This is the first full-length presentation of a republican alternative to the liberal and communitarian theories that have dominated political philosophy in recent years. The latest addition to the acclaimed Oxford Political Theory series, Pettit's eloquent and compelling account opens with an examination of the traditional republican conception of freedom as non-domination, contrasting this with established negative and positive views of liberty. The first part of the book traces the rise and decline of this conception, displays its many attractions, and (...) makes a case for why it should still be regarded as a central political ideal. The second part of the book looks at what the implementation of the ideal would imply for substantive policy-making, constitutional and democratic design, regulatory control and the relation between state and civil society. Prominent in this account is a novel concept of democracy, under which government is exposed to systematic contestation, and a vision of relations between state and society founded upon civility and trust. Pettit's powerful and insightful new work offers not only a unified, theoretical overview of the many strands of republican ideas, but also a new and sophisticated perspective on studies in related fields including the history of ideas, jurisprudence, and criminology. (shrink)

Socialist republicans advocate public ownership and control of the means of production in order to achieve the republican goal of a society without endemic domination. While civic republicanism is often attacked for its conservatism, the relatively neglected radical history of the tradition shows how a republican form of socialism provides powerful conceptual resources to critique capitalism for leaving workers and citizens dominated. This analysis supports a programme of public ownership and economic democracy intended to reduce domination in the workplace (...) and wider society. I defend this socialist republicanism from both the Marxist objection that it overlooks the impersonal nature of domination under capitalism and the left-liberal objections that property-owning democracy or worker codetermination are sufficient to suppress dominating relationships. The resulting position identifies the need for more ambitious institutional grounds for republican liberty than is often supposed, while offering us a distinctive emancipatory justification for socialism. (shrink)

_Republicanism and Political Theory_ is the first book to offer a comprehensive and critical survey of republican political theory. Critically assesses its historical credentials, conceptual coherence, and normative proposals Brings together original contributions from leading international scholars in an interactive way Provides the reader with valuable insight into new debates taking place in republican political theory.

Republicans hold that people are dominated merely in virtue of others' having unconstrained abilities to frustrate their choices. They argue further that public officials may dominate citizens unless subject to popular control. Critics identify a dilemma. To maintain the possibility of popular control, republicans must attribute to the people an ability to control public officials merely in virtue of the possibility that they might coordinate their actions. But if the possibility of coordination suffices for attributing abilities to groups, then, even (...) in the best case, countless groups will be dominating because it will be possible for their members to coordinate their actions with the aim of frustrating others' choices. We argue the dilemma is apparent only. To make our argument, we present a novel interpretation of the republican concept of domination with the help of a game-theoretic model that clarifies the significance of collective action problems for republican theory. (shrink)

Republicans consider freedom as non-domination an attractive political ideal for a modern pluralistic society that cannot be found in liberalism. This book shows how this view is untenable. By analysing freedom as non-domination as it is understood by contemporary republicans, the book rejects the widely held view that this freedom concept is superior to liberal understandings of freedom as non-interference. In fact, setting up institutions to promote non-domination is shown to also promote non-interference. The book demonstrates how it is the (...) focus on making an ideal suitable for a modern society that leads republicans to a view of freedom with no normative insight that cannot also be found in liberalism. However, the book also shows how republicans can adjust their freedom ideal so that it actually offers a distinctly republican contribution to political philosophy. By understanding freedom to require that citizens commit to an especially high level of political participation to deny powerholders opportunities to act against the common good, republicans can reject liberalism and freedom as non-interference. But this freedom ideal does not respect the many citizens in a modern society whose conceptions of a good life do not involve such a high level of political engagement. Republicans therefore face a dilemma: They can promote a freedom ideal suited for modern conditions, but they then end up endorsing a liberal theory promoting freedom as non-interference. Alternatively, they can promote a distinct freedom ideal, but this ideal will be unsuited for a modern society. (shrink)

Explores how republican political thought can make a constructive and distinctive contribution to our understanding of democracy and the challenges it faces.

