Margaret Levi: Political Scientist, Author, & Professor at Stanford University

RadicalxChange(s)

Welcome back to RadicalxChange(s), and happy 2024!

In our first episode of the year, Matt speaks with Margaret Levi, distinguished political scientist, author, and professor at Stanford University. They delve into Margaret and her team’s groundbreaking work of reimagining property rights. The captivating discussion revolves around their approach's key principles: emphasizing well-being, holistic sustainability encompassing culture and biodiversity, and striving for equality.

RadicalxChange has been working with Margaret Levi and her team at Stanford, together with Dark Matter Labs, on exploring and reimagining the institutions of ownership.

This episode is part of a short series exploring the theme of What and How We Own: Building a Politics of Change.

Tune in as they explore these transformative ideas shaping our societal structures.
Read more in our newsletter What & How We Own: The Politics of Change | Part I.

Links & References:

References:

• Desiderata: things desired as essential.
• Distributive justice
• Elizabeth Anderson - Relational equality
• Debra Satz - Sustainability
  • What is wrong with inequality?
• Elinor "Lin" Ostrom - Common ownership
  • Ostrom’s Law: Property rights in the commons
• Indigenous models of stewardship
  • Indigenous Peoples: Defending an Environment for All
• Colorado River situation
  • A Breakthrough Deal to Keep the Colorado River From Going Dry, for Now
• How did Aboriginal peoples manage their water resources

Further Reading Recommendations from Margaret:

• A Moral Political Economy: Present, Past and Future (2021) by Federica Carugati and Margaret Levi
• Dædalus (Winter 2023): Creating a New Moral Political Economy | American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Edited by Margaret Levi and Henry Farrell)
• The works of Elizabeth Anderson, including Private Government (2017) and What Is the Point of Equality? (excerpt from Ethics (1999))
• Justice by Means of Democracy (2023) by Danielle Allen
• Katharina Pistor

Bios:

Margaret Levi is Professor of Political Science and Senior Fellow at the Center for Democracy, Development and Rule of Law (CDDRL) at the Freeman Spogli Institute (FSI) at Stanford University. She is the former Sara Miller McCune Director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) Levi is currently a faculty fellow at CASBS and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment, co-director of the Stanford Ethics, Society and Technology Hub, and the Jere L. Bacharach Professor Emerita of International Studies at the University of Washington. She is the winner of the 2019 Johan Skytte Prize and the 2020 Falling Walls Breakthrough. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the British Academy, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Association of Political and Social Sciences. She served as president of the American Political Science Association from 2004 to 2005. In 2014, she received the William H. Riker Prize in Political Science, in 2017 gave the Elinor Ostrom Memorial Lecture, and in 2018 received an honorary doctorate from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.

She earned her BA from Bryn Mawr College in 1968 and her PhD from Harvard University in 1974, the year she joined the faculty of the University of Washington. She has been a Senior Fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University. She held the Chair in Politics, United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, 2009-13. At the University of Washington she was director of the CHAOS (Comparative Historical Analysis of Organizations and States) Center and formerly the Harry Bridges Chair and Director of the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies.

Levi is the author or coauthor of numerous articles and seven books, including Of Rule and Revenu_e (University of California Press, 1988); _Consent, Dissent, and Patriotism (Cambridge University Press, 1997); Analytic Narratives (Princeton University Press, 1998); and Cooperation Without Trust? (Russell Sage, 2005). In the Interest of Others (Princeton, 2013), co-authored with John Ahlquist, explores how organizations provoke member willingness to act beyond material interest. In other work, she investigates the conditions under which people come to believe their governments are legitimate and the consequences of those beliefs for compliance, consent, and the rule of law. Her research continues to focus on how to improve the quality of government. She is also committed to understanding and improving supply chains so that the goods we consume are produced in a manner that sustains both the workers and the environment. In 2015 she published the co-authored Labor Standards in International Supply Chains (Edward Elgar).

She was general editor of Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics and is co-general editor of the Annual Review of Political Science. Levi serves on the boards of the: Carlos III-Juan March Institute in Madrid; Scholar and Research Group of the World Justice Project, the Berggruen Institute, and CORE Economics. Her fellowships include the Woodrow Wilson in 1968, German Marshall in 1988-9, and the Center for Advanced Study of the Behavioral Sciences in 1993-1994. She has lectured and been a visiting fellow at the Australian National University, the European University Institute, the Max Planck Institute in Cologne, the Juan March Institute, the Budapest Collegium, Cardiff University, Oxford University, Bergen University, and Peking University.

Levi and her husband, Robert Kaplan, are avid collectors of Australian Aboriginal art and have gifted pieces to the Seattle Art Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Women’s Museum of Art, and the Nevada Museum of Art.

Margaret’s Social Links:

• Margaret Levi | Website
• @margaretlevi | X (Twitter)

Matt Prewitt (he/him) is a lawyer, technologist, and writer. He is President of the RadicalxChange Foundation.

Matt’s Social Links:

• @m_t_prewitt | X

Additional Credits:

This episode was recorded by Matt Prewitt.

Connect with RadicalxChange Foundation:

• RadicalxChange Website
• @RadxChange | Twitter
• RxC | YouTube
• RxC | Instagram
• RxC | LinkedIn
• Join the conversation on Discord.

Credits:

• Produced by G. Angela Corpus.
• Co-Produced, Edited, Narrated, and Audio Engineered by Aaron Benavides.
• Executive Produced by G. Angela Corpus and Matt Prewitt.
• Intro/Outro music by MagnusMoone, “Wind in the Willows,” is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)