ABSTRACT
Liberal democracy is the dominant framework for politics in the modern world, both in theory and in practice. Yet charges that liberal democracy is in crisis, or even decline, are increasingly common. Typically, such charges derive from concerns regarding globalization and the immanent ‘clash of civilizations’ that globalization brings. At the same time, liberal democracies are rife with political confl ict in the form of an ongoing ‘culture war’ that has divided the US at least into opposed ‘red’ and ‘blue’ regions. There is a long story to tell about how the clash of civilizations story and the phenomenon of culture war are intertwined manifestations of the same political tensions arising out of the theoretical features of liberal democracy itself, but I will not attempt this here. Instead, I want to call attention to those tensions and suggest, even if briefl y, a way we might allay them. Although the discussion will tend to hover at a high and abstract altitude, a crucial feature of the analysis will turn on an examination of the case of Mozert v. Hawkins, which raises the question of the extent to which a liberal society can offi cially embrace core liberal values and seek to cultivate the same among students in its public schools.
