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The American Polity: A Systematic Ambiguity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

H. Mark Roelofs
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Abstract

This paper constructs, within the American liberal consensus, a conceptual frame into which the great paradoxes of American politics can be fitted without significant omission or unexplained contradiction. The foundation of the American liberal consensus is seen to be a Protestant-bourgeois individualism divided against itself. This fundamental division issues into conflicting visions of America as a democracy. In national, legitimizing myth, America is seen as a Protestant-tinctured social democracy organized in terms of sovereignty of the people, confederalism, separation of powers, and popular government. On the other hand, in the ideology of America as a legally functioning state, it is a bourgeois, liberal democracy organized in terms of constitutionalism, federalism, mixed government, and representative government. These distinctions make possible a consistent explanation of the consensus-cleavage paradox that lies at the core of American political life. They also explain the persistent ambiguity that confuses the democratic character of the American political system and also the biformalism of its major institutions.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 48 , Issue 3 , Summer 1986 , pp. 323 - 348
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1986

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References

Notes

1 Nomenclature is a problem. A nation is a people drawn together by a shared history; a state is a juridical order. The distinction between social and liberal democracy is not so simple. As a generality, the thesis that America is ambiguously democratic is hardly novel, and a persistent difficulty among writers attempting to explain it has been to find appropriate language in which to express this ambiguity. Thus, Gabriel, , The Course of American Democratic Thought (New York: Ronald, 1940)Google Scholar, distinguished between romantic and realistic democracy. These terms seem overly loose. On the other hand, the term social democracy used here has strong European connotations. Possible substitutions with more distinctively American connotations include progressive democracy and populist democracy. Social democracy was nevertheless preferred because it was literally descriptive of the meanings to be assembled under it, whereas the alternatives were too closely associated with actual – and confused – political movements. The important point is that whatever terms are employed, their meanings must be both explicitly stipulated and also exactly related to specific institutional constructs – as will be done at length in later sections of this essay.

2 Turner, F. J., “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” American Historical Association, 18 (separately bound, n.d.), 199.Google Scholar

3 Ibid., p. 217.

4 The common ground, formally, of American politics is the American political “mind,” a historically conditioned complex of values, conceptions, mental habits, and symbolic attachments by which acculturated citizens situate themselves in their worlds of political experience and then talk and act with each other. This paper is written from a phenomenological perspective which holds:

(1) that political reality, the historically persistent patterns of political life, are essentially ideal (mental constructs);

(2) that values and institutions are articulations of each other, although, at a practical level, the “fit” between them may be subject to many kinds of strain and contradiction;

(3) that political behavior is to be understood as the manifestation in the material world, the “acting out,” of political ideas and purposes.

This understanding of political reality is essentially Kantian. It also owes much to Weber's concept of verstehen, and his theory of “intentional sociology.” See Kant, I., Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Meiklejohn, J. M. D. (London: Dent, 1934), pp. 10, 12, 16, and 25Google Scholar; Kant, I., The Moral Law, trans. Paton, H. J. (London: Hutshinson's, 1947)Google Scholar; Mead, G. H., Mind, Self, and Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934), esp. pt. 3Google Scholar; Schutz, A., The Phenomenalogy of the Social World (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1967), esp. chaps. 1 and 3Google Scholar; Weber, M., Basic Concepts in Sociology, trans. Secher, H. P. (New York: Greenwood Press, 1969)Google Scholar; Winch, Peter, The Idea of a Social Science (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958).Google Scholar

5 Hartz, Louis, The Liberal Tradition in America (New York: Harcourt, Brace, World, 1955), pp. 6, 308.Google Scholar

6 But see footnote 16 below re: Pocock, et al. , and Devine, D., The Political Culture of the United States (Boston: Little, Brown, 1972.Google Scholar

7 This concept is an extrapolation from the works of Tawney, R. H., Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (New York: Mentor, 1947)Google Scholar; and Weber, M., The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Parsons, T. (New York: Scribner's, 1958)Google Scholar; and more distantly but no less importantly, Marx, K., “Critique of Political Economy” in The Marx-Engles Reader, ed. Tucker, R., 2nd ed. (New York: Norton, 1978), pp. 683–717.Google Scholar

8 The frequent labeling, even in serious academic literature dating back to Weber himself, of the bourgeois ethos by such phrases as “Protestant work ethic,” is both a misnomer and a major misrepresentation of the actual teaching of the Protestant community. However understandable such confusions may be, they must be avoided if the real tensions within the Protestant-bourgeois syndrome are to be revealed. May, H. F., Protestant Churches and Industrial America (New York: Octagon Books, 1963).Google Scholar

9 Edwards, J., Puritan Sage: Collected Writings of Jonathan Edwards, ed. Ferm, Vergilius (New York: Library Publishers, 1953), pp. 365–78.Google Scholar

10 Ibid., pp. 168–76.

11 (New York: New American Library, 1969.)

