What is PEGS?

Established in 1990, PEGS builds on activities undertaken during the 1980s by scholar-activists committed to a fundamental reorientation within the social sciences. Nonpartisan and ideologically diverse, PEGS is a nonprofit effort that works to generate -- first within the academy, and then outward into society -- a rich debate analogous to that of the constitutional era which established the United States some two centuries ago.

PEGS responds to the growing awareness that current versions of socialism and democratic capitalism fail to offer workable visions of a good society and seem increasingly to fail to offer workable visions of a good society -- while their real world incarnation seems increasingly indifferent to such basic values as liberty, democracy, equality and environmental sustainability.

Who is Pegs?

PEGS is composed of more than 1,800 eminent political scientists, as well as growing numbers of economists, sociologists, legal theorists and philosophers. Among its Founding Board are several past presidents of the American Political Science Association and Nobel laureates. More than 20 research institutes at major universities are International Sponsors.

While primarily academic in its orientation, PEGS increasingly involves leaders and interested thinkers from business, politics, journalism and the activist community committed to building new bridges between the theoretical and the practical levels.

PEGS is jointly administered through the National Center for Economic and Security Alternatives and the Harrison Center, Department of Government and Politics of the University of Maryland.

What does PEGS do?

Besides publishing a journal, The Good Society, PEGS sponsors panels at academic conferences and holds independent conferences. The first PEGS conference on Good Society questions was held at Yale University. PEGS co-sponsored a conference on the New Institutionalism held in the fall of 1994, and with the support of the Americans Talk Issues Foundation, PEGS held a conference on "Citizen Judgment and the Design of Democratic Institutions" in Washington D.C. in February, 1995. The University of Chicago Press published the first PEGS book, A New Constitutionalism: Designing Political Institutions for a Good Society. A second book, The Constitution of Good Societies, was published by Penn State Press in 1995. A third book is slated to be published in 1999 by Penn State Press.

For more information, contact:

PEGS
Department of Government and Politics
3140 Tydings Hall
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742 USA
E-mail: v-pegs@bss2.umd.edu
Web: www.bsos.umd.edu/pegs/

Institutional Sponsors

• Center for Domestic and Comparative Policy Studies
  Princeton University
• Center for Ethics, Rationality, and Society
  University of Chicago
• Center for the Study of Politics, Theory, and Policy
  New School for Social Research
• Center for the Study of Post-Communist Societies
  University of Warsaw, Poland
• Center for the Study of Social Change
  New School for Social Research
• Center for Urban Affairs and Policy Research
  Northwestern University
• Centre for Constitutional Studies
  University of Alberta, Canada
• Chaire Hoover d'Ethique Economique et Sociale
  Universite Catholique de Louvain, Belgium
• Committee on Social Thought and Ethics
  Yale University
• East European Research Group
  Warsaw, Poland
• Equality Studies Center
  University College Dublin, Ireland
• Humphrey Institute
  University of Minnesota
• Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy
  University of Maryland
• Institutional Reform and Informal Sector
  University of Maryland
• National Center for Economic and Security Alternatives Washington, DC
• Office of the Dean
  Graduate Faculty
• New School for Social Thought
  New School for Social Research
• Program on Economy, Justice, and Society
  University of California-Davis
• Program on Political and Economic Change
  University of Colorado in Boulder
• Research School of Social Science
  Australian National University
• Stanford University
• Social Philosophy and Policy Center
  Bowling Green University
• Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis
  Indiana University
• Walt Whitman Center
  Rutgers University

