Some have wondered whether this is the case, however. This objection is most often expressed via the example of benevolent care-giving relationships. On the republican view that one enjoys freedom only to the extent that one is independent from arbitrary power, it would seem that children do not enjoy republican freedom with respect to their parents. But surely, one might suppose, the parent-child relationship is in most cases an extremely valuable one, and so we would not want greater republican freedom in such a context.
Republican freedom is, perhaps, not always a good thing Ferejohn As stated, this objection rests on a conceptual error, though as we shall see it points to an important set of issues as yet under-developed in the contemporary civic republican literature.
The error in the above example stems from our confusing the overall evaluation of a whole with an evaluation of its parts considered separately.
It is undeniable that, at least in the ordinary course of things, parent-child relationships are extremely valuable, considered as a whole; it does not follow from this, however, that the relationship is necessarily valuable in each and every part. For the objection to hold, it must be the case—not only that the parent-child relationship is valuable overall—but further, that that it would actually be worse if, holding all its other features constant, it involved less arbitrary power.
But this is highly doubtful. That their republican freedom cannot be increased still further, perhaps, without destroying family life altogether, and thus losing its many other benefits, is neither here nor there.
What consideration of this faulty objection does reveal, however, is that republican freedom is simply one good among others, with which it might come into conflict Markell Pettit , sketches a case for the relative priority of republican liberty on more or less pragmatic grounds: roughly speaking, he argues that political doctrines will be most effective when they concentrate on as few core values as possible, and accordingly that the best values to concentrate on are those whose promotion will service as wide a range of needs as possible.
Republican freedom is just such a good, he claims, insofar as our efforts to promote it will necessarily have far-reaching beneficial consequences. It will be more clear why this might be so in light of the discussion in part four below, but regardless there remains considerable work to be done developing the foundations of republican theory. After long-standing neglect among historians of political thought, there has been a dramatic revival of interest in the classical republican tradition in the past fifty years or so.
For the first few decades of this revival, a particular interpretation of that tradition prevailed. According to this view, the classical republicans held what would now be described as a perfectionist political philosophy—that is, a political philosophy centered on the idea of promoting a specific conception of the good life as consisting in active citizenship and healthy civic virtue on the one hand, while combating any sort of corruption that would undermine these values on the other.
This distinctive vision of the good life is supposed to be rooted in the experience of the ancient Greek polis, especially as expressed in the writings of Aristotle. The goods of active political participation, civic virtue, and so on, are to be understood as intrinsically valuable components of human flourishing.
These and other civic humanist writings have left such an impression on the field that even today many fail to distinguish their views from those of the civic republicans. As we shall see, however, the two are importantly distinct. Beginning with Skinner , Sunstein , and Pettit , an alternative interpretation of the tradition began to emerge. Undoubtedly, the classical republicans were committed to the importance of active political participation, civic virtue, combating corruption, and so forth.
But rather than viewing these as intrinsically valuable components of a particular vision of the good life, these authors argued, they should instead be viewed as instrumentally useful tools for securing and preserving political liberty, understood as independence from arbitrary rule. Republicanism, on this view, has its roots not in an Aristotelian vision of the ancient Greek polis, but rather in Roman jurisprudence with its fundamental and categorical distinction between free men and citizens on the one hand, and dependent slaves on the other.
There now exists a considerable historiographical literature advancing this new interpretation, including studies of Machiavelli Skinner , ; Viroli , the seventeenth-century English republicans Dzelzainis ; Skinner , ; Lovett , a ; Rousseau Viroli ; the Americans of the founding era Sellers ; Wollstonecraft Coffee ; Halldenius ; and the nineteenth-century American labor republicans Gourevitch These and other contemporary civic republicans argue that a careful reading of the classical republican texts firmly rejects the perfectionist interpretation favored by civic humanists.
Moreover, the instrumental turn was vital to establishing interest in republicanism as a viable contemporary political doctrine. The difficulty with civic humanism, as many critics have pointed out, is that a perfectionist vision of human flourishing through active political virtue is out of step with modern political and social conditions. There is simply no hope of recreating the experience of the Greek polis in economically complex mass democracies characterized by reasonable pluralism Herzog ; Goodin ; Brennan and Lomasky This objection is removed, however, if we regard civic virtue instrumentally, as merely one tool among others for securing political liberty.
Insofar as republicans are willing to use that tool, and thus willing to support public policies designed to deliberately cultivate civic virtue, they must perhaps reject stronger doctrines of liberal neutrality; but they will nevertheless be happy to endorse broad principles of toleration Honohan ; Lovett and Whitfield At one level, this should surprise no one.
