The Ghosts of Postliberalism – Religion & Liberty Online

Since the publication of Patrick Deneen’s Why Liberalism Failed in 2018, a growing number of conservative and Catholic thinkers have challenged assumptions that long defined the postwar right. Deneen argued that liberalism has weakened the social institutions on which it depends. Why Postliberalism Failed, by James M. Patterson and Thomas D. Howes, enters that debate with an ambitious claim. Contemporary postliberalism, they argue, is neither novel nor untested. It is best understood as the latest expression of an older political tradition whose historical record is considerably less attractive than many of its advocates acknowledge. The result is a wide-ranging work of intellectual and political history that evaluates postliberalism as a political project with a definable legacy.

Recovering the Genealogy

The book unfolds in two movements. The first reconstructs the intellectual origins of postliberal thought; the second examines the historical performance of political movements inspired by similar ideas. Together, these sections form the core of Patterson and Howes’s argument that postliberalism has a retrievable past that undermines many of the claims made for it.

One of the book’s more illuminating arguments concerns the origins of contemporary postliberalism itself. The standard account treats the movement as beginning with the publication of Patrick Deneen’s Why Liberalism Failed. Patterson and Howes acknowledge the importance of Deneen’s book, particularly its assertion that liberalism had undermined the social and moral conditions necessary for its own survival. They note that Deneen’s critique resonated with conservatives disillusioned by the failures of the Iraq War, the aftermath of the Great Recession, the triumph of same-sex marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges, and the apparent exhaustion of the Reagan-era conservative coalition.

Yet the authors argue that Deneen did not create postliberalism so much as popularize a conversation already underway. Long before Why Liberalism Failed became a bestseller, Catholic integralists such as Adrian Vermeule, Gladden Pappin, Fr. Edmund Waldstein, and the writers associated with The Josias had been developing critiques of liberalism and exploring alternatives rooted in older Catholic political traditions. Patterson and Howes devote considerable attention to this neo-integralist milieu, presenting it as the intellectual incubator from which contemporary postliberalism emerged. In their telling, Deneen supplied the movement with its most influential diagnosis, but much of its underlying framework had already been developed through years of debate among Catholic thinkers dissatisfied with both liberalism and conventional conservatism. The language of “postliberalism” became prominent only after these earlier discussions had matured, providing a broader and more politically flexible label capable of attracting a wider coalition than the more explicitly theological language of integralism.

This argument is important, as is the authors’ treatment of 19th-century Catholicism. Instead of presenting integralism as a timeless doctrinal position, they situate it within the crises that confronted the Church after the French Revolution: the erosion of papal temporal authority, the rise of liberal constitutional regimes, the spread of secular nationalism, and the broader challenge of modernity itself. Integralism emerged, in their account, as a political response to a Church that increasingly found itself on the defensive.

The book’s third chapter broadens the story beyond Catholicism and explores the wider reactionary tradition that developed in response to the revolutionary upheavals of the modern era. Figures such as Joseph de Maistre, Louis Veuillot, Juan Donoso Cortés, Charles Maurras, and Carl Schmitt receive extended attention. Patterson and Howes argue that many of these thinkers shared more than a skepticism toward liberalism. They often interpreted the decline of traditional political and religious authority through elaborate narratives of hidden subversion, especially conspiracies involving Freemasonry, secular elites, or Jewish influence. The authors trace these themes across a variety of anti-liberal movements and contend that they became recurring features of reactionary political thought in Europe.

Readers may disagree with aspects of this genealogy, particularly where the authors draw lines of continuity between 19th-century reactionaries and contemporary postliberals. Yet the scope of the historical reconstruction is impressive. Patterson and Howes have assembled a substantial body of evidence in support of their central contention that contemporary postliberal arguments draw upon traditions far older than many of their proponents acknowledge. Whether one ultimately accepts all the connections they draw, the book succeeds in placing current debates within a much broader historical framework than they are usually afforded.

The Historical Test

Much contemporary political theory remains at the level of abstraction. What distinguishes Why Postliberalism Failed from many recent critiques of postliberal thought is its insistence that political theories should be judged against historical experience. Debates about the common good, sovereignty, authority, constitutional order, and the relationship between church and state often proceed with little sustained attention to how similar projects have functioned in practice. Patterson and Howes redirect the discussion from theory to history. Rather than asking whether postliberalism is philosophically coherent, they ask a more concrete question: What happened when movements inspired by comparable ideas acquired political influence? Their answer occupies the heart of the book.