The republican tradition seems to have a blind spot about global justice. It has had little to say about pressing international issues such as world poverty or global inequalities. According to the old, if apocryphal, adage: extra rempublicam nulla justitia. Some may doubt that distributive justice (as opposed to freedom or citizenship) is the primary virtue of republican institutions; and at any rate most would agree that republican values have traditionally been realized in the polis not in the (oxymoronic) cosmopolis. (...) The article sketches a republican account of global non-domination which suggests that duties of distributive justice are not bounded to the institutions of a single society. In particular, it argues that republicans have good reasons to seek to curb those global inequalities which underpin what I call capability-denying domination. (shrink)

At the core of republican thought, on Philip Pettit’s account, lies the conception of freedom as non-domination, as opposed to freedom as noninterference in the liberal sense. I revisit the distinction between liberal and republican freedom and argue that republican freedom incorporates a particular rule-of-law requirement, whereas liberal freedom does not. Liberals may also endorse such a requirement, but not as part of their conception of freedom itself. I offer a formal analysis of this rule-of-law requirement and compare liberal and (...) republican freedom on its basis. While I agree with Pettit that republican freedom has broader implications than liberal freedom, I conclude that we face a trade-off between two dimensions of freedom (scope and robustness) and that it is harder for republicans to solve that trade-off than it is for liberals. Key Words: freedom • republicanism • liberalism • noninterference • non-domination • rule of law • robustness • liberal paradox. (shrink)

In response to the dominance of liberalism, some theorists have recently embraced the republican model as an attractive alternative. The overriding appeal of these moves seems to be the robust emphasis that forms of republicanism place on citizenship and civic virtue in light of what many commentators see as a decline in the social nature of modern politics. However, many of these discussions about republicanism are inconsistent and fail to capture the essence of a classical republican theory for (...) today's complex modern world. The result is that the ideals and values of classical republicanism have become diluted and misappropriated as they are utilized by both philosophers and politicians without a clear and consistent sense of their historical pedigree and their relevance to the contemporary world. Republicanism in the Modern World develops and extends the theoretical implications of a distinctive republican conception of liberty as non-domination. Building on the recent work of Quentin Skinner and Philip Pettit, Maynor explores the complex interdependent relationship between liberty as non-domination and conflict, citizenship, and civic virtue to develop a modern theory of republicanism. Maynor argues that modern republicanism, inspired and informed by classical versions, can be the basis for a renewed effort to rejuvenate the political ideals and institutions of the modern democratic nation-state. This book will be invaluable to students and scholars in politics, political philosophy and international relations. (shrink)

What is the relationship between republican liberty and rights? The received view is that republican liberty is conceptually distinct from rights enjoyment. This chapter argues that republican liberty _just is_ liberty within rights. Rights enjoyment is necessary and sufficient for republican liberty. It is necessary for republican liberty because there is no way to specify the range within which independence from others’ unconstrained wills matters without specifying particular rights that people may claim against one another. And it is sufficient for (...) republican liberty because to enjoy a right is to possess securely a valid claim against one or more other people, where security is a function of institutional sanctions sufficient to dissuade others from violating that right. Once it becomes clear that republican liberty is liberty within rights, the liberty debate reappears as a contest that is fundamentally about whether there is conceptual daylight between liberty and rights. (shrink)

Contemporary republican political theory, with its general commitment to freedom from domination, offers a powerful critique of social subordination. Here, I develop a novel republican critique of social subordination within the framework of a Kantian theory of right. The foundation of Kantian political philosophy is the right to freedom, which includes a general right not to be subordinated to others under law. Within this Kantian framework, wrongful social subordination is injustice that we have the right to be free of rather (...) than something we should seek to minimize. Further, freedom from subordination is not an absolute right, nor is it the only right: not all social subordination is unjust, and there are forms of injustice beyond social subordination. Given these distinctive features, I argue that Kantian republicanism can enrich contemporary republicanism more broadly, as it enables nuanced and principled distinctions between different forms of social subordination while also making it possible to argue that particular forms of social subordination are unjust and categorically impermissible. (shrink)

Although republican political theory has undergone something of a revival in recent years, some question its contemporary relevance on the grounds that republicanism has little to say about central questions of modern economic organization. In response, this paper offers an account of core republican values and then considers how capitalism stands in relation to these values. It identifies three areas of republican concern related to: the impact of unequal wealth distribution on personal liberty; the impact of the private control (...) of investment on popular sovereignty and pursuit of the common good; and the impact of capitalism on the level and quality of political participation. In view of these concerns, we can see some of the likely requirements of a distinctively republican, but contemporary political economy. (shrink)

In the nineteenth century a group of “labor republicans” argued that the system of wage-labor should be replaced by a system of cooperative production. This system of cooperative production would realize republican liberty in economic, not just political, life. Today, neo-republicans argue that the republican theory of liberty only requires a universal basic income. A non-dominated ability to exit is sufficient to guarantee free labor. This essay reconstructs the more radical, labor republican view and defends it against the prevailing the (...) neo-republican one. It argues that neorepublicanism lacks an adequate conception of structural domination, which leaves it without theoretical resources to address certain forms of economic domination. The concept of structural domination allows us to comprehend the coherence of the nineteenth century, labor republican view and identify its relevance to modern labor markets. Labor republicanism takes us beyond a universal basic income to a concern with control over productive assets and workplace organization. As such, it shows us how the republican theory of liberty can support an argument for the transformation of work, not just the escape from it. (shrink)

