This book provides an integrated and multi-disciplinary examination of the growing role and legitimacy of philanthropy in democratic societies. Contributors probe the relationship between philanthropy and democracy from an empirical approach – what role has philanthropy actually played? – and from a normative approach – what role should philanthropy play? Divided into three sections on historical origins, institutional forms, and moral grounds and limits, the book bridges normative and empirical perspectives. The authors move philanthropy from the margins to the center of scholarly inquiry, pr ... More

This book provides an integrated and multi-disciplinary examination of the growing role and legitimacy of philanthropy in democratic societies. Contributors probe the relationship between philanthropy and democracy from an empirical approach – what role has philanthropy actually played? – and from a normative approach – what role should philanthropy play? Divided into three sections on historical origins, institutional forms, and moral grounds and limits, the book bridges normative and empirical perspectives. The authors move philanthropy from the margins to the center of scholarly inquiry, providing a fresh look at philanthropy as a hybrid and ever-changing form of public and private power. Doing so permits an understanding of the evolution between public and private, identifying the public dimensions of private wealth and power, and recognizing when private action supports or, alternatively, threatens the public interest. Collectively, the essays open up powerful analytical vistas or conceptual possibilities for understanding shifts in the pursuit of the public interest and under what circumstances private action and the public interest are aligned. Authors are at once appreciative and critical in outlook, motivated by the idea that the broadest understanding of democratic life requires an engagement with the historical development, institutional embodiments, and moral grounds and limits of philanthropy.