The practical republic: Social skills and the progress of citizenship

Abstract

Political philosophy, for all its frequent brilliance, is also frequently innocent of the actual workings of politics. Exceptions are found, particularly among authors who do fieldwork, for example, Mansbridge (1980) and Sirianni and Friedland (2001). But more often the arguments of the political philosophers are abstracted from everyday political life. To illustrate what I mean, I will discuss three prominent political theories: social capital, deliberative democracy, and civic republicanism. All three are the objects of vast literatures - the literature on social capital being relatively recent, that on deliberative democracy being ancient in its roots but explosive in the last couple of decades, and that on civic republicanism being one of the most venerable of any literature on earth. All of these literatures are brilliant, but all of them are analytically flawed. Each of them, I will argue, suffers for lack of a theory of social skills - the practical skills of political life broadly construed. I will conclude by sketching such a theory with particular reference to the United States, and by demonstrating that social capital, deliberative democracy, and civic republicanism must all be reconceptualized as a result of it.