The so-called Madisonian dilemma has dominated recent debates over the role of the Supreme Court and suggested a “majoritarian paradigm” for constitutional interpretation. But a reexamination of James Madison's unique contributions to republican theory indicates that the “Madisonian dilemma” is in many ways misleading and unfaithful to his political vision. Madison, argues the author in Section I, worked a conceptual change in republican theory. Madison did so because he was convinced that republican liberty (and government) was primarily threatened by popular majorities and legislative majoritarianism in Congress and the states. For that reason, Madison advanced his well-known “naturalist” argument for republicanism and, on that basis, argued for buttressing the political architecture of republican government with “auxiliary precautions” for securing republican liberty. From Madison's reconstruction of republicanism, Section II moves to his conversion to the project of amending the Constitution with a declaration of rights and the basis he laid for the Supreme Court's role in defending republican government and liberty. Finally, Section III takes up Madison's view of the role of the Supreme Court and his articulation of a novel theory of pragmatic constitutional interpretivism.

In just three decades rational choice theory has emerged as one of the most active, influential, and ambitious subfields in the discipline of political science. Rational choice theory contends that political behavior is best explained through the application of its supposedly “value-neutral” assumptions which posit man as a self-interested, purposeful, maximizing being. Through the logic of methodological individualism, assumptions about human nature are treated as empirical discoveries. My central argument is that by assuming that self-interest is an empirically established component of human nature, rational choice theory supports and perpetuates a political life which is antithetical to important tenets of normative democratic theory. Rational choice theory offers an incoherent account of democratic citizenship and produces a political system which shows a constant biased against political change and pursuit of the public interest. This article concludes by discussing the merits of democratic deliberation for achieving these transformative ends.

That Machiavelli is an innovator of political philosophy is universally acknowledged. The program of innovation is outlined in The Prince, chapter 15: he wants to depart from the orders of his predecessors. The goal of the new philosophy is “effectual truth,” and not the imagination of it. Actual states, not “imagined republics and kingdoms” are its real concerns. The distinction between how one lives and how one ought to live is still made, but only in order to point out that what is done should never be abandoned for what should be done. Preservation of the state has emerged as the new summum bonum, in the interest of which everything becomes permitted. The distinction between virtue and vice is no longer important; and the new type of ruler, if he is good, must learn how to be not good. The Preface to Discourses I also proposes a similar program: he is determined “to enter a path not yet trodden by anyone” and to introduce “new modes and orders.”

The role of elites within liberal democracy is a perennial issue. One reason why is an inappropriate theoretical conception of democracy. They are self-organizing systems rather than instrumental organizations. As such they have more in common systemically with science and the market than with democratic organizations or undemocratic states. Examining the role of elites within science and the market sheds light on how they work within democracies. Such an examination shows them to be both necessary and dangerous. Traditional “elitist” analyses of democracy suffer from confusions which the self-organizing model clears up. It also offers improvements on traditional “pluralist” conceptions.

Christianity has influenced Western culture more than any factor save human nature itself, and yet its influence is now greatly diminished. Reactions to this have usually taken the form of a Hegelian affirmation that Christianity, having served its historical purpose, is no longer important in itself; a nostalgic conservatism which rejects the culture of modernity simply; or a revivalism which ignores it. An alternative view rests on an analysis of culture and the enlightenment process of secularization to which the Church reacted by closing in on itself until the Second Vatican Council affirmed the legitimate autonomy of the secular. The Church itself, partly to blame for secularization through its practical demystification of nature and attempt to coercively supplant all pre- and non-Christian religious experience, should engage modernity while giving witness to human dignity and promoting a more human culture. Such a constructive recovery of Christian culture must avoid both politicization and moralism.