Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Yale Law Journal

Abstract

In their separate contributions to this issue of the Yale Law Journal, Professor Frank Michelman and my colleague Professor Cass Sunstein sketch out their respective modern visions of republicanism in both constitutional law and political theory. In this brief comment it is impossible to address the many issues that they raise, or to follow each author down the many byways that he chooses to travel. But it is both possible and important to isolate several themes, recurrent in both pieces, that seem central to their conception of modern republicanism. These themes, when fully understood, point out the serious weaknesses of modern republicanism as a comprehensive political theory. The overall conclusion can be stated very quickly. No political theory can concentrate on process and deliberation to the exclusion of substantive concerns. Yet that is precisely what Michelman and Sunstein heroically try to do.

First Page

1633

DOI

https://doi.org/10.2307/796544

Volume

97

Publication Date

1988

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