12 Ibid., p. ix.

13 Gabriel, , American Democratic Thought, p. 153Google Scholar. Most readers may accept the pervasive presence of bourgeois values in America yet balk at comparable assertions about Protestant values. Protestantism has many varieties, some of them divergent in the extreme, but, in bulk, the term is here taken to mean essentially a “low church,” evangelical enthusiasm for the primacy of individual spirituality with strong biblical overtones. As such, it is a style of warm, intimate religiosity that pervades not only most Protestant churches but also much of American Catholicism, American Judaism, and the (popular) clinical psychological community. See Lipset, S. M., The First New Nation (Garden City, NY: Anchor, 1967), pp. 177–80Google Scholar; but also, more generally, Herberg, W., Protestant-Catholic-Jew (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1960)Google Scholar; Niebuhr, H. R., The Social Source of Denominationalism (New York: World Book, 1957)Google Scholar; Bellah, R. N., “Civil Religion in America,” Daedalus (Winter 1967)Google Scholar; and Bedell, G. C. et al. , Religion in America, 2nd ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1982).Google Scholar

14 Lasswell, H. and Kaplan, A., Power and Society (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950), esp. pp. 74–79, 97–102.Google Scholar

15 The distinction being made here is between a nation-state's “myth” and its “ideology,” not between the “theory” and the “practice” of its politics (is there a “theory” and “practice” of gravity?). The distinction is a functional differentiation between the conventionalized levels of dialogue (frameworks of consciousness) by which citizens are taught to legitimate power and to respond to its exercise. Both levels of dialogue are value-laden – although often, as we shall see, not with the same values. And both, when traditionalized and institutionalized, are necessary and “real” parts of the political systems in which they appear. These understandings of “myth” and ideology” owe something to Marx (“Critique of Political Economy”), to the work of certain anthropologists (e.g., Douglas, Mary, “The Meaning of Myth,” in The Structural Study of Myth and Totemism, ed. Leach, E. [London: Tavistock, 1967])Google Scholar, and even to Walter Bagehot's famed distinction between the “dignified” and “efficient” parts of the constitution (The English Constitution, 2nd ed. [Garden City, NY: Dolphin, n.d. (1872)]).Google Scholar

16 Pocock, , The Machiavellian Moment (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975)Google Scholar and others have a very different understanding of the problems the Founders faced in this area and of their hopes for dealing with them. The new hypothesis, said to quite replace that of, for example, Hartz (p. 509), is that the Founders were “civic humanists” in a classical tradition, and relied on the “virtue” of the citizens to curb corruption and broaden the horizons of self-interest. Pocock asserts, “A neo-classical politics provided both the ethos of the elites and the rhetoric of the upwardly mobile, and accounts for the singular cultural and intellectual homogeneity of the Founding Fathers and their generation. Not all Americans were schooled in this tradition, but there was (it would appear) no alternative tradition in which to be schooled” (p. 507). It is worth noting that Pocock's focus, like that of his authorities, chiefly Bailyn, , The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967)Google Scholar, and Wood, , The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 (New York: Norton, 1969)Google Scholar, is on the rhetoric of the pamphleteers, and not on the detailed provisions of the federal constitution of 1787 or the practical political processes which emanated from its inauguration. Cf. Storing, , The Complete Anti-Federalist, vol 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1981), 5 and 83 n 7CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Albanese, , Sons of the Fathers: The Civil Religion of the American Revolution (Philadelphia: Temple, 1976), e.g., chap. 3.Google Scholar

17 The schizophrenic quality of the American political psyche has often been noted. See, Myrdal, G., “Introduction,” in An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy, ed. Myrdal, G. et al. , 2 vols. (New York: Harper & Row, 1944)Google Scholar; Kammen, M., People of Paradox (New York: Vintage, 1973)Google Scholar; Huntington, S., American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981)Google Scholar; but also for some readers perhaps more persuasively, Free, L. and Cantril, H., The Political Beliefs of Americans (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1967)Google Scholar: “This discrepancy between operational outlooks and ideological views is so marked as to be almost schizoid” (p. 33).

