Republicanism

The modern period witnessed a number of important practical experiments in the implementation of republican ideas, including the Netherlands, France, and the United States. One of the important facets of these experiments was the introduction of novel features into the classical tradition in recognition of the de facto replacement of the city by the territorial state as the central unit of public life. Modern republicans recognized that the process of political debate could not realistically be modeled on a direct interaction between speakers and an audience. Hence, political representation rather than direct governance by the people emerged as a hallmark of republican regimes, even as the principle of popular sovereignty was retained and reinforced. Representation permitted discussion and dispute in an assembly setting that presumably mimicked the views and disagreements that were held by members of society at large. Moreover, republicans such as James Madison (1751–1836) in the United States sought ways to mitigate the consequence of the factionalism that Machiavelli had regarded to be the hallmark of a healthy republic by institutionalizing mixed government by means of a constitutionally designated system of checks and balances. Thus, no faction could entirely impose its will on its opponents.

Another modification to traditional republican conceptions came with the challenge posed by the commercialization of Atlantic economic relations and social values. For classical republicans, the private accumulation of liquid wealth had been widely viewed as incompatible with civic virtue, but early modern authors began to reevaluate this doctrine. Some thinkers contended that citizens should proudly acknowledge industriousness and self-acquired possessions as the foundation of morality and the greatness of their cities. The Dutch-born Bernard Mandeville (1670–1733) proposed in his Fable of the Bees (1714) the famous principle that private vices yield public goods, which is to say that the pursuit of personal gain, and indeed the desire for comfort and luxury, leads directly to the enrichment of society as a whole and the consequent benefit of all its members. Republics should thus orient their political institutions in order to promote commercial enterprise.

With the rise of liberalism, capitalism, and democracy during the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, republican ideas entered a period of decline. Only in very recent times has this fortune been reversed. On the one hand, historical scholars such as Gordon S. Wood and John Pocock have offered reminders of how great was the debt of modern political institutions to the language and doctrines of republicanism. On the other hand, political philosophers critical of the excesses of liberalism have turned to the communitarian orientation of classical republicanism for inspiration. Among the best known of these "new republicans" are Hannah Arendt (1906–1975), Alasdair MacIntyre (b. 1929), Michael Sandel (b. 1953), and Philip Pettit (b. 1945). It seems clear that in the early twenty-first century the republican tradition is enjoying a considerable revival that suggests its continuing vitality and the relevance of its fundamental tenets to modern life.