Buch, Englisch, 328 Seiten, Hardback, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm
Constructing Constitutional Union in Early American History
Buch, Englisch, 328 Seiten, Hardback, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm
ISBN: 978-0-7006-3278-7
Verlag: University Press of Kansas
In Cords of Affection Emily Pears offers lessons from history about the strengths, weaknesses, and pitfalls of various approaches to constructing national political attachments. Twenty-first century Americans’ attachments to their national government have waned. While there are multiple narratives of this decline, they all have the same core element: a citizenry unwilling to uphold the norms and institutions of American democracy in the face of challenge. When a demagogue, or a populist movement, or a foreign power threatens action that undermines American democracy, citizens will not come to its defense. Citizens cheer their own side, regardless of the means it uses, or they are simply apathetic to the role that institutions and institutional constraints play in keeping us all free and equal. At worst, Americans have come to regard their inherited constitutional foundations as unjust, biased, or ill-equipped for the modern world, and the notion of a shared political community as prejudicial and old-fashioned. They feel little sense of attachment to the American regime. By contrast the lessons in Cords of Affection allow us to consider a broader array of possible tools for the maintenance of today's political attachments.