I am grateful to Lisa Herzog for her careful reading and insightful comments on my book. I respond to her objections and suggest a future research agenda here.

I agree that neoliberal reformers have often benefited from the perception that cliquish and opaque structures could be opened up by rules and incentives based on objective measures of merit. Setting aside whether neoliberal arrangements actually benefit women, nonwhites, and foreigners, my main claim is that the single-minded pursuit of any goal (such as a high score on a putatively objective measure of achievement such as income or reputational rank) may disadvantage those who have to balance multiple goals (like work and family, research and teaching, profit and social license). The use of extrinsic rewards or metrics can demoralize wise practitioners who seek to balance diverse goods. Imposing a market logic based on competition, especially on those who work in areas that are financially unrewarding but contribute to the common good, can be punitive and counterproductive. I accept, however, that objective measures of achievement have an important place in meritocratic organizations.

Likewise, I accept that character may be endogenous to institutions. Good practices are hard to cultivate in the absence of institutions that promote virtue, especially in the field of education. My point is not that good institutions are unimportant, but that they are rarely enough. For example, proportional representation (PR) compels political parties to work in coalitions, thus reducing the adversarial and hyper-partisan competition that characterizes many majoritarian systems. Yet it seems unlikely that the greater spirit of compromise found in PR systems is merely a mechanical effect of electoral rules so much as the result of political cultures that coevolve with those rules. Good institutions create the scaffolding for good practices. In this respect, Herzog’s work on the moral responsibilities of agents within organizations should inspire political scientists to apply her insights to party organizations, legislatures, and constitutional design.

Three question for future research are suggested by this critical dialogue. First, could transformational agency in politics be encouraged through organizational reforms? These might include measures to democratize decision making inside political parties while strengthening spaces for moral reflection within their operations. Second, could legislatures become more deliberative by promoting more cross-partisan and nonpartisan opportunities for collective deliberation and judgment? Such activity might be generated within committees, all-party fact-finding missions, and by independent officers of parliament, as well as through greater reliance on arms-length citizens’ assemblies, citizens’ juries, and participatory budgeting. Third, could we reimagine the separation of powers? The division of branches of government is a form of divided labor based on functionally differentiated powers. Legally sanctioned spaces for moral reflection on the overall performance of the system—from policy conferences to constituent assemblies—could improve practices of lawmaking, enforcement, and implementation.

At a time when democratic institutions and practices seem especially vulnerable to criticism, a major challenge for political scientists is to help reclaim the political system. Lisa Herzog’s work offers a model for how such a project might be undertaken.