Maintaining that the American political system is not working well enough to inspire confidence that it can meet the challenges o four time, H. Mark Roelofs attributes that failure, not to its practitioners, but to its very design. He sees that system as split between its legitimizing self-image, social democracy, and its operational element, liberal democracy. Based on his novel understanding of the American political system, Roelofs presents a devastating and closely reasoned critique that traces our nation's political ills to fundamental flaws in the very design of its founding