Democratic Community: Nomos XXXV

Preface

This thirty-fifth volume of NOMOS began with presentations and commentaries delivered at the meeting of The American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy, held in conjunction with the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association in San Francisco, September 1990. We are grateful to our new editor, Ian Shapiro of Yale University, for having organized the program. The topic for the meeting, "Democratic Community," was inspired by Christopher J. Berry's The Idea of a Democratic Community , published in 1989. I prevailed upon our president, Joel Feinberg, to make this selection by exercising my prerogative as editor of my final volume of NOMOS. I thought the matter both timely and important, which are the criteria our Society has always applied in choosing topics for consideration. On a personal note, I wish to thank the Society for presenting me, through our officers, with a splendid Tiffany ship's clock for "devoted service." It looks just great on our mantle. You may wish to know, or perhaps you may not, that it runs perfectly on a Japanese quartz movement about the size of a small matchbox. J. W. C. Xl ...