After all, classical republicans and classical liberals shared many political commitments constitutionalism and the rule of law, for example , and many figures are regarded as central to both traditions Montesquieu, for example. The difficulty arises, however, from the suggestion that on the new instrumental interpretation, republicanism for all intents and purposes collapses into liberalism Larmore ; Patten What then is the advantage of civic republicanism over mainstream liberalism Herzog ; Goodin ; Brennan and Lomasky ?
The republican critique of liberalism is thus best understood as a critique of various problematic tendencies that developed within the liberal tradition as it increasingly diverged from its republican roots. The most important of these is the tendency in the liberal tradition, especially beginning with Bentham, Paley, and Constant, to displace the robust conception of liberty as independence from arbitrary or uncontrolled power with a weaker conception of liberty as non-interference.
The significance of this substitution will be easier to assess after the discussion below, but in the main it comes down to this: because republican liberty is inherently incompatible with any form of dependency or mastery, its social implications are considerably more radical than those of mere negative liberty. Pettit What is more, on the view of liberty as non-interference, any sort of public law or policy intervention will count as an interference and, ergo, as a reduction in freedom.
Liberals committed to the received view of negative liberty will thus tend to be overly hostile to government action Pettit , On the republican view, by contrast, public laws or policy interventions need not always count as reductions in freedom. Indeed, if the law or policy ameliorates dependency, or curtails the arbitrary powers some in the community exercise over others, freedom may be enhanced. The grounds for this claim will be explained further below.
However interesting the debates discussed in the previous section, one may still wonder whether republicanism has anything valuable to contribute to contemporary normative political theory and philosophy. One reason many people remain skeptical has to do with the fact that the classical republican writings often express views that are decidedly elitist, patriarchal, and militaristic.
How could the basis for an appealing contemporary political program be found in such writings Goldsmith ; Maddox ; Goodin ; McCormick ? That the classical republicans often expressed these very unappealing views is not disputed.
But what are we to make of this fact? There are two possibilities. On the one hand, the parochialism of the classical republicans might reflect logical consequences of their core value commitments, in which case we cannot adopt the latter without taking on board the former. On the other hand, it might merely reflect the accidental prejudices of their day, in which case it can easily be dispensed with as we modernize the republican program.
Now according to the civic humanist reading of the tradition, the classical republicans were committed to a perfectionist conception of the human good as active citizenship and civic virtue. On this view, it is clear that some individuals will be more successful than others in attaining the good so understood—some are more adept at politics than others, some are more capable of heroic displays of virtue than others, and so on.
Indeed, political power and public honor are, to some extent, positional goods, meaning that their distribution among the members of a community will necessarily be unequal. It follows that, on the civic humanist reading of the tradition, the elitist bent of the classical republican writings is a consequence of their core values. The civic republicans, naturally, reject this view.
There is nothing inherently elitist about the ideal of freedom when this is understood negatively as independence from arbitrary or uncontrolled power. The classical republicans, to be sure, typically confined the extension of this ideal to a narrow range of propertied, native-born male citizens. But on the civic republican reading of the tradition, this merely reflects an unnecessary prejudice we can easily dispense with. The elitism of the tradition long concealed the potentially radical implications of freedom as non-domination; suitably universalized now at last, republicanism is revealed to be a strikingly progressive political doctrine Pettit , ; Maynor ; Lovett ; Gourevitch The remainder of this section will sketch some of the wide-ranging applications of a universalized republicanism, dedicated to the promotion of freedom as non-domination.
Much of the contemporary republican program, as one would expect, bares some familial relationship with the political commitments of the classical republicans.
There are also divergences, however. Contemporary civic republicans draw inspiration from the classical tradition, but they do not aim to anachronistically implement the republicanism of yore for its own sake.
Contemporary civic republicans aim to promote freedom, understood as independence from arbitrary power. Roughly speaking, there are two directions from which republican freedom might be threatened. First, there is the obvious danger of an autocratic or despotic government assuming arbitrary powers over its subjects; this concern, and republican remedies for it, will be discussed below.
But there is a second danger to republican freedom as well—one that concerns contemporary civic republicans just as much as the first. This is the danger that some individuals or groups within civil society will succeed in assuming arbitrary or uncontrolled powers over others. A few examples will help clarify this second danger. Imagine for a moment there were no system of domestic criminal and civil law. In this case, citizens would not know where they stood with one another; their interrelations would be governed simply by force—which is to say, by the arbitrary whim of the momentarily stronger party.
Notice that, on the republican view of freedom, the laws do not merely protect some freedoms at the expense of others as on the non-interference view , but rather themselves actually introduce or enable that freedom.
On this view, only when their interrelations are mutually governed by a system of public and stable rules is it possible for fellow citizens to enjoy some measure of independence from arbitrary rule Pettit , , ; Viroli ; Dagger This connection between the rule of law and freedom is a common theme in the classical republican literature.
