Suchergebnisse

Republicanism is an ancient tradition of political thought that has enjoyed a remarkable revival in recent years. As with liberalism, conservatism, and other enduring political traditions, there is considerable disagreement as to exactly what republicanism is and who counts as a republican, whether in the ancient world or contemporary times. Scholars agree, however, that republicanism rests on the conviction that government is not the domain of some ruler or small set of rulers, but is instead a public matter - the res publica - to be directed by self-governing citizens.

Communitarianism and republicanism are closely related schools of thought - so closely related that friend and foe alike sometimes conflate them. The relationship is evident in their Latin roots: communitarians are concerned with communitas, the common life of people who form a community, and republicans are devoted to the res publica, the good of the public. Of the two, however, only republicanism traces its lineage as well as its name to ancient Rome. Indeed, scholars often look beyond Rome to the philosophers and city-states of ancient Greece, particularly Aristotle and Sparta, for the origins of republicanism. For the origins of communitarianism, though, one need look no farther back than the nineteenth century, and it is only since the 1980s that the term 'communitarian' has gained its present currency as a result of the so-called liberal-communitarian debate.

McCormick opposes Machiavelli's democratic republicanism and Rousseau's aristocratic republicanism by showing that Machiavelli and Rousseau have a very different view of the republican institutions of Rome. Why does Rousseau's "tale of Rome" differ form Machiavelli's "tale of Rome"? Why does Rousseau repudiate Machiavelli's more democratic reconstruction of the Roman Republic? And more generally, why does Rousseau devote so many pages to the republican institutions of Rome? He is looking at Rome to describe a kind of democracy or a kind of aristocracy?

These are but two of the difficult questions that arise when one examines the claim that crime is a public wrong. I take it, though, that their difficulty is an indication of the importance of thinking through the presuppositions and implications of this conception of crime, not a reason to abandon it. A thorough 'thinking through' is too large and complex a task for this chapter, but it is possible to make a case here for the right way to proceed with such an undertaking. That right way, in my view, is to look to the republican tradition of political thought for guidance in unravelling the problems that surround the analysis and practice of criminal law. In particular, I shall argue that republicanism can help us to understand what 'the public' is, how an action may wrong it, and why some of those wrongs should be designated crimes.

One of the abiding concerns of the philosophy of law has been to establish the relationship between law and morality. Within the criminal law, this concern often takes the form of debates over legal moralism--that is, "the position that immorality is sufficient for criminalization" (Alexander 2003: 131). This paper approaches these debates from the perspective of the recently revived republican tradition in politics and law. Contrary to what is usually taken to be liberalism's hostility to legal moralism, and especially to attempts to promote virtue through the criminal law, the republican approach takes the promotion of virtue to be one of the necessary aims of a polity. The virtue in question, however, is a specifically civic virtue, and calling for its promotion does not entail that the criminal law should be a straightforward reflection of the conventional morality of a society. What republicanism offers, instead, is a form of legal moralism resting on a distinctively civic morality that lays particular stress on such virtues as fair play and tolerance.

Republicanism is generally said to promote virtue and equal political participation, yet many historical republics and republican theories endorse the hierarchical political participation of the upper and lower social classes and recommend a centralised executive power. Republican constitutions incorporate the authority of the nobles, the freedom of the people and the political power of one man. Cicero formulates this understanding of the republic, which endures in the ideas of Machiavelli and Montesquieu. I characterise this school of thought as conservative because it promotes the preservation of the social hierarchy, private property and stability; moreover, it harnesses change by advancing a policy of expansion. I challenge the mainstream Cambridge School interpretation by tracing the trajectory of conservative republican ideas in the thought of Cicero, Machiavelli and Montesquieu. Few interpretations relate the republicanism of these three thinkers to each other; hence this reading contributes a new way of thinking about republicanism.

This article explores the republican case for worker voice in economic enterprises based on the ideal of freedom as non-domination, and assesses its merits relative to two influential arguments for workplace democratization grounded on freedom understood as autonomy and self-determination. Two claims are advanced. The first is that the republican case for worker voice avoids difficulties associated with these two arguments. The second, however, is that the ideal of non-domination is insufficient, that an adequate understanding and defence of workplace democracy will also have to make significant reference to freedom understood as autonomy.

This article is a review of the contemporary 'leftist' republican project. The project stands on two legs, and we examine them both in turn. The first leg is a novel reading of history. This reading suggests, on the one hand that, contrary to some popular assumptions, republicanism does have a leftist, even a radical stream. But on the other hand, it also suggests that several authors and movements that did not self-identify as republicans actually did, in fact, employ a characteristically republican thinking. The second leg of the project is a normative one. It is essentially an attempt by political philosophers to demonstrate that there is something in republican theory from which all these leftist, even radical streams spring forth. Primarily, it is suggested that it is republicanism's sensitivity to the freedom-restricting role of great inequalities of power that provides the normative resource for the development of a characteristically republican critique of capital and capitalism. We briefly review the main arguments in favor of these claims, and also, as a conclusion, raise a few challenges that the 'leftist' republican project potentially faces.

Article first published on August 22, 2016. Part of Review Symposium: On the People's Terms by Philip Pettit (On the people's terms : a republican theory and model of democracy, by Philip Pettit, Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2012).