18 Becker, C. L., The Declaration of Independence (New York: Vintage, 1958)Google Scholar; Kendall, W., The Basic Symbols of the American Political Tradition (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1970)Google Scholar; Wills, G., Inventing America (New York: Vintage, 1979).Google Scholar

19 Under the title, “The Higher-Law Background and Popular Sovereignty,” McCloskey, R., The American Supreme Court (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960)Google Scholar, wrote: “This propensity to hold contradictory ideas simultaneously is one of the most significant qualities of the American political mind…. with their political hearts thus divided between the will of the people and the rule of law, Americans were naturally receptive to the development of institutions that reflected each of these values separately” (pp. 11 and 13).

20 The general character of the difference between liberal and social democracy is well established; see Sabine, G. H., “The Two Democratic Traditions,” Philosophical Review (10 1952)Google Scholar; Dahl, R., A Preface to Democratic Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956)Google Scholar; Tonnies, F., Community and Association, trans. Loomis, C. P. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1955)Google Scholar; Talmon, J. L., The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960)Google Scholar. Krouse, Richard, “Classical Images of Democracy in America: Madison and Tocqueville,” in Democratic Theory and Practice, ed. Duncan, G. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983)Google Scholar, locates in the American environment two democratic ideals, one from Madison, the other from Tocqueville, that closely parallel those presented here. However, he leaves unclear (1) the institutional arrangements each requires; (2) the function each plays in practical American political life; and (3) the relationship the two democratic theories have to each other – if any.

21 Montesquieu, C. L., The Spirit of the Laws, ed. Carrithers, D. W. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977).Google Scholar

22 Rossiter, C., The American Presidency (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1956), pp. 26–28; 105–109.Google Scholar

23 Aristotle, , The Politics of Aristotle, trans, and ed. Barker, E. (London: Oxford University Press, 1946), pts. 4, 5 and 6.Google Scholar

21 For the intellectual milieu of the Founders, see Wood, , Creation of the American RepublicGoogle Scholar. For their understanding of the problems of government organization, see Vile, M. J. C., Constitutionalism and the Separation of Powers (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967)Google Scholar; Gwyn, W., The Meaning of Separation of Powers (New Orleans: Tulane, 1965)Google Scholar; Carey, G. W., “Separation of Powers and the Madisonian Model: A Reply to the Critics,” American Political Science Review (03, 1978)Google Scholar; Diamond, M., “Democracy and The Federalist: A Reconsideration of the Framers' Intent,”Google Scholaribid.; Lutz, D. S., “The Relative Influence of European Writers on Late 18th Century American Political Thought,”Google Scholaribid. For examples of their confusion of the two theories, see below, note 29.

25 Aristotle was familiar with the idea of representation as a formal institutional device (see translator's note 2, p. 192, Politics, 1946)Google Scholar. But it is the more general idea of representation that is being referred to here, the idea that links social class, economic interest, and political participation. This idea underlies the full length of Aristotle's system of constitutional classification (chaps 8, bk 3, or, for example, his statement: “The proper application of the term ‘democracy’ is to a constitution in which the free-born and poor control the government – being at the same time a majority; and similarly the term ‘oligarchy’ is properly applied to a constitution in which the rich and better born control the government – being at the same time a minority,” chap. 4, bk. 4, p. 164). It is this conception of “representation” that mixed government theory presupposes.

26 Bentley, A. F., The Process of Government (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1908)Google Scholar; Dahl, , Preface to Democratic TheoryGoogle Scholar; but also, importantly, Jacobson, N., “Political Science and Political Education,” American Political Science Review (09, 1963).Google Scholar

27 As in Madison's observation in Federalist, No. 47, “The Oracle who is always consulted and cited on this subject is the celebrated Montesquieu.”

28 That the United States political community did not possess clear orders of “rich” and “poor” that could be represented respectively by the Senate and the House was recognized as early as the Convention itself (Carey, , “Separation of Powers,” p. 153)Google Scholar. But that is not what is at issue here. The issue is, should the legislature be designed to represent interests? This the Founders answered affirmatively by (1) establishing the principle of interest representation through the creation of a bicameral legislature, and (2) depriving both houses of any mechanism for coalescing behind an executive committed to a single, overriding “public” interest. Both were thereby freed to disaggregate into the particular interests each member might represent. Aristotle's principle was thus carried to an extreme.

