Robert W. T. Martin

Between Consensus and Conflict: Habermas, Post-Modern Agonism and the Early American Public Sphere

Efforts thus far to bridge the distance between Habermasian public sphere theory and post-modernism have failed, and recent studies only reify the bifurcation. Some theorists trace this problem to misreadings of Habermass recent works that overemphasize the weight he places on consensus. I argue instead that Habermass stress on consensus is genuine and first emerged in his early historical work on the public sphere, wherein he focused on an absolutist theory of consensus and relegated dissent to a marginal ancillary position from which he has never really recovered it. Had Habermas turned from Europe to early America, he could have found early public sphere theorists that were much more alive to the irreducible centrality of dissent. More importantly, if current theorists will return to this history they will be better able to understand a model of the dissentient public sphere (and its counterpublics) that lies between Habermasian consensus and post-modern agonism.

James Madison and Popular Government: The Neglected Case of the “Memorial”

James Madison has long been seen as a liberal thinker and in many respects an elitist one. More recently, a few efforts have been made to understand him as a consistent and even “fervent” democrat, at least after 1790. This article re-examines a classic source for Madisons early liberalism, the “Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments” (1785), to establish Madisons pre-1790 analysis of—and genuine commitment to—the popular element of popular government. As a result, the article challenges elitist, conservative interpretations of a “Hamiltonian” Madison as well as those who chart a major philosophical shift in the 1790s.

The Royalist Revolution: Monarchy and the American Founding by Eric Nelson (review)

The Royalist Revolution: Monarchy and the American Founding. By Eric Nelson.

Dreams of a More Perfect Union By Rogan Kersh. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001. 358p.

Rogan Kershs ambitious and well-researched book traces the history of the concept of American national “union” from the middle of the eighteenth century to the end of the nineteenth century, when the concept lost the peculiar force it had had and fell out of use (more or less replaced by such concepts as “nation,” “country,” and, especially, “America”). The analysis demonstrates how the concept of national union has been used in exclusive as well as inclusive ways. The subject is an important one, especially to an America united by terrorist threats. And it is a topic made more conspicuous in the last decade by our ongoing discourse over multiculturalism. So the concept of national union is perhaps less obscure and more relevant than Kersh suggests (p. 3). Connections to the recent work of Rogers Smith (Civic Ideals, 1997) are also apparent. Still, the term itself has been out of favor for about a century now, so Kershs study is a welcome effort to get us thinking about a relatively novel topic.