Canada's Long Road to Nowhere
Why the Circle of Command Liberalism Cannot Be Squared
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6243181 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Michael Lusztig (Southern Methodist University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1999 |
| Volume | 32 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 451-470 |
| Publication date | 1999-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Canadian Journal of Political Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0008-4239 • E-ISSN: 1744-9324 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0008423900013925 |
| OpenAlex | W1997025654 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 31 |
A school of thought has emerged within constitutional and political theory that a middle road exists between liberalism and anti-liberal communitarianism. This road, which the author terms “command liberalism” permits societies that follow it to bypass the obvious inequities of liberalism while still enjoying the benefits of liberal democracy. The existence of this middle road would be but a piece of intellectual trivia were it not for the fact that for the past two decades it has formed the normative basis for constitution-making in Canada. It has been a root cause of constitutional conflict, intergroup animosity, constitutional paralysis and, potentially, the break-up of the country. Command liberalism is well represented in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In addition, largely as a consequence of the Charter, it was the raison d'etre of the ill-fated Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords. For the most part, those who seek to travel this road in Canada do so with good intentions; they point to the appalling conditions of Native reserves, blatant examples of gender discrimination and institutionalized racism and homophobia within liberal democratic society as evidence of the need to construct more pluralistic means of collective representation. But good intentions do not square the circle of command liberalism. Indeed, the problem with this middle road is that it is circular, leading us back to where we started
Charter · Classical liberalism · Constitution · Democracy · Law and economics · Liberal democracy · Liberalism · Normative · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Canadian Identity and History · Judicial and Constitutional Studies · Law · Multicultural Socio-Legal Studies
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| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,1 |
| Citation span | 2006 - 2006 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |