ABSTRACT
A blindness to normative and social antagonism and the defence of private property and commercial egoism against radical democratic incursion is often carried over into contemporary liberal approaches to the idea of a global constitutionalism. Both early modern and modern republican thought casts back to ancient Greek and Roman republican constitutions and republican thinkers. While recognising the degree of justice contained in rival democratic and oligarchic systems, Aristotle viewed both democratic and oligarchic conceptions of justice as limited, extreme, disproportionate and faulty. Conflicts between rich and poor, and the assertion of the justice of rival constitutional formations expressed aspects of an ‘international’ character. Polybius’ theorisation of the Roman republican constitution touched on a set of themes which run through the writing of many Roman philosophers and historians. G. W. F. Hegel’s account echoes an older Greek conception which understands political struggle, revolution and war, as constitutive of both the polis and of citizenship.
