The End of the Republican Era, Volume 5

Political science can often degenerate into banal number-crunching at the expense of the human touch and insightful analysis, and thankfully that does not apply to Dr. Lowi's book. His previous "End of Liberalism" was a plea for governmental sanity amidst a post-New Deal era of interest-group liberalism gone horribly awry; in true independent-minded fashion, he now turns his scalpel to the other major coalition in American politics--the Republican version, and why it sits uneasily with the small-r republican model. Though the story is well-known and has been documented elsewhere, it benefits from his treatment--how is it that the modern conservative movement has a head channeling a version of Adam Smith with a heart of a Christian "true believer"? Lowi finds this deeply puzzling--the "Old Liberal" (his terminology) consensus about the size and the scope of government was a cautious one that distrusted unwarranted government intrusion into both private and public life; modern conservatism seems built upon a fusion of a certain anti-statism in economics and a more robust statism in the bedroom, a legacy of the "moral values" contingent it brought into the fold in the last 30 years. Can this alliance sustain itself? Lowi isn't convinced it will, and isn't convinced it should. Freedom and virtue make uneasy bedfellows in the same political platform, he contends--and though he doesn't say so, one might surmise that he feels freedom is the necessary source, opportunity and fount for public virtue, and trying to reverse-engineer that equation can create more problems than it solves. This obviously brings up the question of where Lowi is coming from. While obviously no Republican, he's hard to pin down. The cliche of "fiscally conservative, socially liberal" seems to find echoes in his statements. He makes an appreciative nod to Friedrich von Hayek more than once--and appropriately so; Hayek, while an "old Whig," was a good deal more humane and subtle a thinker than either his more unthinking disciples or detractors give him credit for, so Lowi is in good company. Echoes might also be found in such a popular writer as the Atlantic Monthly's Jonathan Rauch. Mostly what comes across is his live-and-let-live attitude, skepticism of quick fixes, a good deal of self-reflection, and a sense of the tragic in politics--and it is ultimately in the domain of self-reflection (and its lack) and the domain of the tragic, Lowi rightfully insists, that the Republican dilemma will play out to its conclusion, one way or another.

Published approximately a decade ago, this book by the distinguished political scientist Theodore Lowi is an insightful analysis of American politics during the era of conservative Republican predominance. In several respects, this is a sequel to Lowi's well known book, The End of Liberalism. The latter was a structural analysis of politics and government during the period roughly from the New Deal to the fall of Nixon. The End of the Republican Era aims to do the same for the period of Republican predominance that begins with Reagan. Lowi opens with a schematic summary of the structure of American politics and government up to the New Deal, and then offers a brief reprise of his analysis in The End of Liberalism. As in the latter book, Lowi describes liberalism as failing because of its own great success in expanding the role of government, especially the role of the professional adminisrators in the executive branch. This is followed by a superb, concise history and analysis of the development of the American conservative movement in the 20th century. These chapters alone are a good reason to read this book. Lowi then proceeds to define the essential structural features of the conservative coalition and Republican governance. Many of these features, for example the emphasis on Presidential power and the reliance on the military as a primary instrument of foreign policy, will be easily recognized in the present Bush II administration. Lowi goes on to predict that the fissiparous Republican coalition would choke on its own success as its evangelical (true conservatives in Lowi's classification) and business wings (19th century or Old Liberal in Lowi's classification) fall apart because of fundamental incompatibility. Lowi clearly expected this to occur by the end of the 1990s, though if Bush II had lost the 2000 election, who knows what would happened. On the other hand, it does appear that Lowi's prediction is now coming true.