I am an associate professor of political science at Northwestern University. During (Northern) summers, I am also a research fellow at the Australian National University’s School of Philosophy. I received my PhD in political science from Yale University (2016).
My current work focuses on three related themes. First, I am interested in how we should think about the collective agency of “the sovereign people,” both as a matter of abstract philosophy and as a matter of concrete public policy (see The people’s duty, forthcoming with Cambridge University Press).
Second, I explore what political philosophy can contribute when facing obvious moral failures in public policy.
Finally, my current work also examines the moral value of integrity, whether applied to ordinary people, to authoritarian demagogues, or to collective institutions.
My inquiries into these three themes started with a focus on corruption issues. In particular, I was interested in global corruption related to the “resource curse” and in philosophical questions that this “curse” raises about public property and democracy, as well as about the practical tasks of political philosophy. More recently, I have sought to connect my global theory arguments to domestic politics, paying special attention to morally fraught dynamics in various developing countries, in the United States, and in my native Israel.
Below you’ll find list of selected journal articles; for the complete list, and for book projects, please click the links above.
shmuel.nili@northwestern.edu