Republican Liberalism

Liberals in the United States today champion distinctive policies on the interpretation and importance of civil liberties, on the need for checks and balances within a democracy, and on the case for ensuring people’s social securities. But is this just a shopping list of policies? Or is it a unified package? It will assume a unified and persuasive profile if the ideal of liberty is understood in the manner of the American founders and of the long republican tradition on which they drew. That ideal points us toward a republican—a small r republican—construal of liberalism.