The rise of unlimited and divided government, neutrality, and the unencumbered self continued in the 1980's and 1990's, coinciding with the collapse of republican ideals such as formative ambition, self-government. and divided sovereignty.

Divided and unlimited government were two of the most obvious characteristics of government in the past twenty years. Not only was the government divided along party lines, as in Nixon and Reagan's Democratic Congress or Clinton's Republican Congress, but division between the three branches of government widened as well. As separation of powers eroded with interest groups politics, the powers of the executive and legislative branches became less and less distinguishable. Thus, the public elected representatives from opposite parties to prevent usurpation by either branch. This tendency also represented the public's ambivalence between unitary government, with strong presidential leadership, and pluralistic government, dominated by interest groups and bureaucracy. While government's division increased, however, its power increased, evident in Robert Kennedy's stipulation that with the post-New Deal government power, government could do anything and utopia was possible. Both the divided and unlimited government reflected Americans' indecision concerning the nature and scope of government.

The Supreme Court's decisions in the 80's and 90's denoted their support of alleged neutrality and the unencumbered self. Religion was one key area of such decisions, reflecting the transition of freedom of religion from the freedom to follow one's obligations to the freedom to exercise one's preferences. This voluntarist view, though attempting to elevate all choices to be worthy of freedom of religion, in effect it lowers serious obligations such as religion to a baser plane. Perception of the First Amendment right to free speech also transformed from the right to pursue truth or self-government to the right to pursue anything, be it offensive or benign. Even in extreme cases, such as the Indianapolis anti-pornography law, and the Skokie law against hate-group demonstrations, the Courts ruled that government must not make laws based on the content of materials. On the other hand, it is permissible to restrict speech on the basis that it is a corrupting influence in a neighbourhood.

Changes in these two first amendment rights, as well as the constitutional recognition of the right to privacy, reflect the rise of voluntarist freedom and the liberal conception of self. Up until late in this century, privacy was the right to keep personal facts from public view, demonstrated in Douglas' and Harlans' dissents in Poe v. Ullman, where they felt anti-contraception laws should be struck down because of the enforcement they would require. This justification of privacy was quite different from the Court's stand in Roe v. Wade, where it struck down a Texas anti-abortion law. Though by nullifying this law they attempted to be neutral, in reality the Supreme Court was granting government approval to abortion and stating that life begins at birth and not conception.

A similar liberal view emerged in changes in family and divorce laws. Whereas before one needed a concrete reason to get a divorce, now no-fault laws allow couples to divorce for any or no reason. Decisions also used to favor the wife in financial awards and child support; however, such awards have become "gender-blind", and while women more often gain custody of the children, they get less child support than before. These reforms are a result of the view of the unencumbered self; women are seen as independent of their former roles, whether she has been a homemaker all her married life, or whether she has pursued a career, the financial awards are little different, despite the fact that it will be much harder for the homemaker to be financially independent. This individualistic view of the self joins with the ideal of the neutral state to give rise to the voluntarism that is so characteristic of modern politics.

Though the upsurgence of this liberalism seems complete, the era has not been without republican influences. Conservative welfare debaters maintain that welfare breeds dependence and undermines self-government, and Reagan and Clinton both have emphasized responsibility and rights in their moral rhetoric. Both Wallace and Carter, though each for different reasons, called for a return of government to the local level, expressing the public's discontent at big, impersonal government. One force against republicanism, however, is skepticism at its ability to deal the global economy and politics. Sandel's solution to this problem is divided sovereignty, the same solution the founders sought when faced with creating a single, democratic government for a large nation.

While the dominant force in the past two decades has been liberal voluntarism, the republican tradition is still present, manifest in the divided government and government's inability to entirely bracket moral issues. Whether republicanism will rise in the future to become the dominant force, whether liberalism will dominate indefinitely, or whether both forces will equalize at some equilibrium, remains to be seen.