Why Institutions Matter

Yuval Levin is director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).  He also holds the Beth and Ravenel Curry Chair in Public Policy.  The founding and current editor of the journal National Affairs, he is also a senior editor of The New Atlantis and a contributing editor to National Review. He served as a member of the White House domestic policy staff under President George W. Bush. He was also executive director of the President’s Council on Bioethics and a congressional staffer at the member, committee, and leadership levels.  He has published essays and articles in numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and Commentary. He is the author of several books on political theory and public policy, including A Time to Build: From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream; The Fractured Republic: Renewing America’s Social Contract in the Age of Individualism; and The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left.  He holds a B.A. from American University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago.