At the end of the introduction to this book is a section titled “The Argument.” There, John Brenkman states: “My intention in the course of writing this book has been to probe the drama of political thought in the face of the war against terrorism, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and occupation of Iraq” (p. 19). Brenkman does not explain what he means by “the drama of political thought,” but a set of questions posed earlier in the introduction (p. 2) gives us a clue: “What role do arms have in a democracy? How does military power alter, as well as protect, the polity that uses it? What is the possibility and even the meaning of the international rule of law? Can force effectively spread liberty and democracy abroad?”

These are excellent questions, particularly the first two, which are seldom asked by political theorists or political scientists. Merely raising them suggests a quiet but subversive challenge to one of the most cherished assumptions of contemporary politics: that a liberal democracy can consistently prepare for, engage in, and sustain military action abroad without that action somehow altering or affecting the polity itself. The fact that Brenkman says he will explore these issues not as a partisan but as a theorist is doubly subversive, for the theoretical perspective promises to get us beyond the debate about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or the war on terror to a deeper appreciation of how and why a liberal democracy has found itself fighting a needless, hopeless, and lethal war, with no end in sight, in total contravention to the declared preferences of its citizenry—and what that says about the nature of liberal democracy, at least at this moment in time. These are the types of questions that Hannah Arendt might have asked, and Brenkman is right to invoke her as one of his guiding lights. What should follow then is neither normative theory nor empirical inquiry but a meditation on a nation's self-understanding in light of its actions, a theoretical engagement that takes apart the familiar categories of public conversation to find the deeper issues and fissures that few seem aware of or are willing to confront. That would indeed be drama.

But drama is not what we get. As Brenkman's summary of his argument (after his statement of intention) makes clear, the marriage of canonical theory and contemporary politics will yield, well, what follows: One chapter will claim, with the help of Max Weber and Arendt, that George W. Bush exercises power without responsibility, particularly in the international arena. Another chapter will claim that Carl Schmitt's and Giorgio Agamben's theories of sovereignty and the “state of exception” offer misleading accounts of the modern state, and that political theorists seeking to understand the post-9/11 world turn to them at their peril; Arendt and Hobbes will be discussed. Another chapter will offer a critique of Noam Chomsky and of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri as proof that “the unprecedented confrontation between Western democracy and Islamic radicalism has brought out how thoroughly the political judgment and imagination of the so-called Left is limited by its underlying sensibility” (p. 20). Two additional chapters will argue that the familiar “dichotomy” of Right and Left—never defined, not in the introduction or in the chapters themselves—fails to explain “international politics” and “international conflicts” (pp. 20–21); Jürgen Habermas, Paul Berman, and Perry Anderson will be discussed. A last chapter will suggest that some combination of Arendt's ideas about self-rule and Isaiah Berlin's ideas about individual freedom might “serve as a language of political criticism for assessing the failures and dilemmas of American policy itself” (p. 21). As should be clear by now, this is not an argument; it is not a meditation; it is not even an extended essay or set of essays: It is seven chapters in search of a thesis.

The Cultural Contradictions of Democracy is not without insights or observations. It is often noted, for example, that President Bush presided over the execution of 152 prisoners in his six years as governor of Texas. But Brenkman makes the point, which I have not seen made elsewhere, that “Texas law is unlike most states'. While the governor has the duty of carrying out death sentences like all governors in states with the death penalty, his power to stop an execution, even through an act of clemency, is severely limited” (p. 27). The combination of death penalty and expansive powers of clemency forces governors in other states to wrestle with their decisions over life and death, burdening them with the agonies of conscience and responsibility. Denied that experience, Brenkman argues, Bush was ill-equipped to exercise the presidency's far greater powers over life and death when he assumed office in January 2001. In a final piece of tantalizing speculation, the author suggests that the limits of Bush's own resume mirrored the situation of the United States after the Cold War, when the world's sole superpower failed to ask “itself for what ends and with what responsibilities it held such power” (p. 28).

Brenkman also offers an interesting interpretation of the (Colin) Powell doctrine as a precursor to the war in Iraq. In the wake of the first Gulf War, Powell famously argued that in order to engage in military action, American leaders should have the broad support of the American people, a clear objective related to the national interest, and overwhelming military superiority in order to minimize U.S. casualties. This doctrine, Brenkman points out, has committed the United States to a schizophrenic policy of “timidity and hubris” (p. 32). American leaders are nervous about engaging in conflicts where there might be large-scale losses of American life, yet they enjoy the most awesome and terrifying powers on this earth. The first makes them shy about pursuing policies that are costly but necessary; the second lures them into exercises of power that are easy (or thought to be easy) but not necessary. This perverted understanding of means and ends, where strategies and enemies are fitted to suit tactics and weapons, is “the most plausible explanation for the fact that Bush took the first great occasion after the fall of the Taliban, his State of the Union Address in January 2002, to shift the entire focus of his foreign policy onto the ‘axis of evil.’ Possible conflicts with North Korea and Iran and especially Iraq seemed better suited to the Powell doctrine than the war against terrorism” (p. 40).

As these examples (and there are others) indicate, Brenkman is a reader of some resourcefulness, and individual moments in his book yield arresting, if local, insights. But to what effect or what end? The title of the book promises some exploration of “the cultural contradictions of democracy,” but the reader is no clearer as to what those contradictions are—much less what they reveal or how we should understand them—by the end than he or she is at the beginning. Brenkman raises large and intriguing questions about the relationship between war and democracy, but nowhere does he pause long enough to answer, or even explore, them. His accounts of various political theorists produce no new understanding of those theorists, and none of these theorists seems necessary for the periodic clarifications Brenkman does issue throughout the book—which raises the question of why he chose to include them in the first place. Brenkman claims dissatisfaction with how the Left and Right understand the post-9/11 world, but when he sets out an alternative, it can sound like a warmed-over Democratic Party platform (war on terrorism good, war in Iraq bad—not necessarily bad as idea, not illegal or immoral, but bad in planning and execution). One suspects, or at least hopes, that Arendt and Berlin have more to teach us than that.