populism has itself gone global in many of the places away from these centers. The Pulaski Institution is founded on the belief that we must reemphasize the places and situations that have been left behind by seeking to better understand their political and economic dynamics and promoting a vision of global progress that retains a sense of place.
Working at the connection of heartland areas and global politics and economics to promote a fairer, more politically sustainable future that reaches more places and leaves fewer people behind.
Program: Liberal Democracy and Place
Around the world, once-strong liberal democracies face a set of serious challenges. Even in the most robust liberal democratic societies, what matters is how strong the institutions of and commitments to liberal democratic principles are in the regions, states, and municipalities where a person lives. We seek to promote and defend liberal democracy by emphasizing place.
“Nationalism is marching across the world. Nowhere is immune to its advance. Everywhere must come to terms with the threat that it poses.”
— Ian Dunt, How to Be a Liberal
Program: The Future of Prosperity
To build a durable global economy for the 21st century, free trade is only a starting point. Global commerce needs to produce more winners and fewer losers, and real work needs to be done to bring the people and places left behind into that process.
“Once we focus on places, whether cities or other types of places, rather than whole national economies, we can easily account for the fact that some places even in the richest countries are becoming poorer…”
— Saskia Sassen, Cities in a World Economy
Contact
Email
aselrod@pulaskiinstitution.org