Benjamin Barber

This article is about the American political theorist. For the Australian actor, see Ben Barber.

Benjamin Barber
Barber in 2010
Born	(1939-08-02)August 2, 1939 New York City, New York, U.S.
Died	April 24, 2017(2017-04-24) (aged 77) New York City, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Academic
Nationality	American
Genre	Political theory
Website
www.benjaminrbarber.com

Benjamin R. Barber (August 2, 1939 – April 24, 2017) was an American political theorist and author, perhaps best known for his 1995 bestseller, Jihad vs. McWorld, and for 2013's If Mayors Ruled the World as well as the classic of democratic theory, 1984's Strong Democracy (revised in 2004). He became a top-level international consultant on participatory democracy as well as an adviser to Bill Clinton, Howard Dean, and Muammar Gaddafi.

Personal life

Barber was born in New York City in 1939. He was educated at Grinnell College (B.A., 1960) and Harvard University (M.A., 1963; Ph.D., 1966), after earning certificates at Albert Schweitzer College (1959) and the London School of Economics (1957).

Barber's father, Philip W. Barber, directed the New York City unit of the Federal Theatre Project, which produced plays including Macbeth and the Living Newspaper. His mother, Doris Frankel, was a playwright and wrote for television. Barber was also active as a playwright, lyricist (libretto for George Quincy's opera Home and the River) and film-maker (The Struggle for Democracy, with Patrick Watson, and Music Inn, with Ben Barenholtz).

Barber died on April 24, 2017, after a four-month battle with cancer.

Career

Barber was a Senior Research Scholar at The Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society of The Graduate Center, The City University of New York, the President and Founder of the Interdependence Movement, and Walt Whitman Professor of Political Science Emeritus, Rutgers University. From 2007–2012, he was a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Demos.

As a political theorist, Barber argued for a renewed focus on civil society and engaged citizenship as tools for building effective democracy, particularly in the post-Cold War world. His work examined the failure of nation-states to address global problems, and argued that cities and intercity associations are more effectively addressing shared concerns. Barber was a Senior Fellow at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy in 2005–2017. In February 2016, he joined the Fordham University Urban Consortium as its first Distinguished Senior Fellow and announced the inaugural convening of the Global Parliament of Mayors.

Barber was an outside adviser to President Bill Clinton and a foreign policy adviser to Howard Dean's 2004 Presidential campaign. He advised political parties and political leaders in the U.K., Germany, Austria, Denmark, Finland and Italy on civic education and participatory institutions.

Barber met with and worked alongside civil society and government leaders in Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, China, and Moammar Gadhafi's Libya.

Honors

Barber's honors included a knighthood from the French Government (Palmes Academiques/Chevalier) (2001), the Berlin Prize of the American Academy in Berlin (2001) and the John Dewey Award (2003). He was also awarded Guggenheim, Fulbright, and Social Science Research Fellowships, honorary doctorates from Grinnell College, Monmouth University and Connecticut College, and held the chair of American Civilization at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris.

2016 elections

In November 2016, Barber was enmeshed in controversy and accusations of racism against him after he was surreptitiously recorded at a fundraiser for North Carolina Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Deborah K. Ross by Project Veritas. In his recorded remarks, Barber compared African Americans voting for Republicans to Jews collaborating with Nazi concentration camp guards:

[Benjamin Barber:] [Sonderkommandos were] Jewish guards who, in effect, helped murder Jews in the camps so they could live a little longer. So there were even Jews who were helping the Nazis murder Jews. So blacks who are helping the other side are seriously fucked in the head. They're only helping the enemy who want to destroy them.

When confronted about his statement by news station WRAL, he responded that the analogy to Sonderkommandos was an overstatement and not one that I would make in public. The Ross campaign stated that Ross does not agree with or condone Barber's remarks and donated Barber's $200 campaign contribution to hurricane relief efforts.

Barber donated $12,825 to various political campaigns between 2008 and 2016, and he describes himself as an experienced fundraiser in his biography.

Bibliography

• Superman and Common Men: Freedom, Anarchy and the Revolution (1971) ISBN 978-0-14-021430-7
• The Death of Communal Liberty: A History of Freedom in a Swiss Mountain Canton (1974) ISBN 978-0-691-61808-1
• Liberating Feminism (1976) ISBN 978-0-8164-9214-5
• Marriage Voices (1981 novel) ISBN 978-0-671-44808-0
• Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age (1984) ISBN 978-0-520-05115-7
• The Conquest of Politics: Liberal Philosophy in Democratic Times (1988) ISBN 978-0-691-07764-2
• An Aristocracy of Everyone: The Politics Of Education and the Future of America (1992) ISBN 978-0-19-985417-2
• America Skips School (1993) appeared in Harper's Magazine
• Jihad vs. McWorld: How Globalism and Tribalism Are Reshaping the World (1996) ISBN 978-0-345-38304-4
• A Place for Us: How to Make Society Civil and Democracy Strong (1998) ISBN 978-0-8090-7656-7
• A Passion for Democracy: American Essays (2000) ISBN 978-0-691-05024-9
• The Truth of Power: Intellectual Affairs in the Clinton White House (2001) ISBN 978-0-231-14439-1
• Fear's Empire: War, Terrorism, and Democracy in an Age of Interdependence (2003) ISBN 978-0-393-32578-2
• Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age (Twentieth Anniversary Revision 2004) ISBN 978-0-520-24233-3
• Schwächt oder stärkt E-Technologie die Demokratie?, in: Robertson-von Trotha, Caroline Y. (ed.): Kultur und Gerechtigkeit (= Kulturwissenschaft interdisziplinär/Interdisciplinary Studies on Culture and Society, Vol. 2), Baden-Baden (2007)
• Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole (2007) ISBN 978-0-393-04961-9
• If Mayors Ruled the World: Dysfunctional Nations, Rising Cities (2013) ISBN 978-0-300-16467-1
• Cool Cities: Urban Sovereignty and the Fix for Global Warming (2017) ISBN 978-0-300-22420-7

Further reading

• Saward, Michael (2012), "A conversation with Benjamin Barber.", in Browning, Gary; Dimova-Cookson, Maria; Prokhovnik, Raia (eds.), Dialogues with contemporary political theorists, Houndsmill, Basingstoke, Hampshire New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 24–41, ISBN 9780230303058 {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |editorlink3= ignored (|editor-link3= suggested) (help)

External links

• Official website
• Benjamin Barber at TED
  • Why mayors should rule the world, a TED talk (TEDGlobal 2013)
• CivWorld
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• The Interdependence Movement
• A Conversation on American Political Culture with Benjamin Barber
• Barber discusses his book Consumed: How markets corrupt.... Audio on Media Matters April 15, 2007 UIUC.EDU
• Benjamin Barber's blog on the Huffington Post
• Benjamin Barber on Twitter
• Interview with Benjamin R. Barber by JK Fowler for The Mantle March 19, 2011
• A film clip "The Open Mind – A New Requirement for the Educated Person: Community Service (1990)" is available for viewing at the Internet Archive