Eric Benjamin Mackey
*On the Job Market: 2026-2027*

I am a political theorist working in contemporary democratic theory. My research tackles this question: how do we balance the material benefits created by wealthy philanthropists with the significant anti-democratic concerns their donations raise? Elite philanthropy presents challenges to democracy by granting donors disproportionate political influence over public institutions—even without considering their donations to political campaigns. For instance, major donors often impose specific conditions on their contributions, shaping the actions and policies of public institutions in ways that bypass democratic processes, such as elections. In my book project, I argue that understanding democratic critiques of elite philanthropy requires democratic theorizing that engages with discourse and ideology. I examine how elite philanthropy shapes conversations about the common good by promoting solutions that primarily benefit wealthy groups, while framing these solutions as essential to democracy. This framing often obscures the disproportionate power philanthropists hold over public institutions. Using a framework grounded in deliberative democratic theory, I analyze how prominent elite philanthropists influence education policy—particularly through the U.S. Department of Education. My research explores how the philanthropic infrastructure in American public education has been used to shape public perceptions of the democratic values around innovations like standardized testing frequently found in predominant discourses of school reform that characterize prominent elite philanthropic practices. I argue that these specific appeals to school reform manifest in practices and policies that surreptitiously shift power away from ordinary citizens and toward wealthy philanthropists. Using a deliberative systems approach, I analyze this dynamic to better characterize philanthropic behavior as potentially harmful to democracy—even when such efforts produce real material benefits and appear to be motivated by altruism.

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My broader research agenda will explores whether a deliberative approach can address critiques by integrating insights from other democratic models, particularly participatory and epistemic ones. I also investigate the positive effects of philanthropy and charity on democracy, examining their potential to enhance democratic practices beyond formal state structures and to illuminate the role of institutions and institutional design in promoting democracy. Such approaches draw on additional models of democratic theorizing such as economic democracy, epistemic democracy, participatory and workplace democracy. My contributions center on emphasizing the critical role of ideas in shaping democratic theories about institutions and institutional design by using a variety of approaches to democratic theorizing.

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