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Investigator publications listed on this site relate to research funded through the Investigator Awards program. References are provided for books and selected journal articles written by the investigators. Abstracts are available for some featured publications.
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Cover
The Samaritan's Dilemma: Should Government Help Your Neighbor?
Stone, D.A.
Published: 2008
Nation Books
»Show summary
For at least a generation, experts have warned us not reach out to others. Too much help makes people passive and dependent, we are told, and self interest is the only motive that spurs people to work and contribute to society. Liberals and conservatives alike have endorsed this new moral code for government. The Samaritan's Dilemma challenges this conventional wisdom. We are born needing help, we die needing help, and we live out our days getting and giving help. We live by everyday altruism. So when leaders define the ideal citizen as someone who pursues his self interest and withholds help from others, good people are repelled by politics.

The Samaritan's Dilemma calls on us to restore the public sphere as a place where citizens can fulfill their moral aspirations. If government helps the neighbors, citizens will once again want to help govern. With unforgettable stories of how real people think and feel when they practice kindness, Stone shows that everyday altruism is the premier school for citizenship. At a time when millions of citizens ache to put the Bush and Reagan era behind us and feel proud of their government, award-winning political scientist Deborah Stone offers an enormously hopeful vision of politics.

Linked Investigator Award(s):
Deborah A. Stone, Ph.D.Care, Work, and Citizenship
Award Year: 1999

»Show Abstract
The modern welfare state is shifting its emphasis from assuring income security to addressing needs for direct physical and emotional care through a variety of laws, policies, and institutions. Given the widespread need for care and the fragmented nature of previous efforts to understand and respond to it, Dr. Stone redefines care as a political issue and views it as a civic responsibility and act. To explore the place of care in a democratic society, she investigates: 1) the legitimacy of dependence and care in American political culture; 2) the treatment of dependence in the assignment of citizenship rights; 3) how caregiving responsibilities affect political and economic rights; 4) the tensions arising from the incorporation of caregiving work into bureaucratic and professional models of labor management; 5) cooperation and conflict between care users and caregivers; and 6) how rules and resistance to them shape the quality of caregiving and affect care workers' moral attitudes.
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Cover
Stone, D.A., The Samaritan's Dilemma: Should Government Help Your Neighbor?. Nation Books, 2008.