Civic Republicanism is a valuable critical introduction to one of the most important topics in political philosophy. In this book, Iseult Honohan presents an authoritative and accessible account of civic republicanism, its origins and its problems. The book examines all the central themes of this political theory. In the first part of the book, Honohan explores the notion of historical tradition, which is a defining aspect of civic republicanism, its value and whether a continued tradition is sustainable. (...) She also discusses the central concepts of republicanism, how they have evolved, in what circumstances civic republicanism can be applied and its patterns of re-emergence. In the second part of the book, contemporary interpretation of republican political theory is explored and question of civic virtue and participation are raised. What is the nature of the common good? What does it mean to put public before private interests and what does freedom mean in a republican state? Honohan explores these as well as other questions about the sustainability of republican thought in the kind of diverse societies we live in today. Civic Republicanism will be essential reading for students of politics and philosophy. (shrink)

Commercial republicanism is the idea that a properly-structured commercial society can serve the republican end of minimizing the domination of citizens by states (imperium) and of citizens by other citizens (dominium). Much has been written about this idea in the last half-century, including analyses of individual commercial republicans (e.g., Adam Smith and Immanuel Kant) as well as discussions of national traditions of the same (e.g., in America, Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Italy). In this chapter, I review five kinds (...) of arguments that have been historically offered for how commercial society so understood advances the republican ideal of non-domination: first, by simply realizing non-dominating relationships in the marketplace itself (Instantiation); second, by encouraging the growth of a wide middle class that can offer a counterweight to other, dominating classes (Internal Check-and-Balance); third, by increasing the wealth and power of republics vis-à-vis other, dominating states in the international arena (External Check-and-Balance); fourth, by helpfully nurturing bourgeois-civic virtues in republican citizens (Cultivating Virtue); and finally, by transforming dangerous passions into more readily regulable, even socially beneficial material interests (Sublimating Vice). I end the chapter by briefly considering commercial republicanism’s prospects as a continuing research program. (shrink)

Green republicanism can be described as a subset of republican political theory that aims at promoting human flourishing by ensuring a non-dominating and ecologically sustainable republic. An essential aspect of green republicanism is the promotion of post-productivism while preserving or expanding republican freedom as non-domination. Post-productivism implies the promotion of personal autonomy rather than the pursuit of permanent economic growth and the promotion of labour as an intrinsically positive human activity, which for green republicans will have three positive (...) aspects: reduced ecological impact, more time available for civic participation, and the extension of democratic decision-making and norms to the sphere of production. An important aspect in the definition of a post-productivist society is the way welfare schemes are designed. In this article, I will thus compare the existing welfare regimes with a participation income and with an unconditional basic income, and analyse how they promote green republican goals. I conclude that the current systems are one of the elements of the productivist society and that would not answer the green republican conditions. A green participation income could have a positive ecological impact and contribute to a shift to post-productivism but would face serious challenges from a republican perspective, namely in terms of the non-arbitrariness of its attribution. Finally, I conclude that depending on how it is defined, an unconditional basic income could contribute to post-productivism while being non-arbitrary thus obeying the green republican conditions. (shrink)

The republican tradition has long been ambivalent about markets and commercial society more generally: from the contrasting positions of Rousseau and Smith in the eighteenth century to recent neorepublican debates about capitalism, republicans have staked out diverse positions on fundamental issues of political economy. Rather than offering a systematic historical survey of these discussions, this chapter will instead focus on the leading neo-republican theory—that of Philip Pettit—and consider its implications for market society. As I will argue, Pettit’s theory is even (...) friendlier to markets than most have believed: far from condemning commercial society, his theory recognizes that competitive markets and their institutional preconditions are an alternative means to limit arbitrary power across the domestic, economic, and even political spheres. While most republican theorists have focused on political means to limit such power—including both constitutional means (e.g., separation of powers, judicial review, the rule of law, federalism) and participatory ones (democratic elections and oversight)—I will examine here an economic model of republicanism that can complement, substitute for, and at times displace the standard political model. Whether we look at spousal markets, labor markets, or residential markets within federal systems, state policies that heighten competition among their participants and resource exit from abusive relationships within them can advance freedom as non-domination as effectively or even more effectively than social-democratic approaches that have recently gained enthusiasts among republicans. These conclusions suggest that democracy, be it social or political, is just one means among others for restraining arbitrary power and is consequently less central to (certain versions of) republicanism than we may have expected. So long as they counteract domination, economic inroads into notionally democratic territory are no more worrisome than constitutional ones. (shrink)

This book explores the relationship between democracy and republicanism, and its consequences; and articulates new theoretical insights into connections between liberty, law and democratic politics.