The fourth chapter examines movements and regimes in Portugal, Brazil, Argentina, and Belgium. In each case, integralists or allied Catholic movements sought to shape political life by aligning themselves with strong states and authoritarian governments. The expectation was that political power could be harnessed in service of religious renewal and moral reconstruction. According to Patterson and Howes, the results consistently fell short of these ambitions. Political leaders often welcomed ecclesiastical support when it strengthened their legitimacy, but they proved far less willing to submit political authority to ecclesiastical direction. Again and again, religious movements discovered that proximity to power did not translate into control over it.

The lesson that emerges from these cases is simple but consequential: Political power proved far more adept at using religious movements than religious movements proved at directing political power. The alliance was rarely one of equals. The state generally retained the upper hand, while religious actors found themselves compromised by the very regimes they hoped to influence.

The fifth chapter deepens this argument through case studies of Austria, Spain, Vichy France, Slovakia, and Croatia. These examples place the authors on more controversial terrain, as they examine moments when Catholic political aspirations became entangled with authoritarian and fascist governments. Patterson and Howes argue that such alliances repeatedly produced outcomes very different from those envisioned by their advocates. Instead of fostering a durable Christian social order, they generated patterns of repression, corruption, opportunism, and moral compromise. Movements that sought to sanctify politics often found themselves politicizing religion instead.

The cumulative effect of these chapters is one of the book’s greatest strengths. Patterson and Howes do not rely primarily on speculative warnings about what postliberalism might become. Rather, they attempt to ground their critique in what, in fact, they did become, inviting readers to consider not merely the aspirations of confessional political movements but their actual record. Even readers sympathetic to postliberal ambitions will find these chapters difficult to dismiss. The authors have done extensive historical work, and the evidence they assemble deserves careful consideration.

Contemporary Postliberalism

The sixth chapter examines contemporary postliberal thinkers, focusing attention on Adrian Vermeule, Edmund Waldstein, The Josias, and the broader neo-integralist movement. It is this chapter that is likely to generate controversy, especially among readers who regard contemporary postliberalism as distinct from its historical antecedents. Yet even critics will have to reckon with the substantial documentary evidence Patterson and Howes present regarding lines of influence, citation, and intellectual inheritance.

The book’s later chapters extend the critique into theology and economics. One chapter challenges integralist interpretations of Catholic teaching and argues that Vatican II marked a genuine development rather than a rupture with tradition. Another questions postliberal enthusiasm for corporatist economic arrangements, contending that such systems have historically generated inefficiency, favoritism, and stagnation rather than solidarity and flourishing.

Strengths and Limitations

The book’s greatest strength is its historical sensibility. Rather than evaluating postliberalism solely as a body of abstract political theory, Patterson and Howes ask how similar ideas have functioned when translated into political practice. Their attention to institutions, incentives, and unintended consequences gives the book a welcome realism often absent from contemporary political debate.

At times, however, the authors risk treating postliberalism as a more unified movement than it is. Contemporary postliberal thought encompasses figures with significant differences in political aims, constitutional theory, and theological commitments. While Patterson and Howes are right to identify common intellectual sources, the distinctions among thinkers sometimes receive less attention than they warrant.

A second limitation concerns diagnosis. The authors are often persuasive in explaining the weaknesses of postliberal alternatives, but they devote comparatively little attention to the conditions that have made those alternatives attractive. The resurgence of postliberal thought emerged amid declining trust in institutions, weakening social bonds, family instability, economic dislocation, and growing dissatisfaction with political elites. Readers sympathetic to postliberalism may therefore conclude that the book is more successful as a critique of its subject than as an account of the crisis that gave rise to it.

Nevertheless, Why Postliberalism Failed is a substantial contribution to one of the most significant political and theological debates of the present moment. Its central claim is straightforward: Political movements should be judged not only by their aspirations but also by their historical record. Patterson and Howes contend that the traditions from which contemporary postliberalism draws inspiration repeatedly produced outcomes at odds with the common good they promised to advance.

Readers will differ over the strength of that conclusion and over the degree of continuity between contemporary postliberalism and its historical predecessors. Yet the book succeeds in shifting the discussion from theoretical possibility to historical experience. That alone makes it an important intervention.