The Civic Republican Response to “Liberalism and its Critics”

The Civic Republican Response to “Liberalism and its Critics” The theme “Liberalism and its Critics” feels particularly timely at this moment of populist authoritarianism, but is far from a novelty in the classrooms, curricula, and bookshelves of political theorists. Many instructors have authored or altered syllabi with texts chosen to counterbalance a modern narrative that defines history as the progressive expansion of human freedom, specifically in “open” or liberal political orders. Introductory classes in political theory that tick through ancients, early moderns, contractarians, and the convenient foils of Karl Marx and John Stuart Mill can end up unintentionally corroborating this teleological narrative. The widespread skepticism regarding the liabilities of liberal openness is only exacerbated by recent antidotes to liberalism. Postmodern counter-narrative and critical theory risk succumbing to the false binary Michel Foucault calls “the blackmail of the Enlightenment” where the abuse of universals forecloses all belief in progress or humanistic values (Foucault 1984). Previous narratives of Nietzschean broadsides on liberal rationalism, conservative critiques of naïve liberal internationalism and rootless cosmopolitanism, and socialist takedowns of liberalism’s individualistic tendencies are more polemical than prescriptive. In an effort to arrive at something more prescriptive, we look to the civic republican tradition. Unlike accounts of civic republicanism that treat civic republicanism as liberalism’s foil (Honohan 2002, Kellow and Leddy 2016, Pettit 1999, Luttberg and Gant 1985), we see civic republicanism engaging liberalism in a meaningful and constructive way. Borrowing moderately from liberal humanism while maintaining an awareness of the limits of government distinguishes civic republicanism from the antidotes previously mentioned. In this way, civic republicanism provides a theoretical account of reconciling the responsibilities (and goods) of citizenship with the rights of citizens, including those with alternative conceptions of the good life. To achieve these goals, we see thinkers who, for various historical or intellectual reasons, straddle, borrow, or speak to both sides of these binaries serving as the backbone to a civic republican reading list. Rather than rehabilitating what has become, in W.B. Gallie’s phrase, an “essentially contested concept” (1956), the authors propose a course that considers the longstanding tradition of civic republicanism as a prospective “third way.” Specifically, we conceive a course capable of conveying republican writers as reactions to liberal liabilities and republican adaptations of liberal strengths for dangerous times. Civic republicanism engages with liberalism’s successes and failures and allows students to make sense of the present polarization in the political landscape. This is particularly important for students coming of age in an era where generational and educational norms of equity, diversity, and inclusion have become unmoored from political philosophy and practice. Ultimately, this contributes to students’ disengagement from politics. By thinking about political theory in less orthogonal terms than the collision of diverse interests, students will be provided with a richer vocabulary for thinking through political history. Learning from the outsiders and contrarians who contributed to the civic republican tradition can inspire participation among learners who sometimes see themselves as activists or employees before students or citizens (Beaumont, et al. 2006, Dalton and Crosby 2008, Galston 2001, Plazek 2012). Civic Republicanism in the Classroom: The Conventional Approach The current classroom approach to republicanism is couched in terms of dual binaries: first, between ancients and moderns who are interpreted as emphasizing the good and the right, respectively, and second, between faith in the capacity of government to address problems, and skepticism in government’s ability to do so. The exclusionary quality of these distinctions limits nuance and the possibility of other options that synthesize aspects of each. Standard chronological approaches risk unintentionally perpetuating this dualism by emphasizing difference over common experience. There have been several efforts to reconcile these binaries. The literature reflects communitarian criticism (MacIntyre 1981, M. Sandel 1998, Walzer 1983), theories on procedural democracy (Dahl 1989), and compromises such as Anthony Giddens’ Third Way (1994). The standard approach, however, ignores the challenges of constructing and reforming political systems that are capable of solving problems and expanding the common wealth (res publica), but are limited enough to avoid creating more problems by encroaching on the private sphere. In order to overcome these challenges, we view selected authors in the civic republican tradition as explicitly responding to two conversations. First, civic republicanism is a response to historical, social, and political developments, including the triumphs and troubles of liberalism. Civic republicanism is engaged in a prolonged discussion with substantive liberalism regarding the necessity of pluralism, toleration, the nature of freedom, and the role of the state. Second, the texts of civic republicanism are in conversation with one another with arguments building on and deviating from one another. A course structured to address these facets situates civic republicanism within an ongoing dialogue between and within texts, rather than a contest between opposing views. This way of engaging in texts highlights to students the necessary difficulty of coming to terms with ideas beyond their own. Ultimately this serves as a model for political necessity of learning to live freely as oneself, while living freely with others. Below, we suggest how the alternative understanding of civic republicanism offered here may be developed into a course. The following components are provided: 1) a possible course description; 2) specific learning outcomes; 3) a recommended course structure and suggested readings; and 4) some concluding considerations on implementing such a course. Course Description A course description should consider the multiple conversations in the material. Subsequently, we suggest explicit considerations regarding the historical emergence of republicanism and how it relates to developments associated with liberal democracy. Additionally, we expect that students learn beyond the material; the course description should reflect the personalized development students can be expected to undergo as they adopt or adapt more pluralistic conceptions of their political world. The authors offer the following example: “Traditional political theory courses often utilize competing and mutually exclusive views of human nature and government. While these counterpoints can provide a useful heuristic for understanding ideology