Political thought, political development, and America’s two foundings

• Main Author: LIM, Elvin T.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2014
• Subjects: American Politics; Political Science
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/2813; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/4070/viewcontent/APT__1_.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

The relationship between American political thought (APT) and American political development (APD) as phenomena as well as subfields in American Politics has not been sufficiently theorized. This essay takes up what I call the Second Founding of 1787–89 as the critical case for examining the close relationship between APT and APD. The statesmen of that era were thinkers and developmentalists of the first order; they understood the inseparable link between political justification and political change. This dynamic relationship between American political thought and development practiced in 1787–89 can be used as a blueprint for understanding the entwined cycles of political justification and change in American politics.