I develop a socialist republican conception of economic liberty and show how it can be used to understand the domination of workers. It holds that both paid and unpaid workers can be deprived of economic freedom when they are exposed to an arbitrary power to undermine their access to the economic capabilities needed for civic equality. Measures intended to reduce domination are recommended, including public ownership of productive property, workplace democracy, and robust unconditional basic income and services. Finally, I discuss (...) the implications of this approach for platform capitalism, digital surveillance, the rise of automation, and post-work politics. (shrink)

What would the institution of the family look like, if it were reformed according to republican desiderata? Would it even survive such re-shaping?

This article criticizes radical labor republicanism on republican grounds. I show that its demand for universal workplace democracy via workers’ cooperatives conflicts with republican freedom along three different dimensions: first, freedom to choose an occupation…and not to choose one; second, freedom within the very cooperatives that workers are to democratically govern; and third, freedom within the newly proletarian state. In the conclusion, I ask whether these criticisms apply, at least in part, to the more modest, incrementalist strand of labor (...) republicanism. To the extent that they do, delaboring republicanism might be the best response. (shrink)

Assuming that states will remain a permanent feature of our world, what is the ideal that we should hold out for the international order? An attractive proposal is that those peoples that are already organized under non-dominating, representative states should pursue a twin goal: first, arrange things so that they each enjoy the republican ideal of freedom as non-domination in relation to one another and to other multi-national and international agencies; and second, do everything possible and productive to facilitate the (...) representation of less fortunate peoples in non-dominating states and to incorporate them in a non-dominating international order. This republican ideal stands midway between a utopian ideal of cosmopolitan justice and a sceptical ideal of non-intervention. The article explores its attractions and the broad institutional measures that it would support. (shrink)

Recent work in republican political theory has identified various forms of domination in the structures and relations of capitalist societies. A notable absence in much of this work is the concept of exploitation, which is generally treated as a predictable outcome of certain kinds of domination. This paper argues that the concept of exploitation can instead be conceived as a form of structural domination, understood in republican terms, and that adopting this conception has important implications for republican attempts to theorize (...) modern capitalist societies. Building on existing domination accounts of exploitation, we argue that exploitation is a form of structurally constituted domination that enables a systemic illegitimate extraction of value. However, in contrast to competing accounts, domination is understood here in the republican terms of subjection to arbitrary power. We show that conceiving of domination in these terms not only makes the concept easily accessible from within a republican framework, but has advantages over competing accounts. Our argument also demonstrates why using the concept of exploitation will be useful for republican theorists. We show that a polity based on exploitative relations of production is antithetical to key republican commitments. These asymmetric power relationships undermine the economic and political independence of citizens and, crucially, constrain the political and economic ends that a polity will be effectively able to pursue. As such, exploitation should be a central preoccupation of republican political economy. (shrink)

Contemporary liberalism and republicanism present clearly distinct programs for domestic politics, but the same cannot be said when it comes to global politics: the burgeoning literature on global republicanism has reproduced the divide between cosmopolitan and associational views familiar from long-standing debates among liberal egalitarians. Should republicans be cosmopolitans? Despite presence of a range of views in the literature, there is an emerging consensus that the best answer is no. This paper aims to resist the emerging consensus, arguing (...) that republicans should be cosmopolitans. The considerations offered against cosmopolitanism generally rest on an incomplete understanding of the relationship between economic inequality or poverty on the one hand, and domination on the other. Insofar as republicans agree that promoting freedom from domination should be our central political aim, they should regard the reduction of economic inequality and poverty at home and abroad as equally pressing. (shrink)

A moralised conception of freedom is based on a normative theory. Understanding it therefore requires an analysis of this theory. In this paper, I show how republican freedom as non-domination is moralised, and why analysing this concept therefore involves identifying the basic components of the republican theory of justice. One of these components is the non-moralised pure negative conception of freedom as non-interference. Republicans therefore cannot keep insisting that their freedom concept conflicts with, and is superior to, this more basic (...) concept. I demonstrate how we can use pure negative freedom to formulate the republican theory more precisely. This exercise is more fruitful than the common focus on the alleged conflict between the two freedom concepts. (shrink)

