The anti-federalist strand in progressive politics and political thought

• Main Author: LIM, Elvin T.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2013
• Subjects: Progressivism; Anti-Federalism; Anti-statism; American Politics; Political Science
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/2814; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/4071/viewcontent/PRQ.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

In this article, the author argues that the Progressives can be as much characterized as the anti statists of the nineteenth century as the statists of the twentieth century because their overriding goal was the destruction of the party state and not, directly, the creation of the bureaucratic state. They found in Anti-Federalist political thought a general anti statist template that they used to articulate their specific objection to the nineteenth-century party state. This template comprised a mutual commitment to simple government, the common good as a pre-institutional reality, democracy, direct and responsive government, fear of elite rule, civic education, and cultural homogeneity.