Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies
Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies
1 The Disharmonic Polity 1
“Our Practice
of Your Principles” 1
The One the Two and the Many: Structural
Paradigms of American Politics 5
Ideals versus Institutions 10
2 The American Creed and National Identity 13
Political
Thought in America 13
Sources Scope
and Stability of the Creed 14
Political
Ideas and National Identity 23
3 The Gap The American Creed versus Political
Authority 31
Consensus and
Instability 31
The Gap in
Comparative Perspective 42
4 Coping with the Gap 61
The American
Case of Cognitive Dissonance 61
Patterns of
Response 64
The Gap and
American Political Style 75
5 The Politics of Creedal Passion 85
Creedal
Passion Periods in American History 85
The Climate
of Creedal Passion 91
Creedal
Conflict The Movement and the Establishment 105
Reform and
Its Limits 112
Political
Earthquakes and Realignment 122
6 The Sources of Creedal Passion 130
Why Creedal
Passion Periods 130
General
Sources: Comparable Phenomena in Other Societies 131
Specific
Sources: The Timing of Creedal Passion Periods 138
Original
Sources: The Roots of It All in the English Revolution 149
The
Protestantism of American Politics 154
7 The S and S Years 1960 to 1975 167
From the Fifties to the Seventies:
The Changing Pattern of Response 167
Complacency and the End of Ideology 169
Interlude of Hypocrisy Surge of Moralism 173
The Mobilization of Protest 180
The Dynamics
of Exposure 188
The Legacies 196
Reform and
the I v I Gap 197
Institutional
Realignment 203
The Misuse
and Erosion of Authority 211
Cynicism and
the Restoration of Authority 214
8 The Viability of American Ideals and Institutions 221
The Future of
the Gap 221
History
versus Progress 222
America
versus the World 236
Power and
Liberty The Myth of American Repression 246
The Promise
of Disappointment 259
Notes 265
Index 293