The republican case for workplace democracy (WD) is presented and defended from two alternative means of ensuring freedom from arbitrary interference in the firm—namely, (a) the right to freely exit the firm and (b) workplace regulation. This paper shows, respectively, that costless exit is neither possible nor desirable in either perfect or imperfect labor markets, and that managerial discretion is both desirable and inevitable due to the incompleteness of employment contracts and labor legislation. The paper then shows that WD is (...) necessary, from a republican standpoint, if workers’ interests are to be adequately tracked in the exercise of managerial authority. Three important objections are finally addressed—(i) that WD is redundant, (ii) that it is unnecessary provided that litigation and unionism can produce similar outcomes, and (iii) that it falls short of ensuring republican freedom compared to self-employment. (shrink)

Republican freedom is freedom from domination juxtaposed to negative freedom as freedom from interference. Proponents argue that republican freedom is superior since it highlights that individuals lose freedoms even when they are not subject to interference, and claim republican freedom is more ‘resilient’. Republican freedom is trivalent, that is, it includes the idea that someone might be non-free to perform some actions rather than unfree, and in that sense everyone regards republican freedom as different from negative freedom. Trivalence makes republican (...) freedom moralized according to negative libertarians. Beyond that, negative libertarians argue that all the supposed advantages of republican freedom are compatible with those of pure negative-freedom measures. That is, losses and gains of republican freedom are captured in measures of pure negative freedom, and any protection for republican freedom also protects negative freedom, ensuring each is equally resilient. Since republican freedom has no advantages over negative freedom, but has other problems (is moralized and is trivalent), negative freedom is superior. I examine this debate in this article through the ‘coalition problem’ for republican freedom. The coalition problem is that since there is always a coalition of others who could dominate any agent in any sphere, all agents are subject to domination, and hence no one can ever have republican freedom. Pettit’s simple solution to this reductio ad absurdum distinguishes potential from actual coalitions. Individuals are only dominated by actual coalitions, and not by potential ones. The simple solution highlights moralization problems as it demonstrates that domination cannot be purely institutionally defined, but requires consideration of dispositions and expectations about others’ behaviour. I argue that the differences between the ‘free man’ and ‘unfree person’ paradigmatic to republican arguments is best captured not by the difference between domination and interference, but, rather, from familiar distinctions between different types of rights and freedoms. Resilience is a practical matter that might track some of these familiar distinctions. (shrink)

Some argue that republican freedom is impossible because since it is always possible that a person or a group of persons possesses arbitrary power to interfere with individuals, no one is free to do anything. To avoid this challenge, in their recent article, Sean Ingham and Frank Lovett invoke the notion of ignorability in terms of which they offer a moderate interpretation of republican freedom. On their view, B is free from A to φ if A’s possible types who prefer (...) to intervene with B’s φ-ing are ignorable. They also try to show that freedom is not determined by the probability of an intervention. However, we argue that they fail to do this and that freedom as non-domination is not entailed by ignorability. (shrink)

Institutions promoting republican freedom as non-domination are commonly believed to differ significantly from institutions promoting negative freedom as non-interference. Philip Pettit, the most prominent contemporary defender of this view, also maintains that these republican institutions are neutral between the different conceptions of the good that characterise a modern society. This paper shows why these two views are incompatible. By analysing the institutional requirements Pettit takes as constitutive of republican freedom, I show how they also promote negative freedom by reducing overall (...) interference. To avoid this result, republican institutions must be more restrictive and require that citizens conform to a life of political engagement. But then republican freedom will not be a neutral ideal. Rejecting negative freedom therefore means sacrificing neutrality. (shrink)

It is clear that a revival of republicanism is under way, but it is not clear that the republican tradition truly speaks to contemporary concerns. In particular, it is not clear that republicanism has anything of value to say about economic matters in the early 21st century. I respond to this worry by delineating the main features of a neo-republican civic economy that is, I argue, reasonably coherent and attractive. Such an economy will preserve the market, while constraining (...) it to serve public purposes, and promote what John Rawls calls a ‘property-owning democracy’. To accomplish these ends, a civic economy is likely to concern itself with the character of work and the workplace, to take steps to preserve and protect the sense of community or publicity, to levy an inheritance tax and a progressive consumption tax, and to provide some kind of ‘social’ or ‘civic’ minimum of support to all citizens. Key Words: republicanism • equality • self-government • deliberative politics • civic virtue • publicity • markets • property-owning democracy • basic income • inheritance tax • consumption tax. (shrink)

