The Anglo-American Tradition of Liberty: A view from Europe

223 Pages·2016·1.94 MB·English

by  João Carlos Espada

The Anglo-American Tradition of
Liberty
João Carlos Espada’s provocative survey of a group of key Anglo-American and
European political thinkers argues that there is a distinctive, Anglo-American
tradition of liberty that is one of the core pillars of the Free World. Giving a broad
overview of the tradition through summaries of the careers and ideas of fourteen
of its key thinkers, neglected despite having been tremendously influential in the
tradition of liberty, the author engages with current set ideas about the meaning
of ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ to offer an engaging, intellectual case for liberal
democracy.
João Carlos Espada is the director and founder of the Institute of Political Studies
at the Catholic University of Portugal, where he is Professor of Political Studies.
He earned his DPhil from the University of Oxford, and has taught at Brown,
Stanford and Georgetown Universities in the US, and the College of Europe in
Warsaw, Poland. He was political advisor to President Mário Soares (1986–1990)
and President Cavaco Silva (2006–2011).
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The Anglo-American Tradition
of Liberty
A view from Europe
João Carlos Espada
First published 2016
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2016 João Carlos Espada
The right of João Carlos Espada to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-4724-5572-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-3156-1243-0 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK
To the memory of (Sir) Karl Popper and (Lord) Ralf
Dahrendorf, who gently led me into the discovery of the
Anglo-American Tradition of Liberty
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Contents
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction: Karl Popper, Winston Churchill
and the ‘British Mystery’ 1
PART I
Personal influences 15
1 Karl R. Popper: the open society and its enemies 17
2 Ralf Dahrendorf: liberty and civil society 32
3 Raymond Plant: social welfare without class warfare 39
4 Gertrude Himmelfarb and Irving Kristol: the moral
imagination 49
PART II
Cold warriors 55
5 Raymond Aron: the opium of the intellectuals 57
6 Friedrich A. Hayek: the constitution of liberty 63
7 Isaiah Berlin: liberty and pluralism 69
8 Michael Oakeshott: the conservative disposition 77
9 Leo Strauss: relativism and the crisis of modernity 86
viii Contents
PART III
Orderly liberty 93
10 Edmund Burke: liberty and duty 95
11 James Madison versus Jean-Jacques Rousseau:
two views of self-government 109
12 Alexis de Tocqueville: democracy in America 118
PART IV
The spirit of liberty 137
13 Winston S. Churchill: the English-speaking peoples
and the free world 139
PART V
Politics of imperfection: the Anglo-American
tradition of liberty 159
14 Limited and accountable government 161
15 Two kinds of rationalism 170
16 Liberty as conversation 183
Postscript: on Britain and the European Union – the
missing debate 192
Bibliography 201
Index 207
Acknowledgements
This book was not made according to a previously established plan. It has
emerged gradually through interaction with many different persons and institu-
tions through a lengthy period of time. Mainly, it has emerged from teaching:
at Brown and Stanford Universities in the US (back in 1994–1996) and later at
Georgetown (in 2000); at the College of Europe in Warsaw (since 2011); and espe-
cially at the Institute of Political Studies, which I co-founded with Mário Pinto
and Manuel Braga da Cruz in 1996, at the Catholic University of Portugal. Here
I was fortunate to meet several students, most of whom are now my colleagues,
who have shared my curiosity for the specificity of the political culture of the
English-speaking peoples. Among them, I should like to mention André Azevedo
Alves, Carlos Marques de Almeida, José Castello Branco, Rita Seabra Brito,
Henrique Burnay, Hugo Chelo, João Pereira Coutinho, Mariana Cudell, Monica
Dias, Martim Avillez Figueiredo Lívia Franco, Bruno Maçães, Ivone Moreira,
Miguel Morgado, Pedro Norton, José Conde Rodrigues, Orlando Samões Paulo
Sande, Nuno Sampaio and Monica Vieira. Without them, this book would not
have been possible.
I worked on the initial idea of the book during a visit to St Antony’s College,
Oxford, in the spring of 2005 (Trinity Term) at the invitation of the late (Lord) Ralf
Dahrendorf, who had been the Warden of the College (1987–1997) and was my
supervisor during my DPhil studies there (1990–1994). A first Portuguese version
of the book was published in 2008 (A Tradição Anglo-Americana da Liberdade:
Um Olhar Europeu, with a Preface by Manuel Braga da Cruz, who was then the
Rector of the Catholic University of Portugal). Olga Morais prepared the first
English translation. The present English version has been significantly revised and
expanded. Part of this work was again done during a visit to St Antony’s, in the
winter of 2015 (Hilary Term), this time at the invitation of Margaret MacMillan,
the present Warden, and of Timothy Garton Ash. In both visits I received a schol-
arship from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
I have profited from the discussion of the issues addressed in this book with
many other friends and colleagues, namely at the annual International Meetings
in Political Studies, started in 1993 in Arrábida, Portugal, and, since 2006, named
Estoril Political Forum. Among them I should like to mention Marc F. Plattner,
José Pena Amaral, Larry P. Arnn, Gabriel Calzada, António Carriço, Alexander