Republicanism

BIBLIOGRAPHY

In rudimentary form, the origins of republicanism can be traced to Aristotle (384-322 BCE). However, this political form finds its first institutional embodiment in the republic of Rome (510-23 BCE), and its most comprehensive expression is in the writings of Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE) and Titus Livius (59 BCE –17 CE). Both Cicero and Livius argued that Rome’s failure resulted from internal corruption and conflict, which disrupted the checks and balances between the senate, the magistrates, and the people. The tradition was amended and revived during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance by Italian city-states and thinkers such as Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) and Francesco Guicciardini (1483-1540). It underwent further developments in England and the United States in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when individuals such as James Harrington (1611-1677), Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), and James Madison (1751-1836) attempted to restrain or remove monarchical power.

Republicanism is a political doctrine principally concerned with freedom and its realization through self-governance. For republicans, the people are the source of sovereignty. Freedom thus consists in not being subject to another’s will, and by having the power to raise claims for or against the laws under which one is governed. The primary danger to freedom, republicans argue, comes in the form of internal corruption and conflict that, if left unchecked, threaten to run roughshod over the common good. In its classical form, it emphasizes the importance of a mixed constitution that provides an institutional balance between the diverging interests of the many (the plebeian or democratic element), the few (the patrician or aristocratic dimension), and the one (the monarchical aspect) in society. The classical model is reflected in the Roman system, which included tribunes of the people, the aristocratic Senate, and consuls, usually two elected annually.

Classical republicanism, however, has undergone an important transformation in modern times, centering on the weight different thinkers attach to self-governance. Robert Dahl refers to this as a shift in emphasis from the older aristocratic republicanism to a radical view that places a greater emphasis on the democratic character of the constitution. The older aristocratic position is articulated by thinkers such as Aristotle and Guicciardini, while the second radical character is embodied in the works of Machiavelli, Paine, and Jefferson.

While both forms worry about the consolidation of power and the extent to which it will become a form of domination, they disagree over how this danger will be realized, and from what sectors of society. In the older view, the people have an institutional place in the constitutional structure, but because they lack the reflective capacity to curb their desires, the constitution needs to limit their power to selecting leaders that will govern on their behalf. Aristocratic republicans argue that these individuals are guided by an interest in the public good and have an ability to engage in impartial and careful reflection, making them uniquely situated to govern on the people’s behalf and for their long-term interests.

In contrast, egalitarian republicans believe that modern societies no longer reflect these distinct social classes. The presence of a hereditary aristocracy, for example, becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish, especially in the earlier American context. Egalitarian republicans further argue that those trying to balance the aristocratic and democratic elements of society fail to see that the only legitimate good is the public good. The hallmark of modern radical republicanism, then, consists in dividing powers among separate institutions more carefully than reflected in the mixed constitution, with each serving as a check on the other. Modern examples include the British parliamentary system, and the United States Constitution, with its executive branch, bicameral legislative branch (the House and Senate), and judicial branch. The significant improvement to note is that these different branches of government do not reflect diverging but natural political cleavages in society vying for supremacy. Rather, they are constructed institutional appendages in which each element is but a part, with each designed to realize and protect the public good. As such, the public good is no longer a by-product of an institutional arrangement, as was often the case in the older view, but rather the end to which those institutions aim.

Another important transformation relates to political representation. Classical republics were unable to effectively incorporate growing populations into their institutional structure to ensure that the people remained sufficiently involved. In the case of Rome, for example, a population expansion did not result in a further development of sites for political participation. The problem of participation in large republics seemingly pointed to a limitation of the political doctrine—namely, that it was inappropriate in the modern expansive nation-states of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

In modern times the answer comes in the form of representative democracy. As John Locke (1632-1704), Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755), and Madison argue, a modern republic can connect the otherwise antidemocratic practice of representation with the sovereignty of the people. Indeed, as Madison explains in Federalist No.39, the people never give up their power because they always hold in reserve the right to change their representatives. Representation is based upon a revocable trust precisely because it is merely a proxy for direct participation and not a replacement of popular sovereignty. The result allows power to extend over vast territories in response to various problems of collective organization.

SEE ALSO Aristotle; Dahl, Robert Alan; Democracy; Freedom; Locke, John; Machiavelli, Niccolò; Pluralism; Republic; Separation of Powers

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Dahl, Robert A. 1989. Democracy and Its Critics. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Guicciardini, Francesco. 1520. Dialogue on the Government of Florence. Trans. Alison Brown. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Hamilton, Alexander, James Madison, and John Jay. 1788. The Federalist. Ed. Jacob E. Cooke. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1961.

Machiavelli, Niccolò. 1517. Discourses on Livy. Trans. Harvey C. Mansfield and Nathan Tarcov. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.

Pocock, J. G. A. 1975. The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Wood, Gordon S. 1969. The Creation of the American Republic: 1776-1787. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Melvin L. Rogers