What are the legal and ethical limits on the state‘s discretion in using financial means to either incentivize or penalize ideologically contentious speech? Throughout the liberal world, state support of private activities—artistic creation, academic inquiry, welfare provision, etc.—invokes disputes as to the legitimacy of conditions imposed upon recipients, that require them to either express support...
Do Welfare States Have a ‘Freedom to Fund‘? On Conditional Cash Transfers and Political Speech
Can the state condition financial support for artistic speech upon the content of the speech? In Israel, the government has begun to use its cash transfer mechanisms to either penalize or incentivize political speech in ideologically controversial contexts, and legal controversy ensued. The article locates cash-transfer strategies pertaining to political speech in a broader typology...
Free Speech, Free Finance, and the Anti-Entrenchment Principle
I examine how governments use their “power of the purse“ to limit speech critical of their policies. An increasingly popular justification is that since government represents the people, and its policies are chosen by “the people,“ it is under no obligation to finance such views. Current free speech doctrine does not address such arguments successfully,...
The Moral Market: Compelled Speech and Government Funding
What are the legal, moral and political obligations that attend the relationship between government and private actors accepting public money while exercising their right to freedom of religion in a liberal democracy? Using a Canadian case study in which the federal government requires all fund recipients for a grant program to sign an attestation that...