Europe is experiencing rapidly accelerating poverty and social exclusion, following half a decade of financial crisis and austerity politics. The key problem behind Europe's malaise, in our view, is the economic disenfranchisement of large parts of its population in the winner-takes-all-society. This article proposes that we examine the contribution of republican political theory as a distinctive approach that provides us with the conceptual and normative resources to reclaim what we call the political economy of democracy, the constellation of political and (...) economic institutions aimed at promoting broad economic sovereignty and individuals’ capacities to govern their own lives. This article identifies three key ideas that together constitute a distinctively republican approach to political economy: (1) establish an economic floor; (2) impose an economic ceiling to counter excess economic inequality; and (3) democratize the governance and regulation of the main economic institutions. (shrink)

Abstract:Recently, republicans have been increasingly arguing that the ideal of nondomination can ground both a more plausible account of global justice and better insights for global institutional design than liberal egalitarianism does. What kind of global institutions, however, does nondomination require? The essay argues that a global institutional blueprint based on the republican ideal of nondomination is a multifaceted endeavor. Republican institutions should aim to fulfill three different desiderata: 1) avoiding excessive concentration of power; 2) bringing informal asymmetrical power under (...) institutional control; 3) furthering an active, vigilant citizenry. The three desiderata often pull in different directions. At the global level in particular, they do not converge on a verdict over whether we should switch to a cosmopolitan institutional order, stick to a world of states, or opt for something altogether different. As a result, there is no straightforward pathway leading from the vindication of nondomination as the central principle of global justice to a clear vision for a global institutional order. The issue is, instead, a matter of careful balancing. (shrink)

This article presents a critique of Philip Pettit’s concept of ‘freedom as non-domination’ and provides an alternative theory of both domination and republican political freedom. I argue that Pettit’s neo-republican concept of domination is insufficient to confront modern forms of domination and that this hampers his concept of republican freedom and its political relevance under the conditions of modernity. Whereas the neo-republican account of domination is defined by ‘arbitrary interference’, modern forms of domination, I argue, are characterized by routinization and (...) systemic forms of control and subordination. In the end, the neo-republican account of domination is more appropriate for 17th- and 18th-century social institutions rather than those that persist under modernity. In its place, I propose a more dynamic concept of domination and rework the concept of freedom in order to place the republican tradition within the context of modernity itself. I argue that the core insight of republicanism is its emphasis on the arrangement and reformation of social institutions to enhance social freedom. From this, I argue that republicanism can take its place as a more attractive alternative to liberal theory. (shrink)

Yet this perfectionist theme of Confucianism did not begin with these masters. Instead, they were working within and in response to a longstanding political tradition that can be traced back to the mythical beginning of Chinese civilization according to which the legendary sage-kings established a realm of peace, prosperity and harmony. One can hardly ascertain the historical truth of these myths, but the historical imagination of these sage-king nonetheless informed Confucianism's foundational understanding of the nature of politics in what was (...) eventually canonized as the Five Confucian Classics. These five sets of books contain the stories, sayings and poetry of the ancient sagely leaders, which are deemed as the default authoritative source of wisdom by Confucians throughout the ages. (shrink)

The very idea of republican human rights, seems paradoxical. My aim in this article is to explore this disjunctive conjunction. One of the distinctive features of republican discourse, both in its civic humanist and neo-Roman variants, is the secondary status that rights are supposed to play in politics. Although the language of rights is not incommensurable with republican political thought, it is supposed to know its place. What can republican categories of political understanding offer for grappling with the challenges of (...) global politics? Many philosophical expressions of human rights today are Kantian or neo-Kantian in inspiration, and as a result they are plagued by the familiar difficulties raised by Kantian approaches to politics in general. In particular, the growing prominence of human rights discourse has led to withering attacks on the appeal to human rights without any effective means of enforcement. Does republicanism offer any resources for rethinking human rights, and in particular, addressing the concern with the often moralistic and depoliticizing nature of human rights talk today? What conception of human rights best promotes freedom as non-domination? Are our practices of human rights effective instruments for minimizing domination? (shrink)

