ABSTRACT
Starting in the 1960s, interest in republicanism as political philosophy underwent a significant revival. Republican discourse has been a constant and enriching presence in the theoretical and, to a limited extent, in the political debates. The initial renewal of republican political thought in the 1960s was largely linked to the American search for identity, as well as to criticism of the negative consequences that individualistic liberalism produces (Haakonssen 2007). A crucial impetus for the republican revival came from the field of historical research (Pocock 2009; Skinner 1983, 1984, 2012a; Van Gelderen and Skinner 2002). Historians have painted a diverse landscape of the republican traditions (Italian, Dutch, Turkish, Mexican, etc.) and claimed to unearth the forgotten treasures of a tradition of “liberty before liberalism” (Skinner 2012a, 2012b) – namely, the neo-Roman conception of liberty as non-domination perceived as useful in tackling the present democratic malaises. The strength and the continuous relevance of republicanism are to be understood against the background of a more generalized and structural crisis of citizens’ disaffection in current democracy (Crouch 2004). 1 Republicans have argued that the liberal conception – focused on individual rights, markets, and freedom as non-interference – contributed to the democratic crisis (Arendt 2006; Skinner 2012a). Because liberalism severs the individual from the actual exercise of collective self-rule and overlooks the communal dimension of freedom, it is deemed ill-suited to provide an adequate solution to the phenomenon of disaffection and the centralization of economic and political power. Republicans emphasize a politics tuned to the cultivation of the public spirit and the education of citizens motivated to participate in collective self-rule, the pursuit of the common good, and the counteracting of domination (Sandel 1996; Pettit 1997). Republicans have thus sought to have an impact on public debate by designing policies that thwart domination and foster public spirit and participation in matters of common concern (Braithwaite and Pettit 1990; Martí and Pettit 2010).
