Samuel P. Huntington

A study of the gap between the promise and practice of American democracy examines the historical national unity derived from the democratic ideal and the frustration of that ideal by political institutions and hierarchies

The Promise of Disharmony

American Politics

The views on foreign policy are a bit rah-rah-America but interesting nonetheless

Parmin

To maintain their ideals and institutions, Americans have no recourse but to temper and balance their responses to the IvI gap. The threats to the future of the American condition can be reduced to the extent that Americans: 

— believe in their liberal, democratic, and individualistic ideals and also recognize the extent to which their institutions and behavior fall short of these ideals; 

— feel guilty about the existence of the gap but take comfort from the fact that American political institutions are more liberal and democratic than those of any other human society past or present

— attempt to reduce the gap between institutions and ideals but accept the fact that the imperfections of human nature mean the gap can never be eliminated

— believe in the universal validity of American ideals but also understand their limited applicability to other societies; and 

— support the maintenance of American power necessary to protect and promote liberal ideals and institutions in the world arena, but recognize the dangers such power could pose to liberal ideals and institutions 

Can Americans use American values to legitimately try to reduce the gap between other people’s institutions and American values? 

American moralism ensures that government will never be truly efficacious: the realities of power ensure that government will never be truly democratic. 

This situation could lead to a two-phase dialectic involving intensified efforts to reform government, followed by intensified frustration when those efforts produce not progress in a liberal-democratic direction, but obstacles to meeting perceived functional needs. The weakening of government in an effort to reform it could lead eventually to strong demands for the replacement of the weakened and ineffective institutions by more authoritarian structures more effectively designed to meet historical needs. Given the perversity of reform, moralistic extremism in the pursuit of liberal democracy could generate a strong tide toward authoritarian efficiency 

All in all, money, status, and power were probably more equally dis- tributed among white males in Jacksonian America than at any other time before or since.

In this way, public knowledge of the abuse of authority is a product of the breakdown of authority. 

Political authority—that is, the legitimate exercise of power by public officials—can become deficient in two ways. The misuse of authority involves the exercise of power by public officials in ways other than those which have been thought legitimate by the prevailing opinion in society: the realm of power expands beyond the realm of legitimacy. The erosion of authority, on the other hand, involves the shrinkage of the realm of legitimacy within the realm of power. Ways of exercising power previously accepted as legitimate cease to be so considered. 

Reform seems ephemeral, privilege reincarnate, and the realization of the democratic ideal only marginally closer in 1976 than it was in 1776.

In creedal passion periods, politics tends to become polarized between those who are in favor of reform and change and those who are willing to accept existing institutions as they are. The recurring division is thus not between upper class and lower class, or between elite and mass, but rather between reformers and standpatters, between the Movement" or move- ments and the Establishment" or establishments. 

In a very similar manner, Hubert Humphrey in 1975 commented on one aspect of a decade of moralistic exposure: "Accountability is the cry of the day. A kind of consumerism is in the air, and neither the Congress nor the public is taking the President's or anybody's word for anything. But there comes a time when suspicion can go too far. There comes a time when you have to trust someone."

ln sum, there are more incentives to develop conspiracies of power in the United States than in other societies, and hence conspiracy theories about power which appear to be more prevalent in the United States than in other societies may also be more justifiable. Indeed. if the effective exercise of power involves the cover-up of its existence, then it is only a small logical jump to the ultimate conclusion, the reductio ad absurdum of conspiracy theory, that the most persuasive evidence for the existence of secret power is the total absence of any such evidence.

American responses to the IvI (ideals vs. institutions) gap: moralism (eliminate the gap), cynicism (tolerate the gap), hypocrisy (deny the gap), complacency (ignore the gap). The sequence of American responses often follows this pattern: moralistic reform (times of creedal passion) --> cynicism --> complacency --> hypocrisy 

As pointed out by many others, despite being decades old, this book is as relevant as any recent column on politics. Though it gets a bit rah-rah-America near the end when discussing the US in a foreign affairs context, it’s a brilliantly written book on the forces that shape—and try to break—American politics every 60 years in hopes of closing the gap between American ideals and institutions. 

American Politics The Promise of Disharmony

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