Neo-Integralism, Conciliar Traditions, and Political Representation

Abstract

A curious lacuna exists in neo-integralist rhetoric online and in most writing related to fundamental questions of political regime. Quite simply, there is very little said at all about representative political institutions, electoral politics, or about democracy itself among neo-integralists at present. This is strange, as the intellectual predecessors of today’s neo-integralism often explicitly included representational bodies of one sort of another in their sociopolitical visions, even their outright authoritarian variants. Whether one is making an neo-integralist friendly case for moderate forms of illiberal, statist conservatism or more full-throated neo-integralist arguments proper, failing to treat political regime and institutions of representation seriously, especially within the context of the American republic, is a unhelpful omission that regrettably encourages suspicion rather than productive debate.

Keywords: Illiberalism, Integralism, Political Catholicism, Political Institutions