Social and Behavioral Sciences | Open Access Articles

Hobbes, Aristotle, And The Politics Of Metaphysics, Geoffrey M. Vaughan

Political Science Department Faculty Works

This is a book review of Hobbes's Kingdom of Light: A Study of the Foundations of Modern Political Philosophy by Devin Stauffer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018).

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America, The Republican Nation: A Response To Critics Of The Nation-State, Bernard Dobski

Political Science Department Faculty Works

Dedication to America’s national form is not about the thoughtless valorizing of one’s own that is so often at the heart of uglier forms of nationalism. It is about an understanding of the critical role played by size, scope, and dimensionality in the creation of stable and secure communities, the emergence of a citizenry attached to the public good, the rule of reasoned law, the preservation of diversity and minorities, and political transparency and accountability, the very things that critics of the nation tacitly seek to preserve. Critics of the national form thus fail to appreciate the conditions necessary to …

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America Is A Republic, Not A Democracy, Bernard Dobski

Political Science Department Faculty Works

America is a republic and not a pure democracy. The contemporary efforts to weaken our republican customs and institutions in the name of greater equality thus run against the efforts by America’s Founders to defend our country from the potential excesses of democratic majorities. American republicanism and the ordered liberty it makes possible are grounded in the Federalists’ recognition that non-majoritarian parts of the community make legitimate contributions to the community’s welfare, and that preserving these contributions is the hallmark of political justice. But, the careful balance produced by our mixed republic is threatened by an egalitarianism that undermines the …

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"The Cool And Deliberate Sense Of The Community": The Federalist On Congress, Greg Weiner

Political Science Department Faculty Works

The American civic canon holds that the Constitution creates three branches of government that are both separate and “equal.” Publius’s essays on Congress cast serious doubt on this supposition, at least with respect to the extent of each branch’s influence on the workings of the national regime. It is no mistake that both the Constitution and The Federalist treat Congress as the first branch of government. It is “justly regarded” as such, Louis Fisher says, primarily because of the appropriations power elucidated in Federalist 58. The Federalist understands Congress, George W. Carey writes, “to be the heart of the proposed …

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