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Thursday, March 30, 2006

The Jacksonian, Wilsonian, Jeffersonian, and Hamiltonian Schools
This is a fascinating article on the four schools of American foreign-policy thought, focusing on the one the President's base espouses: The Age of Jackson.

Here's what the Jacksonians are all about:
    The Jacksonian American, as Mead describes him both in Special Providence and in his 1999 essay "The Jacksonian Tradition and American Foreign Policy," fits the profile of the conservative Bush voter – and now Bush critic – to a proverbial tee. By their own lights, Jacksonians are populists (and "profoundly suspicious of elites," according to Mead); unselfconsciously patriotic or nationalistic; and deeply religious, with a tendency toward fundamentalism and its emphasis on the individual’s relationship with God. Country music is their quintessential cultural expression.

    They admire self-sufficiency, but unlike Jeffersonian libertarians, Jacksonians are not averse to finding a positive role for government as long as it fights on the right side of the cultural divide. "Jacksonians believe that government should do everything in its power to promote the well-being – political, moral, economic – of the folk community," Mead writes. The military is part of that community: "When it comes to Big Government, Jeffersonians worry more about the military than about anything else. But for Jacksonians, spending money on the military is one of the best things governments do."

    Moreover, "while Jeffersonians espouse a minimalist realism under which the United States seeks to define its interests as narrowly as possible and defend those interests with an absolute minimum of force, Jacksonians approach foreign policy in a very different spirit – one in which honor, concern for reputation, and faith in military institutions play a much greater role." This honor, Mead notes, "in the Jacksonian imagination is not simply what one feels oneself to be on the inside; it is also a question of the respect and dignity one commands in the world at large."

    The trait that most sets Jacksonians apart is their attitude toward war. They are fierce, brave, and, all too often, bloodthirsty. As they see it, "Our diplomacy must be cunning, forceful and no more scrupulous than anybody else’s. At times, we must fight pre-emptive wars. [Mead wrote this in 1999.] There is absolutely nothing wrong with subverting foreign governments or assassinating foreign leaders whose bad intentions are clear. Thus, Jacksonians are more likely to tax political leaders with a failure to employ vigorous measures than to worry about the niceties of international law."

    Jacksonians made Bush’s administration – providing both his hawkish national-security voters and his fundamentalist values-voters, as well as much of the country-music loving Republican base – and they can break it. Jacksonians helped turn out of office Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and arguably George H.W. Bush for failing to fight hard enough; in any conflict, Mead warns, "once engaged, politicians cannot safely end the war except on Jacksonian terms." John Moser of Ashland University reiterated the point two years ago – "Having been convinced that the occupation of Iraq was a necessary component of the War on Terror, [Jacksonians] will hold Bush accountable if they feel the war is not being fought in earnest." That’s just what they’re doing.

    Jacksonians have little patience with the rules of war; to them, as Mead writes, "the use of limited force is deeply repugnant." Up to a point, their nationalistic zeal and military prowess are of great use to Wilsonians. But Jacksonians want total war – their heroes are men like Curtis LeMay and William Tecumseh Sherman, though the fact that so many Jacksonians are Southerners suppresses their enthusiasm for him somewhat.
I guess this blogger would be an Adamsian-Jeffersonian.