A new civics and transformative moderation
About my background
I have an AB degree in Social Studies from Harvard, an MA in Public Policy and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Chicago.
I have taught mainly in the Department of Government and Politics, but also in the Department of Philosophy, the School of Public Policy and in the Law School at the University of Maryland. I have also taught
I have an AB degree in Social Studies from Harvard, an MA in Public Policy and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Chicago.
I have taught mainly in the Department of Government and Politics, but also in the Department of Philosophy, the School of Public Policy and in the Law School at the University of Maryland. I have also taught in the Department of Economics at University of Warsaw and in the National School of Public Administration in Warsaw.
I have co-directed, and taught in, the Summer Institutes of Civic Studies at Tufts, and other Summer Institutes of Civic Studies in Ukraine and in Bavaria. I also taught in the Institute of Civic Studies and Learning for Democracy at James Madison University.
My jobs in the real world included Deputy Director of the Office of Political, Constitutional and Electoral Affairs in the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor and Acting Cabinet Member in UNTAET’s Transitional Government of East Timor.
A New civics and Transformative Moderation
About this website
About this website
About this website
This website features my work mainly on three related projects: to help develop a new interdisciplinary discipline of civic studies (or new civics as I sometimes call it), to help develop a normative empirical ethics, and to articulate a theory of transformative moderation, a civic theory that supports transformative change without rely
This website features my work mainly on three related projects: to help develop a new interdisciplinary discipline of civic studies (or new civics as I sometimes call it), to help develop a normative empirical ethics, and to articulate a theory of transformative moderation, a civic theory that supports transformative change without relying on the model of revolution. This theory is inspired by Mohandas Gandhi, by Martin Luther King, by the Solidarity movement in Poland in its 1980-89 incarnation, and by the tradition of color revolutions.
In some of my work I draw on game theory and rational choice, and on the mathematical concept of field, to develop a framework for representing and investigating structures of power, structures that incorporate threats and promises, but also values, ideals and human ends as power resources. In other work I draw on law, legal theory and the constitutionalist tradition, treating legal rules and principles as power resources. I have been much influenced by Philip Selznick.
About my name
About this website
About this website
I was named in honor of Charles Edouard Jeanneret (Le Corbusier), hence my first given names are Karol Edward.
In some early publications I did not insist on the Polish ł in my last name. But I should have, and I now do.
My full name as it appears in my Polish passport is Karol Edward Władysław Michał Maria Sołtan. This means that invari
I was named in honor of Charles Edouard Jeanneret (Le Corbusier), hence my first given names are Karol Edward.
In some early publications I did not insist on the Polish ł in my last name. But I should have, and I now do.
My full name as it appears in my Polish passport is Karol Edward Władysław Michał Maria Sołtan. This means that invariably when I vote in Polish elections abroad, or cross the Polish border from outside Schengen, I cannot just have my passport checked, I must explain why I have so many names.
About my family
About this website
About my family
My wife is Margaret Sołtan, and her blog is University Diaries. She is very smart and funny, so you should check it out, but please do not hold me responsible for her many wrong views. She is a retired professor of English at George Washington University, and loves James
Joyce and Don DeLillo.
My daughter is Ania Sołtan. Her full name is
My wife is Margaret Sołtan, and her blog is University Diaries. She is very smart and funny, so you should check it out, but please do not hold me responsible for her many wrong views. She is a retired professor of English at George Washington University, and loves James
Joyce and Don DeLillo.
My daughter is Ania Sołtan. Her full name is Anna Livia Helena Zofia Maria Sołtan. She happens to be a perfect daughter.
My sister, Joanna Sołtan, is a retired Curator of the School of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
My mother, Hanna Sołtan, is on Yad Vashem’s list of The Righteous Among the Nations, under her maiden name Boruciński.
My father, Jerzy Sołtan, taught architecture in the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts and in the Graduate School of Design at Harvard.
If your interest in my family extends beyond that, if for example you become interested in who is my second cousin twice removed (whatever that means), you can check below.