The Future of Republicanism

Abstract

Contemporary republican political theory has its intellectual roots in the middle of the 20th century. At that time, the classical republican tradition had fallen into oblivion, and there appeared no respectable alternative to liberalism. Over the next several decades, however, intellectual historians revived interest in the classical republican tradition, and then the publication of Philip Pettit’s Republicanism (1997) transformed that tradition into an active and compelling contemporary research program. After reviewing the origins and development of contemporary republicanism, this chapter argues that the main reason for its success is that the non-domination principle provides a clear and useful normative criterion that can be applied to nearly any interesting or significant issue. Finally, the chapter speculates that republicanism will continue to flourish. Especially promising growth areas include republican political economy, justice between generations, non-ideal theory and republicanism, and republican institutional design.