Structure, Sequence, and Subordination in American Political Culture: What's Traditions Got to Do with It?

Rogers Smith's American Political Science Review article, “Beyond Tocqueville, Myrdal, and Hartz: The Multiple Traditions of America,” poses challenging substantive and methodological questions for the study of American political development. Whether or not it intended to do so, the article has struck a chord in several programs of research. The following colloquy between Smith and me centers on Smith's reading of political culture in terms of “traditions.” In a spirit of advancing our common enterprise, I have sharpened rather than muted the differences between Smith's views and my own in order to bring them into relief in a short space.