PEGS Founding Board

• Henry Aaron
  Brookings Institution
• Bruce Ackerman
  Yale Law School
• W.B. Allen
  James Madison College
  Michigan State University
• Gar Alperovitz
  National Center for Economic and Security Alternatives
• Charles Anderson
  Department of Political Science
  University of Wisconsin, Madison
• Peter Aranson
  Department of Economics
  Emory University
• Kenneth Arrow
  Department of Economics
  Stanford University
• Benjamin Barber
  Walt Whitman Center
  Rutgers University
• Murray Bookchin
  Institute for Social Ecology
  Burlington, Vermont
• Samuel Bowles
  Department of Economics
  University of Massachusetts
• Peter Browne
  School of Public Affairs
  University of Maryland
• Robert Browne
  Washington D.C.
• James Buchanan
  Center for the Study of Public Choice
  George Mason University
• Joshua Cohen
  Department of Political Science
  Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Robert Dahl
  Department of Political Science
  Yale University
• Sandy Darrity
  Department of Economics
  University of North Carolina
• John Dryzek
  Department of Political Science
  University of Melbourne
• Christopher Edley, Jr.
  Harvard Law School
• Stephen Elkin
  Department of Government and Politics
  Universtiy of Maryland
• Jon Elster
  Department of Political Science
  Columbia University
• Amatai Etzioni
  George Washington University
• William Galston
  School of Public Affairs
  University of Maryland
• John Gaventa
  Department of Sociology
  University of Tennessee
• Alan Gilbert
  School of International Studies
  University of Denver
• Herbert Gintis
  Department of Economics
  University of Massachusetts
• Robert Goodin
  Research School of Social Science
  Australian National University
• Neva Goodwin
  Global Development and Environment Institute
  Tufts University
• John Gray
  European Institute
  London School of Economics
• Philip Green
  Department of Government
  Smith College
• Edward Greenberg
  Department of Political Science
  University of Colorado
• Russell Hardin
  Department of Politics
  New York University
• Hazel Henderson
  Author
• Jennifer Hochschild
  Department of Politics
  Princeton University
• Jeffrey Isaac
  Department of Political Science
  Indiana University
• Gerald Jaynes
  Department of Economics
  Yale University
• Christopher Jencks
  Harvard University
• Bartek Kaminsk
  Department of Government and Politics
  University of Maryland
• Alan Kay
  Americans Talk Issues Foundation
  Washington D.C.
• Steven Kelman
  Kennedy School of Government
  Harvard University
• Duncan Kennedy
  Harvard Law School
• Martin Kilson
  Department of Government
  Harvard University
• Serge-Christophe Kolm
  Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris
• Judith Lichtenberg
  Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy
  University of Maryland
• Charles Lindblom
  Department of Political Science
  Yale University
• Jeffrey Lustig
  Department of Government
  California State University, Sacramento
• Stephen Macedo
  Department of Political Science
  Syracuse University
• Jane Mansbridge
  Department of Government
  Harvard University
• Michael McPherson
  President
  Macalester College
• Milton Morris
  Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies
  Washington D.C.
• Samuel Myers
  Hubert Humphrey Institute
  University of Minnesota
• William Niskanen
  Cato Institute
• Martha Nussbaum
  Law School
  University of Chicago
• Elinor Ostrom and Vincent Ostrom
  Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis
  Indiana University
• Carole Pateman
  Department of Political Science
  UCLA
• Ellen Frankel Paul
  Social Philosophy and Policy Center
  Bowling Green University
• Robert Putnam
  Center for International Affairs,
  Harvard University
• Louis Putterman
  Department of Economics
  Brown University
• Douglas Rae
  Department of Political Science
  Yale University
• Adolph Reed
  Department of Political Science
  Northwestern University
• Menachem Rosner
  University of Haifa, Israel
• Alan Ryan
  New College
  Oxford University
• Ignacy Sachs,
  Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris
• Mark Sagoff
  Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy
  University of Maryland
• Juliet Schor
  Department of Economics
  Harvard University
• Amartya Sen
  Department of Economics
  Harvard University
• Ian Shapiro
  Department of Political Science
  Yale University
• Jeremy Shearmur
  Australian National University
• Rogers Smith
  Department of Political Science
  Yale University
• Karol Soltan
  Department of Government and Politics
  University of Maryland
• Cass Sunstein
  Law School
  University of Chicago
• Michael Taylor
  Department of Political Science
  University of Washington
• Viktor Vanberg
  University of Freiburg
• Cornel West
  Department of African-American Studies
  Harvard University
• Robin West
  School of Law
• Georgetown University
• Linda Williams
  Department of Government and Politic
  University of Maryland
• Alex Willingham
  Department of Political Science
  Williams College
• Alan Wolfe
  Department of Sociology
  Boston University
• Erik Wright
  Department of Sociology
  University of Wisconsin
• Iris Marion Young
  Graduate School of Public and International Affairs
  University of Pittsburgh