Group Psychology and Political Theory. C. Fred Alford. New Haven and London:  Yale University Press, 1994,  xi + 223 pp.

Serious efforts to inform political thought with depth psychology remain rare. Group Psychology and Political Theory is such an effort, but more, it is an argument that the enterprises of political theory and group psychology are inextricable from one another. This claim plays out in two ways: first, in Alford's implicit argument that political theory is the normative dimension of group psychology, and second, in his assertion that “political theory is itself a type of group-like entity” (p. 18). As these characterizations suggest, Alford offers a comprehensive critique of the foundations of modern political theory, including the work of Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Tocqueville, and John Rawls, through thoughtful and provocative reexamination of group-analytic theory. The result is a book that speaks to multiple audiences with new, and sometimes startling, insights on familiar ideas.

Central to the book is Alford's thesis, derived from his close study of psychoanalytic literature, modern political thought, and empirical observations of Travistock groups in which he has been both member and consultant, that the group (not the individual) is the most fundamental social unit. What follows is a compelling argument that individuality is a difficult and interminable attainment, and that groups are essential to even this fragile and partial attainment of individual identity. Yet he is concerned not only with the struggle of individuals in groups, but with the struggle of individualism and “groupishness” in the self:

“What is this [group] reality? Not merely-and it would be enough-that human life in groups is tragic, as group members destroy the one entity, a developed group, that could help them realize their identity. But that there is no solution (p. 4)”

Placing the dilemma in the terms of political theory, Alford contends that “the individual subject is a liberal at war with his communitarianism and a communitarian at war with his liberalism” (p. 9). Contemporary liberals and