LAUSR

Near the end of her career, Judith Shklar sought to redeem American political thought from the “liberal consensus,” which obscured the pervasive presence of both antiliberal tendencies and democratic influences that decisively shaped American political institutions and thought. In what follows, I examine these tensions and elucidate an agonistic version of liberal democracy by exploring Shklar’s account of the American founding that appears in her late work. Shklar presents American political development as a contentious but creative interplay among liberal constitutionalism, democratic egalitarianism, and a politics of justice, while at the same time acknowledging their complicity with the antiliberal social and racial hierarchies. I conclude with a discussion of Shklar’s defense of liberal constitutionalism, which does not displace politics as some radical democrats and civic republicans insist; rather, it serves as a necessary condition that sustains democratic political conflict and offers possibilities for development.