Academic literature on the topic 'Modern republican theory'

Rousseau was arguably one of the most important and influential of eighteenth-century republican thinkers. However, contemporary republican theorists, most notably Philip Pettit, have written him out of the republican canon by describing Rousseau as a “populist” rather than a republican. I argue that this miscasting of Rousseau is not just historically incorrect but that it has also led to a weakening of contemporary republican political theory. Rousseau was one of the few early modern republican thinkers to take seriously the problem of the tyranny of the majority and to attempt to formulate a cogent answer to that problem. Ignoring his contribution to republican political thought therefore cuts off contemporary republicans from an important resource for thinking about this problem.

This article reappraises the political ideas of William Manning, and through him the trajectory of early modern republicanism. Manning, an early American farmer writing in the 1780s and 1790s, developed the republican distinction between “the idle Few” and “the laboring Many” into a novel “political theory of the dependent classes.” On this theory, it is the dependent, laboring classes who share an interest in social equality. Because of this interest, they are the only ones who can achieve and maintain republican liberty. With this identification of the interests of the dependent classes with the common good, Manning inverted inherited republican ideas, and transformed the language of liberty and virtue into one of the first potent, republican critiques of exploitation. As such, he stands as a key figure for understanding the shift in early modern republicanism from a concern with constitutionalism and the rule of law to the social question.

This article analyses a conflict between royalist iconography and republican iconoclasm in the visual strategies of the frontispieces to Eikon Basilike and Eikon Alethine, two works that react to the execution of Charles I in 1649. The article argues that the clash between these two visual strategies is emblematic of a clash between a republican and an absolutist notion of sovereignty current in Caroline England. The absolutist notion of sovereignty may be meaningfully approached through Walter Benjamin’s theory of the ambiguous nature of early modern sovereignty. For Benjamin, the early modern sovereign is simultaneously a tyrant and a martyr. This double nature of the figure of the sovereign is the result of early modern political theology. The republican notion of sovereignty, which develops in the 1640s, is characterized by its emphasis on popular sovereignty. According to this view, only parliament could legitimately represent the interests of the commonwealth. However, the republican conceptualization of sovereignty ultimately fails because it fails to visually represent the abstract notion of popular sovereignty.

AbstractThis paper develops a novel, neo-republican account of just state surveillance in the information age. The goal of state surveillance should be to avoid and prevent domination, both public and private. In light of that conception of justice, the paper makes three substantive points. First, it argues that modern state surveillance based upon information technology and predicated upon a close partnership with the tech sector gives the state significant power and represents a serious potential source of domination. Second, it argues that, nonetheless, state surveillance can serve legitimate republican ends and so unilateral and private technological attempts to block it may be wrongful. Third, it argues that, despite the serious normative failings of current institutions, state surveillance can be justly regulated and made accountable through a legal liability regime that incentivizes tech company intermediaries to ally with civil society groups in order to safeguard the privacy rights of potential subjects of state surveillance.

A common faith swept the country. According to Mark Noll's now-famous thesis, early republican and antebellum America was characterized by an ideological synthesis of evangelical religion, republican political theory, and common sense epistemology. Noll calls it “the Protestant consensus.” John Modern largely agrees. In Modern's telling, antebellum America was mired in the same entanglement of piety, politics, and epistemology. But in lieu of the civic language of consensus, Modern describes his formation as an “atmosphere,” a kind of conceptual cloud-hanging so thickly in the air that antebellum Americans inhaled it with every breath. This pervasive atmosphere is what Modern means by “the secular.”

This article critically examines recent claims that Weber's political thought has close associations with classical republicanism. One salient indication of Weber's distance from this tradition is his theory of Ceasarism, and his view that modern polities are most robust when they assume a version of it consistent with civil liberties. By employing the resources of Begriffsgcschichte, I examine the extent of Weber's departure from the ‘ancient sense of politics’ and the originality of his own political theory.

Evolution, the human soul, and the lower status of animals continue to stir debate not only in philosophy, religion and science, but in politics as well. In 2007 during a debate for the Republican candidate for United States President, three out of the ten candidates raised their hand when asked by the moderator, ‘Is there anyone on the stage who doesn't believe in evolution?’ The possibility of a lineage from animal life to distinctly human life offers the opportunity for a host of objections from some politicians, religious leaders and philosophers alike. Those who express an objection to the theory of evolution take issue with the idea that humanity is merely another link in the chain, albeit the last link. They share a desire to see human life as somehow unique, different, better.

