The discussion here draws largely upon
the debates over liberal citizenship in the
United States, where the individualist and
state-limiting aspects of liberalism have
been most fully reified and the consequences
of these aspects most severely criticized
(Hartz, 1955; Smith, 1997). The word
‘liberalism,’ to be sure, has acquired a malodorous
quality among politicians and many
political commentators in the USA since the
1960s. Nonetheless, the fact remains that
almost all mainstream political discourse in
the USA, regardless of the speaker’s party,
proceeds as if the traditional liberal values
of individual freedom, autonomy, consent,
and limited state power were universally
embraced, with the only differences being
the means for achieving them. Indeed, disputants
who advance non-liberal visions such
as communitarianism and state-expanding
ideals of social justice often redefine them in
order to make them compatible with liberal
discourse.