Abstract
A new book on Montesquieu raises the stakes on an old question: does a liberal culture require a liberal constitution? Montesquieu’s Liberalism & the Problem of Universal Politics offers a provocative answer, one that will interest Montesquieu scholars and theorists of liberalism equally. The book is both a challenge to the “universalization” of liberal democracy and also a rebuke to academics and politicians who have ignored the preconditions of liberal politics around the globe.
Callanan’s chosen set of guiding questions is familiar. What are the preconditions of liberal politics? Is liberalism best understood as a set of institutions that can be applied “almost anywhere”? Does liberalism consist in a particular way of thinking or being—or does it require a peculiar or even unusual “state of mind” (3)?
According to Callanan, these questions can be addressed profitably by returning to the thought of the influential, perplexing genius of Montesquieu. Modern or contemporary liberal theory, he argues, “has impoverished itself by losing sight of questions of this kind.” Montesquieu’s political philosophy and political science can “enrich our reflections concerning this family of questions and teach us to ask them more often and probingly” (3).
Having raised those questions, Callanan aims to show that Montesquieu’s political philosophy offers a unique resolution. This unique contribution consists in putting together two opposing forces, two “principal elements,” that appear contradictory—that is, Montesquieu’s strong affirmation of liberal culture with a deep rejection of political universalism (4). This “union [of] anti-universalism and liberalism” (234) gives readers a Montesquieu that is committed to liberal values but that is, if not agnostic, at the very least uncommitted to a “single model of government that is best suited for all times and all peoples” (12). This version of Montesquieu cares deeply about “liberal virtues” but does not guide us to any particular regime (24), even “any one particular non-despotic regime as the universal model” (112). It is a Montesquieu that is a conscious builder of a rich conception of a liberal self (chapters 4–6), an innovative critic of a formalistic conception of liberty (chapter 7), and a modern political scientist who rejects attempts to tether a liberal view of the human condition with a “single political form” (148) or a proscription of formal institutions (236).
Callanan recognizes that most scholarship on Montesquieu has viewed this version of Montesquieu either with bewilderment or bemusement (19). Recognizing the difficulty, he nevertheless constructs an interesting challenge for himself and his readers. In the book, he tries to show that a liberal anti-universalist Montesquieu is not only interesting for the purposes of understanding Montesquieu, but also that this version of Montesquieu is best understood as an overlooked or half-forgotten version of liberalism—one that has the unique virtue of “avoid[ing] the tendencies of the radical Enlightenment” (261). And so while this book is about Montesquieu, the “interpretative task” (4) of the author is not peculiar to Montesquieu scholarship. It is an interpretative challenge aimed at the heart of liberal political philosophy and therefore one that may implicate a serious rethinking of the roots of Western liberal democracy.
Callanan faces at least two major obstacles. One, he has to convince readers that his interpretation of Montesquieu as liberal–foundationalist–anti-universalist is correct. Two, he has to show that we should care; that is, that Montesquieu’s anti-universalistic liberalism can be taken seriously as an alternative to other forms of liberalism today, in a climate where not only the values of liberalism are being contested but also in which, in the eyes of this reviewer, specific institutional features are being stress-tested before our very eyes—the value of a written constitution, for example, or the utility of separation of powers, federalism, and legal-institutional protections for freedom of speech, to pick only a few.
In my view, Callanan succeeds in the first goal. Like any project of this scope, however, that goal is achieved perhaps at the neglect of other necessary supporting arguments—to show, for example, that a loosened-up classical liberal tradition can be fruitfully applied today, without an insistence on (at the very least) thinking about the connection between institutional form and liberal political culture. More on that problem in the conclusion.
The book begins with an overview of attempts by liberal theorists to correct the “excessively abstract character” of modern liberal theory (6–7). What makes Montesquieu unique, Callanan argues, is an attention to “political particularism” (the modifier, “political,” is critical to understanding the aims of the book). For readers unfamiliar with recent interpretative debates, we can simplify and say that the book is situated in, or as a response to, two groups: those who think that liberal political culture and liberal values require a narrow institutional or legal or constitutional range (i.e., political universalism) and those who view the fact of institutional diversity as a superintending reality, one that requires us either to compromise on the list of “liberal virtues” or in some circumstances to abandon them altogether.
The author is well aware of the difficulties of splitting this difference. Indeed, the book’s claim to originality is premised on the fact that Montesquieu’s defense of what we now call “liberal values” is in real tension with his defense of political particularism.
The book is separated in two parts. Readers interested in Montesquieu’s unique “particularistic” science will appreciate Callanan’s careful engagement with ancient and modern French sources in chapters 1 and 2. While the chapter on French constitutionalism is heavy lifting, and will no doubt feel obscure to everyone but a very select few, readers will appreciate Callanan’s clear reminders of his thesis as he writes. Readers of Montesquieu will also pick up on Callanan’s strong-minded insistence that Montesquieu ultimately rejected classical political theory—even while relying on classical political philosophy to make his case against it. The essence of Callanan’s argument is that Montesquieu uses the “sensibility” of classical theory (including Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero) only to turn that sensibility “against the classical republic of virtue in favor of modern regimes of liberty” (23). In this, Callanan joins a growing scholarly tradition in which The Spirit of the Laws is meant to “dethrone the classical republican ideal” (61).
