Tocqueville, Marx, Weber, Nixon: Watergate in Theory

Watergate is history. The time has come to seek a theoretical perspective on those tumultuous events, to move away from yesterday’s feverish absorption with “the facts” and confront the significance of Watergate for American politics and society—particularly to consider the relative merits of liberal and Marxist attempts to deal with these questions.

The dominant interpretation of Watergate has been a version of Tocquevillean pluralist theory: Watergate has significance as a despotic attack on pluralism by Nixon and his associates. This was the orientation of most House Judiciary Committee members in their hearings, as well as of most interpretations by the liberal press.

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