Yuval Levin is the founding editor of National Affairs, contributing editor to National Review, and fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He was the chief of staff for the President’s Council on Bioethics and a member of the White House domestic policy staff in 2005 and 2006. His most recent book is “The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Left and Right.” Levin spoke in Dow A & B for the Dow Journalism Program at Hillsdale College Tuesday, Feb. 9.
How did your Israeli heritage affect your conception of foreign policy?
I don’t really know. I was born in Israel and lived there until I was about eight. I grew up in the U.S. mostly. It’s not something you ever entirely leave behind, and I’m sure it shapes the way I think about politics and policy, but the way I think about politics and policy is a very American way of thinking.
What’s an American way of thinking about foreign policy?
I think that American foreign policy has to be rooted in the same American principles that American domestic policy is rooted in. It’s rooted in the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and the equality of all mankind and a belief in democracy, and ultimately in some sense of interests and American needs and principles. Finding that balance is always a challenge, and that’s why it’s not an easy thing to be a policy maker. I think it’s essential to balance interests with circumstances, and in a sense, that’s what makes America unique.
Are there any politicians in Washington, D.C. today who you think do a good job of balancing interests and principles?
It’s hard to say because when it comes to foreign affairs, not a lot of politicians have their hand in the stew; they’re not involved. Ultimately, American foreign policy is driven by the executive, and I don’t think our chief executive now does a particularly good job of balancing interests and principles. But I think there are some politicians who are trying to counterbalance that. Some of them are more inclined toward interventionism, like Rubio for example, and some are less inclined to that, like Rand Paul. I think both of those people are looking for ways to apply principles of government to foreign policy. The fact that they come to different conclusions is not surprising; there’s more than one way to apply principles because ultimately that application is based on circumstances, and that’s a judgment.
What do you think is the proper relationship between public policy and social welfare?
I think that for a long time now, American public policy has been defined by a way of thinking about the place of the state in achieving social welfare that’s misguided or not well-rooted in our constitutional system or our political tradition that sees the role of the state as centralizing and consolidating efforts to advance social welfare and putting that in the hands of the elected government rather than seeing the role of the state as creating a space for society and the institutions that stand between individuals and the state to do their work. A lot of what conservatives do in domestic affairs now is the work of recovering that vision by creating a space for the institutions that intermediate, like the family and the private economy, to do the work of improving social welfare. I think the key of what we’re looking for is not the exact right solution from Washington. The role is to allow different groups to try different things. If you begin from a more humble premise — that we don’t have all the answers, then you think about, “How do we find the answers?” creating the space for that is a much better role for Washington.
You can listen to our entire interview with Yuval Levin on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/hillsdale-collegian/yuval-levin-full-interview-audio
