Fatherland, Faith, and Family Values: Anti-liberalism and the desire for difference among Russian grassroots conservatives

The article investigates how understandings of the concept ‘liberalism’ have shifted among ultranationalist Russian grassroots as the ‘roll-back’ neoliberalism (in Peck and Tickell’s terms) of the turbulent 1990s has developed into ‘roll-out’ governance during Putin’s presidency. A moral conservative Russian grassroots mobilization is traced from its origins as a crusade against sexual education in the late 1990s, to a campaign against reforms of the state child protection system initiated in the mid-2000s. In this time span, understandings of ‘liberalism’ as chaos and elimination of boundaries have been superseded by an image of liberalism as totalitarianism, a conception resembling academic criticism of neoliberal governmentality despite the movement’s rejection of the purportedly ‘liberal’ Academy. The principal rejection of ‘liberalism’ is in practice mitigated also by ideals of communitarianism and civic engagement bearing many similarities to Western notions of ‘civic liberalism’.

Ethics of responsibility in Ján Palárik’s civic liberalism

The development of the individual attributes of ethics of responsibility in conjunction with the principles of civic liberalism in Slovak political thought is associated with the thinking of Ján Palárik. His political ideas published in the second half of the 19th century come out of an effort to characterize and achieve reform of the Habsburg monarchy on the basis of constitutionalism and federalism. These attributes, in Palárik’s opinion, were to bring more effective solutions to the issue of educating people in their mother tongue and the creation of civic culture. A part of Palárik’s approach to the formation of civic skills is also the advocating of free expression, the idea of pluralism and gradualism within the idea of the unity of the different. His realistic approach to politics was framed by knowing and respecting the objective limits when implementing the aims of national civic freedom. Palárik linked the development of the state and the process of acculturation of the people with application of the principles of practical reasonableness and ethics of responsibility. He found its essence in understanding the interconnectedness of political goals and ideals, which were to be reflected in close association with the real limitations of the capabilities of individuals and social circumstances.

An Interview with Stephen Macedo

In this interview, Stephen J. Macedo, Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Politics and the University Center for Human Values, and Director of the University Center for Human Values, at Princeton University, critically discusses some of the main lines of criticism addressed to contemporary liberal political theory and develops further a liberal conception of civic education presented in his book Diversity and Distrust. The main issues addressed in the interview present a detailed and well-documented critique of the hands-off stance toward diversity of the ‘politics of difference’ and articulate a pervasive defense of the project of ‘civic liberalism’ that supports a liberal agenda for civic education, necessary to sustain our liberal democratic regimes.

Civic Liberalism: Reflections on Our Democratic Ideals. By Thomas A. Spragens, Jr. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999. 271p. $70.00 cloth, $24.95 paper.

Of the many endeavors in the last three decades to restate the central aspirations of liberalism, this important work is one of the most balanced, nuanced, and cogent. Part of its success lies in its willingness to stretch the boundaries of what we call liberalism, but in doing so, Spragens only brings liberal theory into better alignment with intuitions and sensibilities underlying liberal practice.