Mead argues that the democratic nature of American foreign policy has been superior to the isolated genius' behind continentalist policy (ie Bismarck or Kissinger). Mead writes:

The [democratic policy making] system is stable because it is homeostatic; although interest groups perceive themselves in a constant struggle, the net effect of all those struggles is to keep society constantly seeking the point at which dissatisfaction is minimised.

A very succinct description of the liberal republican process. (reply)
This is why modern conservatism is incompatible with republicanism and liberalism. It is also what I was expressing in the article on the evangelical polity. Sullivan writes:

What matters is cultural and religious identity, rather than policy. Again this is a result of the sectarianization of [American] Republican politics.

It removes merit entirely from the equation. Merit works in republicanism because all individuals are equal and free. The differentiation comes from merit, and that includes past performance as well as vision/scope/policy for the future. Huckabee has all sorts of bad governance, corruption and ethical scandals following him from his time as Governor of Arkansas, but that does not matter when you choose on identity and not merit. (more)
The Super Hornet debacle perpetuated by Brendan Nelson when he was defence minister gives good insight into how he would govern. It would be executive whim, without deliberation or oversight. In other words Schmittian conservatism. Robert Merkel writes:

The decision was then rushed through cabinet without following the usual defence procurement procedure, possibly with the aid of a slide show to cabinet directly put together by Boeing. ...

The thing that makes this particularly farcical is that if a capability gap exists, its origins allegedly lie in Howard's decision to commit to the Joint Strike Fighter back in 2002, after being sweet-talked by the salespeople at Lockheed Martin while on a visit to the United States, bypassing - you guessed it - the defence bureauracy's evaluation process.

And Robert again three months later:

If this is true, we've just spent six billion dollars, without a tender process (and thus quite possibly bought a dud), to replace an aircraft that was still serviceable - or, at least, wasn't going to fail because of the faulty wings Nelson was spouting to his Cabinet colleagues and the public.

Nelson would govern as Howard did. In my opinion this was the main reason the Howard Government was voted out - because of its poor governance that was dominated by emergency, exception, whim, executive imposition, executive rule and ignoring the constitutional boundaries of federalism and limited government.

Brendan Nelson is a Schmittian conservative not a liberal. (more)
Gary Sauer-Thompson has found on interesting article where, "Andreas Kalyvas and Ira Katznelsons argue that the relationship between republicanism and liberalism has emerged as a central issue for students of political thought."

I must admit see republicanism as being the political science of liberalism rather than schism in doctrine that the article records as being a historical tension between republicanism and liberalism. I consider the US republic both the end and high point of the enlightenment, where all the aspects of increasing liberal theory came together in practice. (more)
The Australian Democrats usually get pidgeon-holed as a 'lefty' party, but if you look at their Senate performance and speeches they are by far the most liberal and republican party in the Australian system. They actually practice a relatively pure style of liberal democracy which is based around deliberation, debate, competition over policy and then majority support. (more)
One of the results of an exception being created is that the politics become unitary. Essentially the politics around the exception or emergency become the executive and executive's alone. The health of liberal democracy is dependent upon political competition, discussion and deliberation. Removed of its liberal component democracy is reduced to the mechanical action of voting. (more)
The Australian Democrats are the most interesting Australian political party of modern times and are celebrating their thirtieth birthday. It is a good time to look at the resignation speech by Don Chipp [pdf] where he pondered in parliament whether there wasn't room for a 'third political force' in Australian politics. (more)
The current conservative philosophy for governance is well described by Paul Kelly in a recent op-ed titled: At war over the law. This is the new brand of conservatism which is now competing with liberalism as the basis for governance. Forget left-right, that is gone as a binary distinction and the only use for it is to construct strawmen. Conservatism is based on executive dominance where the interests of the state trump individual rights. This is the opposite to republicanism and liberal democracy. (more)
Went out looking for books on Chinese political history, and instead came back with; Aristotle's The Politics, Plato's The Republic and a book on the essential writings of the American Transcendentalists of the early and mid-19thC. Apparently the latter were influences on Deniehy, Harpur and other 19thC Australian Republicans. (more)

Mark Richardson is a bit unique in the Australian blogsophere. One, he is a genuine conservative rather than a partisan conservative; two, he recognizes that left-right is meaningless since the collapse of marxism and that the new rival to liberalism is conservatism; and three, he is one of the few writers that is willing to engage the liberal blogs which includes progressives, liberals, republicans and libertarians, and question the basis of their political philosophy. This makes him much more interesting than the 'red meat' chucking that most blogs seem to do these days. (more)
Cam Riley: South Sea Republic. Freedom, liberty, equity and an Australian Republic.