The (Re)New(ing) Democracy and Cyclical Forms and Substance of Regulatory Governance

This symposium essay on William Novak’s new dazzling book New Democracy: The Creation of the Modern American State argues that while Novak’s revisionist history can liberates us from the constant uphill battle to justify a robust regulatory state which emphasizes substantive rights, egalitarian goals, and redistribution, we also must be liberated from the notion that a robust centralized government is a progressive government. As we are – alarmingly - witnessing in recent years and months, the paradigms of the regulatory state are cyclical in nature, and form and substance - regulatory technique and goals - -- are matrices that defy straightforward alignments. Populism and expertise, administrative methods and purposes, rules and rights, can pair in unexpected ways