Is patriotism good for anyone other than flag manufacturers? If so, good for whom, and why? Do we have special obligations to some people simply in virtue of common membership in a nation state? If so, how is this different from special obligations to some in virtue of a common race, or a common religion? Does the unquestioned utility of shared nation-level institutions require a special sentiment, patriotism, to hold it all together? Would our institutions be more effective if we were more patriotic? Patriotism is surely useful for creating the solidarity needed to defend against an external enemy. But aren’t our potential enemies patriotic, too? If we need patriotism for defense against patriotism on the offense, wouldn’t we all be better off with multilateral disarmament?

To tackle these questions and more, we’ve assembled a lineup of world-class political theorists, starting with lead essayist George Kateb, the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics, Emeritus at Princeton University and author of Patriotism and Other Mistakes. Commenting on Kateb’s essay, we’ll have the American Enterprise Institute’s Walter Berns, author of Making Patriots; William Galston of the Brookings Institution and the University of Maryland, author of The Practice of Liberal Pluralism; and Chandran Kukathas of the London School of Economics, author of The Liberal Archipelago: A Theory of Diversity and Freedom.