About Civitas Outlook

Civitas Outlook is the online journal of the Civitas Institute. The journal represents a community of scholars and thinkers who write about the core ideas of freedom and virtue, constitutionalism, economic growth, and dynamism crucial to citizenship and flourishing as human persons in a free society.

The opinions expressed in Civitas Outlook are solely those of the writers and do not reflect those of the Civitas Institute or the University of Texas at Austin.

Richard M. Reinsch II

Editor-in-chief of Civitas Outlook

Richard M. Reinsch II is editor in chief of the Civitas Institute’s Civitas Outlook. He was the founding editor of the online magazine Law & Liberty.

Immediately before joining Civitas, he was the editor in chief and director of publications of the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) where he introduced the Institute’s white paper program, helped launch two new podcasts, Qualified Opinions and Econception, and led AIER’s online journal, The Daily Economy.

Contributing Editors

Jonathan H. Adler
Jonathan H. Adler
Inaugural Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law and the founding Director of the Coleman P. Burke Center for Environmental Law at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law.
Josh Blackman
Josh Blackman
Josh Blackman holds the Centennial Chair of Constitutional Law at the South Texas College of Law Houston, is a contributing editor to Civitas Outlook, and is an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Samuel Gregg
Samuel Gregg
Samuel Gregg is the President and Friedrich Hayek Chair in Economics and Economic History at the American Institute for Economic Research.
Yuval Levin
Yuval Levin
Director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he also holds the Beth and Ravenel Curry Chair in Public Policy. He is the founder and editor of National Affairs.
Joseph Postell
Joseph Postell
Associate Professor of Politics at Hillsdale College.
Veronique de Rugy
Veronique de Rugy
George Gibbs Chair in Political Economy and Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and a nationally syndicated columnist.
Scott Winship
Scott Winship
Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Opportunity and Social Mobility at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).
Steven F. Hayward
Steven F. Hayward
Steven F. Hayward is the Edward Gaylord distinguished visiting professor at Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy.
The latest from

Civitas Outlook

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Slavery and the Republic

As America begins to celebrate its semiquincentennial, much ink has been spilled questioning whether that event is worth commemorating at all. Joseph Ellis’s The Great Contradiction could not be timelier.

David Lewis Schaefer
Constitutionalism
Feb 20, 2026

When Duvall Played Stalin

It’s strange to compliment an actor for impersonating a tyrant, but it is an act of courage.

Titus Techera
Politics
Feb 20, 2026

When Vanity Leads to Impropriety

A president should simply not be allowed to name anything after himself without checks from Congress or an independent commission.

Richard Epstein
Politics
Feb 19, 2026

Retracing a Catastrophe: Lessons from Solzhenitsyn’s The Red Wheel

As Ideology has continued to exist in transmogrified forms after its Marxist-Leninist version, Solzhenitsyn remains a sure guide into its dark labyrinths.

Paul Seaton
Politics
Feb 19, 2026

Oren Cass's Bad Timing

Cass’s critique misses the most telling point about today’s economy: U.S. companies are on top because they consistently outcompete their global rivals.

Michael Toth
Economic Dynamism
Feb 18, 2026
Who we are

We are a community of scholars exploring the ideas and institutions that create flourishing societies.

The Civitas Institute is part of the University of Texas at Austin.

Independent thought, civil discourse, reasoned deliberation and intellectual curiosity are central to our ethos.

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