Returning to the Theme of Exile

Abstract

In her first book, After Utopia, Shklar had been very skeptical as to the possibilities of grand political theory after the experiences of World War II and the ideological confrontation of the Cold War. Shklar’s second book, Legalism, took on an equally sober tone with its critical view of the possibilities of a “justice in robes” to address war crimes, genocide, and the politics of fear. Looking back at Shklar’s intellectual preoccupations and publications over the three decades that followed, it would be a mistake to assume that she had somehow abandoned her earlier skepticism midway by taking flight to the classics of philosophical and political theory or by suddenly discovering American political thought. On the contrary, all the evidence suggests that Shklar remained preoccupied with the questions of what one could hope for and what could realistically be achieved, and what it meant to have decent and democratic arrangements and a stable political order that avoided cruelty and the politics of fear. The questions of the possible coexistence of democratic order and freedom, and what kind of moral mindset was necessary to sustain them, remained central to her political theory. Shklar never abandoned them, not in her discussion of Rousseau, Hegel, or Montesquieu nor by later developing an interest in American political thought, or turning to the theme of injustice and citizenship.