Mill’s Practical Partisan Liberalism

Gregory Conti’s new edition reframes John Stuart Mill not primarily as a disembodied theorist of liberty but as an active, partisan constitutional thinker who developed a theory of representative government over decades (including plural voting and parliamentary reform). The book review argues Mill’s political journalism, his parliamentary career, and his evolving constitutional proposals are essential to understanding classical liberalism’s institutional commitments. — Recasting Mill as a politically engaged constitutionalist shifts how modern policy debates invoke classical liberalism — from abstract principles to institutional design and partisan strategy.