Political analyst Yuval Levin will discuss how a deeper understanding of the Constitution can help unite Americans in a free society during the Berkeley Liberty Initiative's (BLI) 2025 Ambassador Frank E. Baxter Lecture this week.
Levin is director of social, cultural and constitutional studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a Washington, D.C.–based public policy think tank. He holds the Beth and Ravenel Curry Chair in Public Policy and is the founder and editor-in-chief of the quarterly political magazine National Affairs.
Levin's research focuses on how today's American political culture can be repaired through strengthening its core institutions, both governmental and nonpolitical. His extensive work on the constitutional system, public policy and the market economy will inform his Baxter Lecture, titled "Can the Constitution Unify Americans?"
Berkeley Social Sciences spoke with Levin about his career and research. This interview has been edited for clarity.
Can you talk about your background and career trajectory?
Yuval Levin: In a sense, my work is a project of gratitude for America. I'm an immigrant. I was born in Israel and came to the United States as a young child. And like a lot of immigrants, I'm in awe of the United States and eager to play some part in making it stronger and truer to itself.
This led me at a young age to take great interest in American history, civics and politics. Exactly what that could mean as a career was not obvious early on, of course. But I studied political science as an undergraduate (at American University in Washington, D.C.) and worked as a congressional staffer for a number of years, and so was on a path toward working in and around politics.
When my boss lost his job in the 1998 congressional elections, I decided it was time for graduate school, and went to the University of Chicago. I came back to Washington a few years later to work in the administration of President George W. Bush. After his term, I found myself working in a D.C. think tank. I wouldn't say this was all the function of a planned-out career path, but it was certainly the function of a deep interest in politics and a desire to help our country thrive.
What are some of the key themes of your research regarding public policy, political philosophy and related topics?
Yuval Levin: My work has been at the intersection of political theory and public policy. My education was focused on the theory side: I have a Ph.D. from the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, and my dissertation was on the late-18th century roots of progressive and conservative liberalism. But both before and after graduate school, I have worked in Washington — as a congressional staffer, a White House staffer and then a think-tank scholar. This has meant that my work has really focused on the meeting-place of theory and practice: the philosophical roots of our policy debates and the practical implications of contemporary political philosophy.
Over the past decade or so, this has particularly meant working on the condition of American political culture and core American institutions. My work has focused on the sources of polarization and fragmentation in American life, and on the declining strength of American institutions (from family to religion, culture and politics). This has also led me to think about the constitutional system from an institutional point of view, and especially to focus on the weakness of Congress, and what might be done about it.
Can you share more about your current work at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and National Affairs?
Yuval Levin: My work at AEI is very much the result of the intellectual path sketched out above. I came to AEI in 2019 to create a new research division devoted to the preconditions for sustaining our free society in America. For many years, AEI's work was divided into three parts: domestic policy, economic policy and foreign policy.
But by 2019, it was clear that the sorts of traditional policy debates into which work in those three areas would constructively speak were having trouble happening at all because of a broken political culture. The sources of that problem, and ways of addressing it, needed to be the subject of concerted work at a place like AEI, and that has been the work of my team there. We study the institutions of the American system of government and the institutions that are upstream of politics but essential to its health (like family, religion, the university and civil society).
I've also continued my work as the editor of National Affairs, a quarterly journal of public policy that I started in 2009. It seeks to help policymakers and the public think concretely about how public policy geared toward strengthening American constitutionalism and the market economy could help our society address its problems.
How would you describe the connection between your work and the idea of freedom in political and economic life?
Yuval Levin: I'm a conservative, and so I think the preservation and advancement of freedom requires a certain kind of citizen and a certain set of institutions. Ultimately, a free society is not just a society without constraints on people's choices; it's a society full of people capable of making virtuous choices and using their freedom well. Such people have to be formed by the fundamental institutions of society, which means those institutions need to be strong and vibrant, and need to be repaired and reformed when they break down. That task of repair and reform is the essence of my work.