Contemporary civic republicans observe, however, that even when the rule of law is firmly established, there remain many other potential dangers of which the classical republicans were less well aware. Specifically, there is the danger of basic needs deprivation, which can place the least advantaged members of society in a position of economic vulnerability Spitz ; Pettit ; Viroli In order to satisfy their basic needs, individuals may well submit themselves to the arbitrary power of exploitative employers or become dependent on the whims of voluntary charity Dagger ; Lovett ; Gourevitch Ensuring the enjoyment of republican freedom will therefore require some public provision for otherwise unmet basic needs.
Yet another danger to republican freedom arises in the context of family life and gender relations. Traditional family law subjected both wives and children to considerable arbitrary power: circumstances in the case of the latter, circumscribed opportunities in the case of the former, ensured the nearly complete dependency of both on the family they happened to be in. It is always important from a civic republican point of view to be on guard against the introduction of new forms of dependency and arbitrary power through those very laws and policies designed to enhance individual freedom, however.
In the area of criminal and civil law, for example, freedom might be threatened by legal uncertainty or prosecutorial discretion; and, of course, there are grave republican concerns with respect to the existing system of punishment in many western nations Braithwaite and Pettit Similarly, in the public provision of basic needs, there are republican concerns with respect to dependence on government aid and arbitrariness in the distribution of benefits that might point to the introduction of an unconditional basic income Raventos ; Lovett ; for a contrary view, see Taylor In many of these areas, however, there remains considerable work for contemporary civic republicans in determining the appropriate public policy implications of a universalized concern for republican freedom.
Turning from questions of public policy to the form of government, we return to issues more familiar to the writers in the classical tradition. These questions are answered on a case-by-case basis in every constitutional democracy in such a way that neither majority rule nor minority rights suffer permanent or irreparable damage. Both majority rule and minority rights must be safeguarded to sustain justice in a constitutional democracy. Home Majority Rule and Minority Rights.
He said, All. Borden , the Supreme Court held questions involving the Guarantee Clause nonjusticiable, meaning that any remedy for a violation would lie with Congress or the President, not the federal judiciary. Nearly one hundred years later, the Court sweepingly declared that the guarantee of a republican form of government cannot be challenged in court.
Colegrove v. Green More recently, however, the Supreme Court has left the door open to a Guarantee Clause challenge, intimating that the justiciability of such a claim must be decided on a case-by-case basis. Nevertheless, because protection against invasion or domestic violence is normally available only from Congress and the President, the structure of this section suggests that the political branches have at least the primary duty to carry out its obligations. There is a serious claim that the United States failed to carry out its duty under the Guarantee Clause in the context of African American suffrage.
In Texas v. And it was the State, thus constituted, which was now entitled to the benefit of the constitutional guaranty. If majority rule and political freedom had prevailed in those seven states, the political power and influence African Americans enjoyed during Reconstruction would likely have continued for decades, or permanently. However, as is well-known, African Americans were systematically disenfranchised, most vigorously in places where they were majorities, or could combine with other voters to become majorities.
Mississippi was a leader in disenfranchising African Americans. In , the Mississippi Supreme Court explained how this happened in Ratliff v. Beale :. Our unhappy state had passed in rapid succession from civil war through a period of military occupancy, followed by another, in which the control of public affairs had passed to a recently enfranchised race, unfitted by educational experience for the responsibility thrust upon it.
This was succeeded by a semimilitary, semicivil uprising, under which the white race, inferior in number, but superior in spirit, in governmental instinct, and in intelligence, was restored to power. You can be a part of this exciting work by making a donation to The Bill of Rights Institute today! Make your investment into the leaders of tomorrow through the Bill of Rights Institute today! Learn more about the different ways you can partner with the Bill of Rights Institute.
The Bill of Rights Institute engages, educates, and empowers individuals with a passion for the freedom and opportunity that exist in a free society. As Benjamin Franklin emerged from Independence Hall at the close of the Constitutional Convention in September , a woman approached and asked him what form of government the Convention had produced. If one asked the average American today the question posed to Franklin — what type of government do we have?
However, our Founders did. In fact, many of the Founders, such as James Madison, were suspicious of what modern Americans seemingly embrace:. Democracy is self-government through popular sovereignty, based on the principle of majority rule. Simply put, the people rule, and legitimacy is determined by what more than half of the people want.
A serious challenge, though, has long plagued the very concept of democracy: how can the principles of popular sovereignty be implemented in a manner that also provides for a stable society and preserves the rights and liberties of all?
James Madison, Federalist No. The unique American answer to this vexing question has partial roots in an ancient source. Examining the various types of government that existed throughout the world during his time, Greek philosopher Aristotle classified them into three categories: rule by one monarchy , rule by a few aristocracy and rule by the many democracy. Monarchies devolve to tyranny, aristocracies to oligarchy, and democracies to mob rule.
This was most notably true in England, where the king, House of Lords, and the House of Commons shared governmental power.
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