@article{THESIS,
      recid = {7204},
      author = {Buzzini, Alexandra},
      title = {A Democracy of Grace: John Wise and the Politics of  Contract and Empire},
      publisher = {University of Chicago},
      school = {M.A.},
      address = {2023-08},
      number = {THESIS},
      abstract = {Despite his reputation as America’s earliest radical  democrat, New England Puritan minister John Wise  (1652-1725) has been neglected in the study of democratic  and social contract theory.  This paper argues that Wise  grounds his defense of the people’s power to exercise moral  judgement for self-direction in a distinctive theological  anthropology. His conception of human capacity for goodness  shapes his normative commitment to grace as a model of  relational engagement in both religious and political life.  Wise demonstrates that the willingness to show grace  enables citizens to democratically govern their  communities, because it allows them to persuasively exhort  one another towards repeated reconciliations that sustain  contractual relationships over time. Otherwise, the failure  of grace corrupts society’s elites, creating perversions of  imperial power that infringe upon local contracts. In this  way, Wise demonstrates how grace can maintain affective  unity amid political diversity at both the local and  imperial level, providing insights about the importance of  relational ethics for contemporary democratic judgement.},
      url = {http://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/7204},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.6082/uchicago.7204},
}