Plural Sovereignty for the Common Good: Faith-Based Initiatives and the Social Question Today

In the era of welfare reform since the mid-1990s, social policy has become increasingly intertwined with developments in church-state law that seem to encourage more cooperation between government programs and faith-based organizations. George W. Bush’s faith-based initiative—his signature domestic policy initiative—was an important effort to advance this trend in a structural way, but the Obama administration, despite initial signals of support, has reverted to a liberal-secularist approach that is not only constitutionally obsolete, but politically damaging for the future of the social safety net.