IT'S THE LIBERTY, STUPID:

Perhaps no thinker better understood the barriers that a sober liberal-constitutional model can pose to political dominance, if not oppression, than the 18th-century French republican theorist Montesquieu. His dynamic understanding of power heavily influenced the framers of our Constitution -- it was the "celebrated Montesquieu" they turned to in order to understand the need for the separation of powers as a barrier to tyranny.

In The Spirit of Laws, Montesquieu describes the dual-layered structure of separation and representation that prevents parties within a republican regime from dominating one another. The first layer incorporates the separation of powers, as embodied in the distinct branches of government. These branches -- the executive and legislative branches in particular -- have more or less equal power, and they frequently divide opposing partisans who compete for control of government. Once a party assumes control of a branch, partisans of that party attempt to wield their power in a given direction, while partisans of the other party in a separate branch push in the opposite direction. The separation of power among the branches thus prevents partisans from dominating one another to achieve their goals.

The second layer of this structure comes from our representative form of government. Society, like government, is itself divided among partisans who seek out and wield political power in service of their preferred ends. Yet their efforts to reach the objects of their desires through the representative branches of government tend, after a time, to be hindered by other partisans' essentially equal and opposite efforts within those same branches. Under such a system, citizens are forever scheming but ultimately unable to harm each other.

Why was Montesquieu confident that citizens under constitutional liberalism will divide into two almost equal opposing parties in this way over time? Pierre Manent provides an enlightening answer in his Intellectual History of Liberalism, where he identifies an additional layer of separation among the citizenry. The key to this separation lies in the fact that citizens are both partisans of government power and independent members of civil society.

In Manent's telling, as partisans of one party assume power, they will attempt to exercise that power to achieve their ends at the expense of the opposing party. Yet if they do so too forcefully, the more lukewarm partisans of the party -- being not only government actors, but members of civil society -- will begin to feel threatened. They'll wonder, if such power is left unchecked, what will prevent the more radical partisans from turning against them to further bolster their power. That worry will lead erstwhile partisans of one party to protect their own interests by lending their strength to the opposing party.

In sum, citizens have a two-fold interest: that the power of government serve their interest, and that it not weigh too heavily on society. They also have a two-fold sentiment: that the party they favor represent them, but that it also remain distinct from them, since the power of government could betray its partisans. The interplay of these two inseparable interests and sentiments guarantees that a portion of the citizenry will almost spontaneously help the weaker power in society. In other words, the people in a constitutional republic tend to react negatively to overreach and to punish the party that overreaches by withdrawing power from it. This kinetic model of politics ensures that, as the desire for political identification grows, alienation will occur in tandem, leading some citizens to grow suspicious of their fellow partisans and decide to form new allegiances and memberships on the opposite side of the aisle.

Manent argues that this regime produces a double impotence as well. First, the division of power between the branches leaves citizens generally incapable of doing much to injure or impair each other's liberties. Second, citizens can and will easily render a given party powerless by shifting their allegiances. Their old enemies can become their friends, at least temporarily, as they react against threats to their independence. This dynamic conditions citizens' political interactions with one another, upholding compromise as the essential driving force of republican constitutionalism.

For Montesquieu, this double impotence is the essence of liberty. It isn't the most beautiful ideal, but it's a durable one, and probably the best we can hope for in the modern republican state.

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