and history, they risk representing politics as permanently bound by these binaries. Focusing on the civic republican tradition, this course addresses how thinkers who resist strict ideological categorization or periodization navigated political and social challenges while making contributions to political thought. Engagement with these texts fosters greater student understanding of the history of political thought and contemporary challenges of forming and maintaining pluralistic political communities.” Course-specific learning outcomes Course-specific learning outcomes should address at least four major components that may be supplemented with institutional- or departmental-specific outcomes. The first outcome should address how bifurcated views of human nature determine and, potentially, limit perceptions of the possible in domestic and international politics. The second outcome should develop an understanding and appreciation of how civic republican writers reside between traditional binaries, synthesizing aspects of imagination and restraint found in their contemporaries and predecessors. Third, students should identify limitations and implications of liberal, conservative, and civic republican alternatives. Finally, students should develop an understanding of how diversity within the history of political thought regarding the good and the right itself fosters tolerance, deliberation, and mutual recognition which students can use to address contemporary political challenges. Recommended Course Structure/Readings We envision a fifteen-week semester divided into the following six units: The first unit should serve as a cornerstone that introduces tensions within the liberal tradition. This unit should summarize the successes of liberalism while highlighting deficiencies that emerged with its implementation. We suggest texts that present an understanding of the binaries discussed or historical episodes in which the tensions between the binaries inform the example(s). Such texts might include Isiah Berlin’s “Two Concepts of Liberty,” John Gray’s Liberalism, and Edmund Fawcett’s Liberalism: The Life an Idea. For more advanced courses, instructors may supplement with material that analyzes methodological and/or metaethical problems in political theory. These materials may include Quinten Skinner’s “Some Problems in the Analysis of Political Thought and Action,” Sheldon Wolin’s “Political Theory as a Vocation,” and Leo Strauss’ “What is Political Philosophy?” The next course unit consists of four, chronologically-ordered time periods of primary texts that respond to the political demands of the day (including liberal developments). We suggest dividing a reading list into periods of Ancient/Medieval, Early Modern, Enlightenment, and Contemporary. This chronology showcases the ways civic republican thinkers build upon and deviate from one another. The authors suggest the following list that is suggestive (but not exhaustive) of this complementarity: Ancient/Medieval: Aristotle (Politics); Cicero (On Duties), Thucydides (The War of the Peloponnesians and the Athenians); Aquinas (Political Writings), Polybius (The Histories); Sallust (Cataline’s War). Early Modern: Niccolo Machiavelli (The Prince, Discourses on Livy); James Harrington (The Commonwealth of Oceana), John Milton (“Defense of the People of England”); Algernon Sidney (Discourses Concerning Government). Enlightenment: Jean Jacque Rousseau (The Social Contract); Charles de Montesquieu (Spirit of the Laws); The Federalist Papers; John Locke (Second Treatise, “Letter Concerning Toleration”); Mary Wollstonecraft (“Vindication of the Rights of Women”); Immanuel Kant (“An Answer to the Question: ‘What is Enlightenment?’”) Contemporary: Michael Sandel (Liberalism and the Limits of Justice), Hannah Arendt (On Revolution), Michel Foucault (“What is Enlightenment?”), Alasdair Macintyre (After Virtue), Amitai Etzioni (New communitarian thinking: persons, virtues, institutions, and communities), Finally, the authors suggest a capstone unit that requires students to reflect on the contributions of civic republicanism to their understanding of the political and social values of others. This unit also requires students to demonstrate how civic republicanism synthesizes various aspects of the liberal tradition. Some suggestions for this unit include Phillip Pettit’s Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government, John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice, and Charles Taylor’s Multiculturalism and “The Politics of Recognition.” Concluding Considerations Teaching the civic republican framework and development breathes new life into political theory syllabi, especially for those adapting “Liberalism and its Critics.” The suggestions presented here provide a robust understanding of key works. Additionally, the proposed course reframes common methodology to include civic republicanism as a parallel and sympathetic intellectual development to liberalism, at times intertwined, and at others anticipating and supplementing its deficiencies. A chronologically-ordered survey shows how civic republicanism reacted and interacted with liberal developments across time periods. Students benefit from this perspective as liberal values of autonomy, self-determination, and freedom of expression/identity are prominent in their personal and interpersonal lives but are often detached from the duties of citizenship and challenges of sustaining pluralistic political communities. By encouraging students to consider the civic republican approach, virtues of tolerance and recognition are nested within a more fundamental, egalitarian individualism. To this end, instructors seeking to adopt course should consider assignments that highlight the dialogue that occurs within and between texts. Civic republicanism is a conversation of multiple viewpoints and time periods; students should be encouraged to not only consider the interplay of ideas in this tradition but to enter the conversation themselves. This could be done in a number of ways. First, students may identify a central tension of the course within the work of a single author and then write an exegetical paper that identifies the tension and explains how the author reconciles said tension. This assignment would serve as an exemplar inter-textual dialogue. Second, students could write a sympathetically explanatory essay on a text which presents an immediate disagreement to the student’s own perspective. This would provide the student with practical experience of how philosophic dialogue requires understanding of others. Finally, students could write an essay that attempts to bring two authors into dialogue with each other. Instead of a standard compare and contrast essay, which often leads to a list of differences, this assignment would require students to consider points of contention and agreement, as part of an ongoing conversation, with the student as the interlocker. 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