This article provides an account of the value of privacy in securing the republican aims of self-government and conditions of non-domination. It describes how loss of privacy might lead to subjugation to dominating power. The republican concept of domination provides the foundation of a broad and coherent account of the value of privacy. One that encompasses circumstances in which the subject suffers interference as a result of the loss, is aware that he has suffered a loss of privacy, but suffers (...) no subsequent interference and is unaware that he has suffered any loss of privacy, and suffers no subsequent interference. Liberal accounts explain the value of privacy in the first two circumstances by pointing to the possible effect of the loss on the autonomy of the subject, but because they focus on autonomy are unable to explain why privacy is valuable where an agent is unaware of the loss. The republican account provided here explains why loss is harmful in all three circumstances. The final part of the article argues that because privacy is a pre-requisite for effective participation in political life, and republicans consider such participation to be the essence of self-government and the means through which a polity can secure conditions of freedom, in a republican democracy individual privacy will be seen as a collective good. (shrink)

This paper assesses the most well thought out contemporary conception of republican liberty put forward by Philip Pettit and Quentin Skinner. I demonstrate that it is incoherent: at least insofar as it seeks to pick out a form of unfreedom not captured by the negative conception of liberty. This incoherence arises because Pettit and Skinner cannot both hold that republican unfreedom is defined by one agent’s mere capacity to interfere arbitrarily with another agent and, at the same time, claim that (...) republican freedom can be promoted by deterrence mechanisms. My contribution to contemporary republican theory is to suggest that a coherent republican conception can be achieved, however, through an important revision. This is to replace Pettit and Skinner’s antonym of republican liberty—the power to interfere arbitrarily—with a higher order power—the power to determine arbitrarily rules with respect to interference. This revised conception does pick out a genuinely distinct extension of unfreedom from the negative liberty conception. I believe it also reflects an important intuitive sense in which we may understand ourselves to be unfree, that is, to live under the rule of another. (shrink)

I raise three objections to Pettit’s republican account of justice: 1) that it fails to account adequately for the role of certain values such as substantive fairness; 2) that it represents an uncomfortable hybrid of egalitarianism and sufficientarianism; and 3) that it fails Pettit’s own “eyeball test”. I then conclude in a more constructive vein, speculating about the kind of account of justice it is supposed to be and suggesting that, construed a certain way, it may have resources for answering (...) the three objections. (shrink)

The first comprehensive analysis of the philosophical issues raised by the hijab controversy in France, this book also conducts a dialogue between contemporary Anglo-American and French political theory and defends a progressive republican solution to so-called multicultural conflicts in contemporary societies. It critically assesses the official republican philosophy of laïcité which purported to justify the 2004 ban on religious signs in schools. Laïcité is shown to encompass a comprehensive theory of republican citizenship, centered on three ideals: equality (secular neutrality of (...) the public sphere), liberty (individual autonomy and emancipation) and fraternity (civic loyalty to the community of citizens). Challenging official interpretations of laïcité, the book then puts forward a critical republicanism which does not support the hijab ban, yet upholds a revised interpretation of three central republican commitments: secularism, non-domination and civic solidarity. Thus, it articulates a version of secularism which squarely addresses the problem of status quo bias - the fact that Western societies are historically not neutral towards all religions. It also defends a vision of female emancipation which rejects the coercive paternalism inherent in the regulation of religious dress, yet does not leave individuals unaided in the face of religious and secular, patriarchal and ethnocentric domination. Finally, the book outlines a theory of immigrant integration which places the burden of civic integration on basic socio-political institutions, rather than on citizens themselves. Critical republicanism proposes an entirely new approach to the management of religious and cultural pluralism, centred on the pursuit of the progressive ideal of non-domination in existing, non-ideal societies. (shrink)

Parents appear to dominate their children in ways they cannot with other adults. While it might seem unavoidable, this issue raises important questions about whether children are unfree under parental authority. Republican theories of freedom, such as Philip Pettit’s influential account, look especially vulnerable. He claims that we are free only if non-dominated and so not under the arbitrary interference by others. Domination is a threat to freedom that republican freedom opposes for all. However, non-domination seems impossible to avoid for (...) everyone, most notably children, which is broadly accepted. If so, it is unclear why domination is permissible for some and not others if it is an evil for all to avoid. In this article, I argue that parental authority need not entail domination where it is subject to legitimacy constraints drawing on Pettit’s work on freedom and criminal justice that might also be endorsed by non-republicans. Republican children can enjoy non-domination from the cradle to the grave and this reveals how parental authority need not render children unfree for non-republicans as well. (shrink)