The United States Supreme Court has long recognized what none of us can doubt: education is vital to citizenship in a democratic republic. Moreover, because the Court has left open the question whether there might be a constitutional right to a minimally adequate education,3 scholarly commentary has speculated for at least the last decade on possible constitutional bases for such a right. No one, however, has much explored the possible content of a right to education. In particular, there has been little examination of the concrete relationship between education and citizenship. What are the appropriate contours of an education for citizenship? Of course, asking such a question raises even more difficult questions about citizenship itself. There is no dearth of literature on the rights of citizens, but it seems disingenuous (and maybe circular) to argue that one needs an education to exercise the rights of citizenship. After all, despite some claims that illiteracy is inevitably disenfranchising, one can vote-as well as earn a living, own property, raise a family, and do whatever else might be suggested as a right of citizenship-without an education. Millions do. The core of the claim that education is necessary to citizenship must instead be that education is necessary to the thoughtful or responsible exercise of citizenship rights. But focusing on how a right is exercised changes the nature of the argument. Citizens are no longer simply rights-bearing individuals. They are, rather, rights-bearing individuals with responsibilities. If what is important is not that one has a right to vote but that one is able to (and does) use it wisely, we have moved our vision of citizenship from rights alone to rights and duties, or rights and responsibilities. We have, in a word, added virtue to the mix. Once we introduce virtue into our concept of citizenship, we can draw on another vast body of literature: that of the neo-republican revival. But if the literature on rights suffers from an inattention to virtue, the most ...

In this paper, I provide a sketch of the republican view of freedom and government. And then, looking forward, I highlight the potential of this long, shared tradition of thinking for contemporary politics. As a philosophy of government, so I argue, neo-republicanism offers a very attractive alternative to the neo-liberalism that has been recently dominant in policy circles. In my discussion, I consider republicanism first, liberalism second, since that answers to the historical order in which the doctrines appeared. The paper is in three main sections. In the first, I provide a short history of classic republican thinking. In a second, briefer section, I describe the rise of classical liberalism, which displaced republican thought over the following century. And in the third, I look at the alternatives represented in contemporary thought by neo-republicanism and neo-liberalism, highlighting what I see as the advantages of the neo-republican approach.

Reseña de: Suárez Cortina, Manuel: Los caballeros de la razón. Cultura institucionista y democracia parlamentaria en la España liberal, Santander, Genueve Ediciones, 2019

Review of Suárez Cortina, Manuel: Los caballeros de la razón. Cultura institucionista y democracia parlamentaria en la España liberal, Santander, Genueve Ediciones, 2019. ; Reseña de: Suárez Cortina, Manuel: Los caballeros de la razón. Cultura institucionista y democracia parlamentaria en la España liberal, Santander, Genueve Ediciones, 2019.

Republicanism is the doctrine that public power should always serve the common good of all those subject to its rule. This raises the question how to do so most effectively, either through particular policies or through constitutional structure ("the republican form of government"). The republican philosophical tradition began with Plato and Aristotle, flowered in the writings of Marcus Tullius Cicero, and reappeared with the revival of learning in such authors as Machiavelli, James Harrington, John Adams, and Immanuel Kant. More recently Philip Pettit, Jürgen Habermas, and others have returned to the republican conception of liberty as nondomination, and how to secure this through the rule of law, popular sovereignty, and the checks and balances of well-designed deliberative politics. Republicanism seeks freedom and justice through law and government in pursuit of the common good. ; El republicanismo es una doctrina que plantea que el poder público siempre debe servir al bien común de todos aquellos sujetos a su gobierno. Plantea la cuestión de cómo hacerlo de manera cada vez más efectiva, ya sea a través de políticas particulares o de la estructura constitucional ("la forma republicana de gobierno"). La tradición filosófica republicana comenzó con Platón y Aristóteles, floreció en los escritos de Cicerón y reapareció con el renacimiento del aprendizaje en autores como Maquiavelo, James Harrington, John Adams y Kant. Más recientemente, Philip Pettit, Jürgen Habermas, entre otros, han regresado a la concepción republicana de la libertad como no dominación. Además de cómo asegurar esto último a través del Estado de derecho, la soberanía popular y los pesos y contrapesos de una política deliberativa bien diseñada. El republicanismo busca la libertad y la justicia a través del derecho y el gobierno a favor del bien común.

International audience ; Interest in republicanism as a political theory has burgeoned in recent years, but its implications for the understanding of law have remained largely unexplored. This book offers a critical survey of the potential for creating republican accounts of fundamental issues in law and legal theory. Bringing together contributors with backgrounds in political and legal philosophy, the chapters in the book assess republicanism's historical traditions, conceptual coherence, and normative proposals. The collection offers insight into new debates taking place in republican political and legal theory. It also analyses potential republican approaches to concrete issues arising in areas of law such as criminal, constitutional, and international law. Finally, the book includes comparisons between republican legal traditions and how they react to contemporary challenges. This introductory chapter discusses some of the fundamental theoretical principles underlying republicanism in general, and legal republicanism in particular. The goal is to set a research agenda for the years to come through a survey of the main issues raised by legal republicanism. The chapter identifies central issues that constitute the focal point of most disagreements internal to the republican tradition.