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Reconstructing the Commercial Republic: Constitutional Design after Madison

Reconstructing the Commercial Republic: Constitutional Design after Madison. By Stephen L. Elkin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. 416p. $35.00. In this engaging book, Stephen L. Elkin offers an account of the politics necessary to realize the nation's aspirations for an American commercial republic, in which economic inequality is dramatically reduced, citizens engage in meaningful (and surprisingly powerful) local government, and both they and their representatives deliberate to promote the good of all. The starting point for Elkin's analysis is a familiar list of what ails America: growing economic inequality, declining “civic and political involvement,” economic insecurity particularly among the middle class, as well as weakening family structure. He argues that we will never resolve these problems until we first have a “compelling and comprehensive theory of republican political constitution” (p. 2). Although no clear explanation is given for what it means to have such a theory, Elkin implies that such a theory would be based on the interrelation of the economic and political order.