The East/West divide seems to be as old as history itself, the roots of Orientalism and anti-Semitism lying far beyond the origins of modern Western imperialism. The very project of Western classical republicanism had its darker side: to purloin the legacy of the Greeks, distancing them from Eastern systems deemed 'despotic' and 'other'. Western Republicanism and the Oriental Prince is a thoroughly revisionist book, challenging not only the comfortable view the West has of its own political evolution, but (...) the negative stereotypes of non-Western systems. Not only did these images serve to legitimate early modern European nation states struggling for an identity, but they also served to justify slavery and other forms of domination over subject peoples. Drawing upon archaeological and epigraphic evidence, Springborg discusses the Mesopotamian and ancient Egyptian contribution of political forms and cultic institutions to classical Graeco-Roman civilization, an Eastern legacy to the West long obscured for political reasons. A different reading of the foundation myths of Athens and Rome, certain texts of Plato, Aristotle, and the writings of Herodotus, Isocrates, Plutarch and Diodorus Siculus, permits us to restore possible lines of filtration. Renaissance thought, long believed to have ushered in the Western classical republican tradition, demonstrates a curious ambivalence towards powerful Eastern system, objects of fascination as much as fear. We do not yet find sedimented the divide between Western Democracy and oriental despotism, in which post-Reformation thought as been set in stone. This major new study will be of interest to students of political history, political theory, comparative politics and political archaeology. (shrink)

This article discusses Philip Pettit’s neo-republicanism in light of the criterion of self-sustenance: the requirement that a political theory be capable of serving as a self-sustaining public philosophy for a pluralist democracy. It argues that this criterion can only be satisfied by developing an adequate politics of virtue. Pettit’s theory is built around the notion of freedom as non-domination, and he does not say much about the virtues of citizens or the policies the state may employ to encourage their (...) development. In order to explain the motivation to comply with republican laws that promote non-domination, Pettit relies on the phenomenon of civility and the mechanism of the intangible hand. But to understand what underlies an adequate level of robust civility one needs to focus on the more basic phenomenon of personal virtue. Policies that aim to promote non-domination should take into account the need to cultivate virtue among citizens, as well as the full range of conditions that favor its exercise. (shrink)

The article elaborates an original intertwined reading of republican theory, deliberative democracy and political equality. It argues that republicans, deliberative democrats and egalitarian scholars have not paid sufficient attention to a number of features present in these bodies of scholarships that relate them in mutually beneficial ways. It shows that republicanism and deliberative democracy are related in mutually beneficial ways, it makes those relations explicit, and it deals with potential objections against them. Additionally, it elaborates an egalitarian principle underpinning (...) the resulting model that I label Equality of Access and Deliberation. The upshot of these considerations is a novel and mutually reinforcing interrelated three-tiered theoretical and institutional proposal. (shrink)

This essay argues that the “republicanism versus liberalism” debate that came to prominence in the 1980s was largely an artificial construction made possible by the recent genealogies of its constituent terms. The first section suggests that the idea of “early modern liberalism” took shape from the 1930s, and identifies three broad schools of thought: Marxist, democratic and classical. Despite their differences, they pioneered a stereotype of “liberalism” that was well established – especially in the United States – by the (...) 1950s. The second section examines the so-called “republican tradition,” arguing it did not acquire that identity until the early 1970s, and that earlier work excavating the “commonwealth tradition” did not intend it as an alternative to liberalism. That only came into focus as a result of Wood’s work. The third section looks at elements of the debate in the 1970s, stressing the attempt to displace Locke and exploring the contribution of Pocock. He increasingly argued for the complex and interwoven nature of both “republicanism” and “liberalism,” partly as a response to revisionist work on the natural law origins of liberalism. By contrast, Appleby restated the older “liberalism” and pitted it against “republicanism,” thereby reinforcing the binary. (shrink)

The Abbé Sieyès is usually portrayed as a thoroughly modern thinker and a critic of the nostalgic Classical Republicanism of some of his contemporaries, in favour of a “modern republicanism”, founded upon the division of labour and commercial sociability in a nation composed of equal labourers and producers. But Sieyès’s unpublished manuscripts suggest he, in fact, regarded modern labourers as unskilled “Machines du Travail”, dulled by work and incapable of exercising the duties of citizenship, a critique grounded in (...) a critical account of commercial society as compared to the ideal republican polity. Where most scholars regard this as either a simple contradiction or a passing juvenile nostalgia, this paper argues that, influenced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Sieyès consistently sought to counteract the degrading effects of the inequalities generated by commercial society and the division of labour. It was on this basis that Sieyès sought to construct a new political system which would reconcile participatory politics with representative government, enabling all citizens to enjoy a life of Active Citizenship. Based on these insights, this paper reinterprets Sieyès’s political project as an attempt to reconcile the classical conception of citizenship with the demands of a commercial society. (shrink)