A Common Country : Solidarity and the Making of American Democracy

Nathan Pippenger shows that for American democracy to flourish, egalitarians must not reject the ideal of shared American peoplehood, but instead lay their own distinctive claim to its meaning. In contrast to reactionaries promoting a version of American nationalism that locks out many people or egalitarians suspicious of appeals to shared civic belonging, Pippenger demonstrates that throughout US history, progressive appeals to expand the reach of “We the People” did most to improve the quality of democracy and overcome nativism, racism, and oligarchy.

As their democracy faces an array of crises Americans confront a recurring question: whether they really constitute a democratic “people” at all. Reactionaries promote a nostalgic ideal of American nationalism, while implying that many of their compatriots don''t belong to their imagined nation. In response, many egalitarians are suspicious of appeals to shared civic belonging—seeing them as outmoded, intolerant, and potentially dangerous. In A Common Country, Nathan Pippenger shows that for American democracy to flourish, egalitarians must not reject the ideal of shared American peoplehood but instead put forth their own distinctive claim to its meaning. Pippenger shows that at key periods—from Reconstruction through the Progressive Era, New Deal, and Civil Rights era—democratic reformers realized that the transformative changes they sought would succeed only if the meaning of “We the People” expanded to include everyone in the country. Pippenger''s analysis of this tradition shows not only that democracy requires solidarity but also that solidarity need not presuppose any common trait other than the fact of shared political membership. Examining contemporary problems of nativism, racial injustice, and ascendant oligarchy, A Common Country weaves together history and normative political theory to intervene in urgent debates over nationalism, citizenship, and the fate of democracy. Its distinctive argument is that the solidarity needed to achieve American democracy is not awaiting discovery in some elusive form of unity—rather, it must be consciously cultivated among citizens who share no more, and no less, than a common country.