Как известно, в современных условиях в большинстве государств законодательно предусмотрены меры обособления органов одной власти от другой, с той целью, чтобы она ограничивалась собственной компетенцией и, в конечном счете, не допустить нарушений полномочий каждого органа в отдельности. Однако, следует учитывать, что соотношение между полномочиями органов всех ветвей государственной власти определяется в конституции в строгом соответствии с господствующим пониманием в данном государстве сущности демократии и народоправства. В литературе также принято ссылаться на американский парламентаризм, который в течение двух столетий развивается в условиях двухпартийной системы. В Соединенных Штатах Америки подобный механизм способствует тому, что демократам и республиканцам с определенной степенью частоты удается попеременно сменять друг друга. В этом отношении картина политической борьбы между партией, преобладающей в конгрессе, и главой государства, представляющим противоположную силу, содержит черты, которые в крайне невыгодном свете отражают особенности американской политической жизни. Достаточно вспомнить ожесточенные схватки между Президентом США Дональдом Трампом (республиканцем) и палатой представителей Конгресса, где преобладали демократы. В столь ожесточенной борьбе дело доходило до процедуры импичмента, вершиной же подобного противостояния стало то, что больше месяца американцы не могли получить официальные результаты итогов выборов нового главы государства. Авторы статьи делают вывод о том, что следует стремиться к тому, чтобы в представительном учреждении депутаты различных политических партий постоянно взаимодействовали, а не противостояли друг другу. Подобный подход будет способствовать реализации всех законодательно закрепленных функций парламента. В этом нам видится один из главных инструментов, который позволит преодолеть парадокс XX века, когда теория разделения властей на практике подчас приобретала центробежный характер. Obviously, in modern conditions in most states, legislative measures are provided for separating the bodies of one government from another, in order to limit it to its own competence and, ultimately, to prevent violations of the powers of each body separately. However it should be borne in mind that the correlation between the powers of the bodies of all branches of state power is determined in the constitution in strict accordance with the prevailing understanding in the given state of the essence of democracy and the rule of the people. In the literature, it is also customary to refer to American parliamentarianism, which has been developing in a two-party system for two centuries. In the United States of America, this arrangement encourages Democrats and Republicans to alternate with a certain degree of frequency. In this regard, the picture of the political struggle between the dominant party in Congress and the head of state representing the opposite force contains features that reflect in an extremely unfavorable light the peculiarities of American political life. Suffice it to recall the fierce battles between US President Donald Trump (Republican) and the Democratic-dominated House of Representatives. In such a fierce struggle, the matter came to the impeachment procedure, the peak of such a confrontation was that for more than a month the Americans could not get the official results of the election of the new head of state. The authors of the article conclude that one should strive to ensure that in a representative institution the deputies of various political parties constantly interact, and not oppose each other. This approach will contribute to the implementation of all legislatively enshrined functions of the parliament. Thus, we see one of the main tools that will allow us to overcome the paradox of the 20th century, when the theory of separation of powers in practice sometimes acquired a centrifugal character.

?Hegel? and ?human rights? are rarely conjoined, and the designation ?human rights? appears rarely in his works. Indeed, Hegel has been criticised for omitting civil and political rights all together. My surmise is that readers have looked for a modern Decalogue, and have neglected how Hegel justifies his views, and hence just what views he does justify. Philip Pettit (1997) has refocused attention on republican liberty. Hegel and I agree with Pettit that republican liberty is a supremely important value, but appealing to its value, or justifying it by appeal to reflective equilibrium, are insufficient both in theory and in practice. By reconstructing Kant?s Critical methodology and explicating the social character of rational justification in non-formal domains, Hegel shows that the republican right to non-domination is constitutive of the equally republican right to justification (Forst 2007) - both of which are necessary requirements for sufficient rational justification in all non-formal domains, including both claims to rights or imputations of duties or responsibilities. That is the direct moral, political and juridical implication of Hegel?s analysis of mutual recognition, and its fundamental, constitutive role in rational justification. Specific corollaries to the fundamental republican right to non-domination must be determined by considering what forms of illicit domination are possible or probable within any specific society, in view of its social, political and economic structures and functioning.