ABSTRACT
Having thus identified the problems of liberal-democracy, and the difficulties facing some of the answers in terms of citizenship and community, the next task is to see if republican theory can provide the theoretical basis for a possible alternative to the contemporary liberal-democratic state. The aim is to provide a critical discussion of the politics of contemporary democracy from the perspective of republican theory, and to use such ideas to advocate the transformation of liberal-democracy. Such a programme in turn requires a presentation of the nature and institutional structure of such a transformed democracy as well as some indication of the means by which such a new form of democracy could be realised. This raises the question of ‘agency’, referring to the problem of identifying the groups, movements and processes that might be the creators or initiators of such a different form of democracy.