The second part of the book will appeal more to readers invested in the question of the moral foundations of liberalism and more specifically contemporary debates about pluralist liberalism (25). Readers of Montesquieu will benefit, in particular, from the treatment of Montesquieu’s unique approach to what the author refers to as “liberalism’s ‘dispositional’ preconditions” (9). As noted, Montesquieu scholars will argue with the idea that Montesquieu is a “liberal theorist” (3). Yet, one has the sense that Callanan is always fair with his sources and, perhaps unusually for a young academic, confident enough in his position not to make a straw-man out of the other interpretative schools. Callanan admits, indeed, that Montesquieu’s liberalism is not a settled issue (3n5). And moreover, Callanan is careful to show that his work rests on a foundation of more than a “century of scholarship” that treats Montesquieu as an “intellectual founder of classical liberalism” (3).
As someone who has tried to work in this area of Montesquieu scholarship, I have sympathies both for the interpretative goals and for the obstacles in the way. For space, I would confine my remarks on his project to two fairly limited points of criticism.
First, there are missed opportunities. Callanan is right to demand from scholars of Montesquieu an appreciation for his account of the liberal self. Montesquieu did, in fact, reject the early liberal “minimalist” conception of the liberal self, and he does, in fact, guide his readers to a richer account of liberal political culture (148). Yet, the book does not contain, so far as I can tell, a systematic account of the real differences between early liberal thinkers and Montesquieu—at least not one that advances our understanding past a general sense (argued in many places before this book was published) that Montesquieu elevated Lockean liberalism without collapsing into relativism. Indeed, while Callanan has made a strong case for a recovery of Montesquieu’s liberalism, the content of the chapters may fall short in convincing readers in the liberal-republican tradition not to think of Montesquieu as merely a French Locke. But this was part of the stated goal of the book—to show that Montesquieu is important precisely because he is a “half-heard” variety of liberal theory that is strong precisely in the areas where earlier liberal theory was weak or where they tend to falter in application today (4).
Second, and perhaps more importantly, the book appears to avoid any attempt to account for or to explain the limits of political pluralism. To the author’s defense, the burden of the work is not to analyze those limits. The object is merely to encourage readers to take Montesquieu seriously in his view that there are a “range of possible regimes within the family of moderate governments” (131).
Yet, the institutional questions do matter, and political pluralism does raise new problems—the most serious of which is how one defines the “family” of moderate institutions. Scholars or theorists in the liberal-republican tradition will likely be unmoved by an appeal to broaden the set of legal-institutional arrangements necessary to sustain personal freedom, however broadly conceived. They will no doubt agree with Callanan that the liberal family is a large one. But they are likely to define the family of “moderate” governments more narrowly, excluding regimes from family membership that do not include strong protections for free speech, freedom of worship, due process, etc. (see 235).
Likewise, modern liberals and progressives are not likely to be persuaded that the family of moderate institutions can (or should?) be broadened sufficiently to include regimes that do not have strong democratic institutions, a clear role for government in providing an expanded set of social services and a written charter protecting group or individual rights.
That is to say, classical liberals, modern liberals, and progressives are all likely to ask variants of the same troubling question not answered by Callanan’s book: what are the limits to political pluralism? 1
Returning to the question—does a liberal culture require a liberal constitution?—Montesquieu’s Liberalism & the Problem of Universal Politics adds significant weight to the case against the affirmative. No, the mechanics and forms of government are less important than is often assumed; they are even less important still when measured against the psychological health or “internal state” of the citizen (235).
This provocative conclusion may not surprise readers of Montesquieu—even those who disagree with Callanan’s analysis. Part of what makes Montesquieu interesting today is precisely what made him revolutionary in his own time. In challenging the narrow conception of the liberal self, and by recasting political science as a conversation with classical thought, Montesquieu pointed to a revised liberalism that would be strong enough to defend itself against ideological extremism but flexible enough to adapt itself to the oddities, accidents, and misfortunes of human political life. Montesquieu’s liberalism thus depends on an uncomforting balance of two contrary tendencies—a pull toward moral right and a push from human diversity. As I have suggested, this version of liberalism, presented in Callanan’s book, will not convince partisans of antiliberal political theory of the truth or even value of Montesquieu’s “half-heard” version of classical liberalism. It would serve, however, as an important first step in recovering a variant of liberalism that has not had its time in the sunlight. It would demonstrate the possibility, in Callanan’s useful phrase, of a “foundationalist liberalism that is yet wholly compatible with a keen attention to the diversity of human culture” (262).