In the political and societal self-image of many Americans, the “liberal tradition” is considered a universalist explanation of their community. From the outset, however, this notion was controversial. Still, controversy did not harm liberalism’s conceptual appeal, as shown in the 2005 reference published in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of Louis Hartz’s study, ‚The Liberal Tradition in America‘. Beginning in the 1990s, its criticism had taken on the specific form of a so-called mulitple-traditions approach. Since then, the “liberal tradition” has only existed in conjunction with other value formations in mainstream research. Nevertheless, political scientists continue to search for a purist version of the concept, thereby broaching questions about what can constitute a “liberal tradition”?