News Release

December 5, 2005

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Cato Announces New Web Magazine
Cato Unbound to become bustling hub in the marketplace of ideas

WASHINGTON - The Cato Institute has launched a new online monthly magazine, Cato Unbound (www.cato-unbound.org). Edited by Brink Lindsey, Cato's vice-president for research, and Will Wilkinson, a Cato policy analyst, Cato Unbound promises to be a "state-of-the-art virtual trading floor in the intellectual marketplace, specializing in the exchange of big ideas."

The website will present an essay each month on a major topic by a leading thinker, followed in the corresponding days with responses from fellow scholars. The idea of this format, say the two editors, is to promote an open-ended conversation where ideas will be advanced, challenged, and refined in public view. "We don't want Unbound to be a little fortress of ideas," says Wilkinson. "We want it to be bustling hub in the marketplace of ideas."

The current issue features Nobel Prize-winning economist and political theorist James M. Buchanan in a radical essay proposing the addition of three new amendments to the Constitution which, he argues, would make America a better place to live. Offering critical comments on Buchanan's proposals are Akhil Reed Amar, a law professor at Yale and author of America's Constitution: A Biography, Judge Alex Kozinski, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and William A. Niskanen, chairman of the Cato Institute.

Cato Unbound is like a magazine in having monthly "issues" with a constantly changing line-up of writers, but is like a blog in form. Readers are encouraged to take up the themes they read about on the online magazine, and enter into the discussion on their own websites, blogs, and in print publications. "Trackbacks," which allow readers to see who is linking to articles, will be enabled. In addition, Cato Unbound will scour the Web for the best commentary on its monthly topic and will publish it alongside their invited contributors.

"Although there is a no shortage of blogs and online magazines that take on the issues of the day, too few take a step back, look at the pig picture, and explore really big ideas that can change what we think is possible politically and socially," says Lindsey. "That's what Unbound aims to do."

Cato Unbound welcomes letters from readers and invites bloggers to write about their topics.