The Adaptability Paradox - (Chicago Studies in American Politics) by Stephen Skowronek

Book Synopsis

Has American democracy outstripped its constitutional accommodations?

Faith in the resilience and adaptability of the US Constitution rests on a long history of finding new ways to make the system work. In The Adaptability Paradox, political scientist Stephen Skowronek examines the rearrangements that regenerated the American government in the past and brings that experience to bear on our current predicament. He shows how a constitution framed in writing some 230 years ago can run into serious difficulties directly related to its long and impressive history of adaptation.

Skowronek connects questions about the Constitution's adaptability to the challenges of democratization. For most of American history, serial rearrangements of constitutional relationships widened the government's purview as a national democracy without giving either nationalism or democracy free rein. Skowronek argues that the politics of adaptation shifted fundamentally with the "Rights Revolution" of the 1960s and `70s when American national democracy approached the inclusion of all its citizens on equal footing. Since then, power and authority have been reconfigured in ways that have steadily magnified conflicts over the essentials of good order. Conservatives aim to dismantle a Constitution that progressives are intent on building upon, and the consensus necessary for a constitutional democracy to function effectively has all but evaporated. No longer a socially bound framework for national action, the Constitution has become an abstract matrix of possibilities, a disembodied opportunity structure open to starkly different, mutually unacceptable futures.

Rather than being liberated by this unbound Constitution, the American people now appear entrapped by it. Is it possible that the development of American democracy has exhausted the adaptive capacities of the Constitution? A timely reminder that constitutional democracies do not survive on faith alone, The Adaptability Paradox is a sober appraisal of the unfamiliar ground on which we now tread.

Review Quotes

"In The Adaptability Paradox, Stephen Skowronek, the premiere scholar of American political development, provides an insightful analysis that raises the great political challenge of our time. Commendably, America has become more democratic over time, but only through adaptations that provided security for many unequal social, economic, and political features of American life. Today, anger at social, economic, and political elites abounds, on the right, left, and center. But is it still possible for the nation to become more fully democratic, and still hold together? A profoundly difficult question that we cannot ignore."

--Rogers M. Smith coauthor of "America's New Racial Battle Lines: Protect Versus Repair"

"A strikingly original, penetrating, and sobering exploration of why the US Constitution, after two hundred years of remarkable resilience and adaptability, now seems to be failing. A profound intervention by one of America's most distinguished political scientists."--Gary Gerstle author of "The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era"

"Skowronek's terrific new book incisively explains why the US Constitution, notable for its longevity and perceived adaptability, seems no longer equipped to serve these ends. In the process, The Adaptability Paradox powerfully upends conventional narratives about the distinctive value of the document's institutional design. It fundamentally reframes how scholars and publics should understand the conditions that both generated change in the past and now inhibit progress. The result is an essential intervention in constitutional history as well as in today's most significant political debates."--Aziz Rana author of "The Constitutional Bind: How Americans Came to Idolize a Document That Fails Them"

About the Author

Stephen Skowronek is the Pelatiah Perit Professor of Political and Social Science at Yale University and cofounder of the journal Studies in American Political Development. He is the author or coauthor of several books, including Phantoms of a Beleaguered Republic, The Policy State, and The Politics Presidents Make.