Alasdair MacIntyre’s three-stage framework for the concept of virtue is used to assess the Mary College at Arizona State University program. Mary College at Arizona State University is a partnership between the University of Mary and Arizona State University, universities with conflicting views of practice of education, narrative of self, and hermeneutic of moral tradition. Members of Mary College at Arizona State University achieve the internal good of initiation and engagement into these conflicting views. The Mary College partnership has the potency to reignite the historically extended, socially embodied argument about the purpose of a university education between rival institutions of higher education and thereby revive the decaying social significance of the university.

Political and educational institutions inevitably shape one another. When the telos, the end for the sake of which a thing exists, of either is incompatible with the other, tension inevitably mounts. One of the significant sources of friction which prevents both governmental institutions and educational institutions from effectively functioning is the way in which their teloi are at odds. The political philosophy which shaped the United States comes in no small part from John Locke, but the country could not and should not attempt to implement his educational theories. I argue that attempts to do so are disastrous, and that it would ultimately be better to have pedagogical truths shape political mechanisms. I end by offering a detailed examination of two ancient sources for better educational approaches, both found in the Socratic dialogues of Plato.

Alexis de Tocqueville concludes the second volume of his influential political work Democracy in America with a discussion of “What Kind of Despotism Democratic Nations have to Fear.” The phenomenon Tocqueville seeks to capture in his final chapters is often called “democratic” or “soft” despotism, and it is notably distinct from the traditional conception of despotism. The threat soft despotism represents to democracies is new to the world Tocqueville lived in, and as such, Tocqueville chose the word despotism to describe it because he felt no better word existed. So, to accurately describe the phenomenon that Tocqueville feared, he had to re-conceptualize despotism. When Tocqueville discusses soft despotism, he means a democratic state where people are incapable of being truly free. In examining this concretely, I have developed five criteria which capture all the characteristics of soft despotism: 1. The equality of conditions; 2. The destruction of social connection; 3. The creation of a centralized administrative state; 4. The fulfillment of base desires; and 5. The death of the political sphere. In “Defining Soft Despotism,” I offer explanations of what each of these five criteria means, and I discuss both how Tocqueville and later scholars view them. I offer my own understanding of each of these criteria framed in Tocqueville’s thought. Next, in “Understanding Soft Despotism,” I discuss what about soft despotism is so concerning to Tocqueville and focus on his belief that it fundamentally changes the people who live under it, depriving them of their humanity. Then, I discuss why Americans should be concerned today. Lastly, in “Measuring Soft Despotism,” I take data for each of the five criteria and examine them to see if they appear to match what Tocqueville envisioned a soft despotism would be like. In my assessment, I find that America today does not seem to be a soft despotism. America does not meet all five criteria I believe define a soft despotism. Instead, it appears America is only close to experiencing two of the five: the destruction of social connection, and the death of the political sphere. Despite these findings, there is still room for concern that America is heading towards becoming a soft despotism, or is perhaps headed in a different, but equally undesirable direction.

Despite the reactionary Habsburg regime under Emperor Franz Joseph, forces within the government and leading intelligentsia proposed various reforms to solve the issue of ethnic discrimination across the Austro-Hungarian Empire, attempting to resolve the tensions that the Ausgleich of 1867 had further aggravated by the inclusion of Hungarians as a privileged class to the detriment of the remaining minorities. This paper will look at the Austro-Marxist and Federalist reformers and the ways in which their concepts, if implemented, could have saved the Empire from its downfall in 1918. Ultimately, neither the Austro-Marxist concept of a centralized system of universal rights across the borders of all nations within the existing empire nor the Federalist idea of a national territorial sovereignty allowing for a certain degree of individual autonomy managed to be adopted by the Allied victors of World War I. The myopic focus of the ‘Big Four’ on the German Empire blinded them to the intricate economic and political balance needed for peace in the Balkans. While France, Britain, and Italy exhibited a general lack of concern to the outcome in the Balkans, Wilson’s ‘self-determination’ doctrine is most responsible for creating the unsustainable, irredentist-driven states that the reform-minded intellectuals—Austro-Marxist or Federalist—most had sought to avoid. In addition to a discussion of the reform movements in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, this paper will explore the reforms’ strong similarities to the present struggles within the European Union, particularly the divide between Euro-federalists and Euro-sceptics. The crisis situation and reform efforts of the Austrian Empire from 1867 to 1914 reveal significant policy lessons applicable to the European Union as it navigates the current crossroads between further federal integration or a return to medieval disintegration.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is a revisionist leader seeking to restore Russia’s status as a great power and rival U.S. global dominance by constructing a multipolar world order at the expense of the United States. Putin’s aggressive tendencies are not limited to Europe and the former Soviet sphere as Putin has expanded his revisionist ambitions into other regional theaters, including the Middle East. Putin has pursued an active foreign policy in the Middle East, exploiting the volatile region plagued with a historical predisposition to great power competition as a crucial part of his revisionist grand strategy. Putin is a realist, and employs a ruthless strategy of pragmatic flexibility, capitalizing on historical relations between the Soviet Union and Middle Eastern regimes when possible, but is also skilled at adapting to new circumstances and developments, and exploiting them for Russia’s strategic benefit. Putin has engaged in heightened relations and involvement with Turkey, Iran, and Syria. In Turkey, Putin has taken advantage of that country’s central location and used Turkey as a hub for the expansion of the Russian energy industry, placing pressure on NATO and the European Union. Putin has opportunistically used Iran’s controversial nuclear program to Russia’s benefit by acting as Iran’s primary international sponsor and patron for its nuclear program, elevating Russia’s regional prestige as a rival to the United States, and countering American foreign policy objectives. Putin intervened decisively on behalf of the Assad regime in the Syrian civil war, thwarting U.S. calls for regime change in Damascus and forcefully asserting Russia as a formidable regional power with veto-authority in matters of global power dynamics at Washington’s expense. Putin’s achievements with Turkey, Iran, and Syria serve to complement his larger grand strategic objectives to rival the United States as a great power and to create a multipolar world order. Putin’s ruthless, opportunistic foreign policy poses significant challenges to U.S. foreign policy and endangers the liberal world order. Washington must come to terms with the threat posed by a revisionist Russia and adopt a more assertive policy toward Putin.