29 This is the outstanding example of the Founders' confusing separation of powers with mixed government. There are many others; the most vivid is Madison's definition of tyranny in Federalist, No. 47: “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive and judiciary” (cf. Montesquieu) “in the same hands, whether of the one, a few, or many” (cf. Aristotle). Note also the contradiction in Article I between its opening assignment of “All” legislative power to the Congress and its later assignment of the veto power to the president.

30 Cf. the comment by Roche, J., “The Founding Fathers: A Reform Caucus in Action,” American Political Science Review (12, 1961)Google Scholar, that the composition of the Constitution was guided “by no over-arching principles” (p. 816)Google Scholar. Certainly the Founders were practical men, not philosophers. But this does not mean that they had no regard for theories, only that they were heirs to a number of theories which were not always kept straight. Cf. Farrand, M., The Framing of the Constitution of the United States (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1913)Google Scholar: “No document originating as this one had and developed as this had been developed could be logical or even consistent. That is why every attempted analysis of the constitution has been doomed to failure. From the nature of its construction, the constitution defies analysis on a logical basis” (p. 201).

31 The roots of these contrasting political processes in America are deep. Compare the Pennsylvania constitution of 1776 with Massachusetts' of 1780. Contrast also the constitutional writings of Adams, John (“Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America,” and “Thoughts on Government: Applicable to the Present State of the American Colonies,” in Works of John Adams, ed. Adams, C. [Boston: Little, Brown, 1851], IV:271 ff; 194 ff.)Google Scholar to those of Taylor, John (An Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States [1814; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950])Google Scholar. Adams's enthusiasm for mixed government theory collides with Taylor's for separation of powers. But the contrast between their views on specific issues, such as the role of the courts, is especially helpful. Although he did not attend, Adams's influence on the 1787 Convention was great. Taylor is centrally representative of that “Jeffersonianism” that flowed through the nineteenth century down to modern times. In this light, Adams was our first and, with the possible exception of Calhoun, our greatest ideologist; Taylor, in contrast, was out first fullscale mythic psalmist.

32 Since at least 1776, albeit ambiguously (see Becker, , Declaration of Independence, pp. 212 ff.Google Scholar, on the excision from the Declaration of Jefferson's “philippic” against slavery).

33 Cyclical patterns in American politics have often been noted. Huntington, (American Politics, pp. 147–48 and 164 ff.)Google Scholar sees stages of moralism, cynicism, complacency, and hypocrisy. The myth-ideology cycle posited here might be stated formally as stages of quiescence, tension, crisis, and recovery. But the pattern is not fixed and its sundry variations could only be documented by the historical materials of each instance.

34 Cf. Marshall's reasoning (pace his motives) in Marbury v. Madison. The same theme is prominent in Ex parte Milligan, and, most obviously, Nixon v. The United States. The textbook suggestions that the Court, in its constitutional review work, is operating in a checks and balances frame along side the other, “co-equal” branches is a fundamental misrepresentation both of what the judges do best and also of the fact that the “check” (if it may be called that) which they exercise is radically different in kind from that exercised elsewhere in the system. See, e.g., Cummings, M. C. and Wise, D., Democracy Under Pressure, 4th ed. (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981), pp. 43–44, 474 and 510.Google Scholar

35 Harmonizing conflicting interest demands is a complex, ongoing process marked intermittently by ad hoc solutions that are rarely either conclusive or final, no matter what their formal appearance. Bailey, S. K., Congress Makes a Law (New York: Columbia University Press, 1950)Google Scholar, and Matthews, D., U.S. Senators and Their World (New York: Vintage, 1964)Google Scholar, are classics emphasizing the incremental, reciprocal, and informal character of the process. However, for the theory of it, the essential work remains Calhoun, J. C., Disquisition on Government (New York: Liberal Arts, 1963)Google Scholar. Arising directly from the logic of checks and balances, Calhoun's doctrine of concurrent majority is the principle controlling the inner workings of Congress – and of much else in the American polity as well.

36 Albeit an important one. The classic presentations of these two perspectives on the presidency remain Rossiter, , American PresidencyGoogle Scholar, and Neustadt, R. E., Presidental Power (New York: Science Editions, 1962)Google Scholar; in the wealth of other studies, see esp. Barger, H. M., The Impossible Presidency (Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman, 1984)Google Scholar; Burns, J. McG., Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1956)Google Scholar; Caro, R. A., The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power (New York: Random House, 1981), etc.Google Scholar

37 Shienbaum, K. E., Beyond the Electoral Connection (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984).CrossRefGoogle Scholar