Thinking About Politics: A Conference Dedicated to Explaining and Perpetuating the Political Insights of James Q. Wilson took place at Harvard University and Boston College on April 4-5, 2013.

Thursday, April 4, 2013
Harvard University, CGIS-South, Belfer Case Study Room, S020
1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA

Welcome and Introduction

R. Shep Melnick, Boston College

Panel 1: Parties and Organized Interests

Marc K. Landy, Boston College, Political Parties, Then and Now
Martin A. Shefter, Cornell University, Political Polarization in America Today
Steven M. Teles, Johns Hopkins University, Organizational Maintenance, the Funder-Grantee Nexus, and the Trajectory of American Political Development

Discussants:
David R. Mayhew, Yale University (chair), Comment
James W. Ceaser, University of Virginia
McGee Young, Marquette University

Remembering James Q. Wilson

Peter Skerry, Boston College (chair), Reminiscences of Jim Wilson
Peter B. Clark, Regarding James Q. Wilson
Morton Keller, Brandeis University
Martha Derthick, University of Virginia, On James Q. Wilson
Suzanne Garment, The Tikvah Fund, Remembrance of James Q. Wilson

Friday, April 5, 2013
Boston College, Corcoran Commons, Heights Room
Campanella Way, Chestnut Hill, MA

Panel 2: Crime and Policing

Mark H. Moore, Harvard University
Mark A.R. Kleiman, UCLA, Wilson’s Machiavellian Cruelty

Discussants:
Christopher H. Foreman, Jr., University of Maryland (chair)
George L. Kelling, Manhattan Institute and Rutgers University, Comment
David M. Kennedy, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY

Panel 3: Bureaucracy and Regulation

Daniel P. Carpenter, Harvard University, On Categories and the Countability of Things Bureaucratic

Discussants:
Judge Robert A. Katzmann, Second Circuit Court of Appeals (chair)
Paul J. Quirk, University of British Columbia
Steven Kelman, Harvard University
Harvey Sapolsky, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Comment

Lunch
Lunch was followed by talks by Hugh Heclo, George Mason University, and Peter H. Schuck, Yale Law School

Panel 4: From Political Science to Policy Analysis

Lawrence M. Mead, New York University, Telling the Truth: James Q. Wilson and Political Science
R. Shep Melnick, Boston College, Political Science, Policy Analysis, and Practical Wisdom: Some Lessons from the Writing and Career of James Q. Wilson

Discussants:
William Kristol, The Weekly Standard (chair)
Pietro S. Nivola, Brookings Institution, Comment
Christopher C. DeMuth, Hudson Institute

Panel 5: Character and Culture

John J. DiIulio, Jr., University of Pennsylvania, Moral Sense and Religious Sensibility: James Q. Wilson’s Quest to Understand Human Character and Civic Virtue
Martha Bayles, Boston College, The Crooked Timber of Womanhood

Discussants:
Charles R. Kesler, Claremont-McKenna College (chair)
Jon A. Shields, Claremont-McKenna College
Linda C. McClain, Boston University Law School