A Comparative Look at the Rise of

Abstract

In both the United States and France, conceptions of the state and its relationship to civil society are defined in part in antithesis to that of the transatlantic other. The United States has long claimed an exceptionalist history of relying on civil society to promote democratic governance-and individual liberty-in the absence of state authorities. France and its bureaucratic state are taken as representative of the dangers that follow from overly empowering the state-including a sclerotic economy ill-equipped to adjust to change and rigidly uniform notions of cultural identity, hostile to racial and religious difference. Emerging out of the French Revolution, France, in turn, embraced a Jacobin ideal of state/society relations, pursuant to which the state is responsible for ensuring individual equality under the law by preventing the intermediation of any private groups. On this view, it is the state alone that can be trusted to act for the public good. And the United States stands as a powerful example of the ills that follow from enabling private groups to usurp public authority-including the disproportionate empowerment of the wealthy and animosity between different racial and religious groups.