José Luis Martí and Philip Pettit have written an important book about a surprising political development: Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's decision to adopt civic republicanism as developed by Pettit in his book Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government (1997), a text which served as a main source of inspiration for his platform of government. This circumstance represented an unusual, exceptional encounter between political theory and political practice well deserving of documentation. We are lucky to have this book, and even luckier to have two noted political philosophers—the protagonists of this story—as its authors.

The story of A Political Philosophy in Public Life began in 2000, when Zapatero became the leader of the Spanish socialist party. After winning the national elections in 2004, the new prime minister openly declared that he wanted to organize his government around a theory of government based on the idea of nondomination. He then invited Pettit to Spain, first to outline the draft of a republican political program and later on to evaluate the performance of his administration before the 2008 election. Pettit presented his review in 2007, and those comments became the basis of this book (the book, then, does not asses Zapatero's government after the 2008 election).

The first of five chapters in the book, aptly written by Martí, provides the political and social context in which this encounter between theory and practice occurred. The second one, written by Pettit, describes the basic features of his own theory of freedom and government. Chapter 3 contains Pettit's assessment of Zapatero's first term (2004–8), and it also includes a reply written by the Irish political philosopher to some of the critics of this experiment. In particular, Pettit engages in a discussion with Pedro Ramírez, editor of the newspaper El Mundo, who wrote a long and critical open letter against this unusual era of government. Chapter 4 offers a detailed interview with the prime minister, based on questions posed by Pettit to Zapatero. The final chapter is a very interesting collaborative work written by Pettit and Martí, where the two authors reflect on the possibilities of political philosophy in general, and republicanism in particular, for “offering guidance in institutional design and governmental decision-making, and in offering direction to citizens in the public exercise of deliberation and contestation” (p. 135). (There is also a shorter version of the book, written by Pettit and published in Spanish with the name Examen a Zapatero, which includes Chapters 3 and 4 of the English edition, and an earlier version of Chapter 2).

Concerning the more specific objective of the book, namely, the assessment of what the Spanish socialist government did from the perspective of republican theory, the conclusions of the report are favorable to Zapatero. In general terms, the government seems to have succeeded in what were, from the viewpoint of republicanism, its two main political missions: reducing “private domination” without, at the same time, “perpetrating public domination” (p. 92). Regarding the first objective (reducing private domination), Zapatero's government adopted numerous positive initiatives, including—most notably—the promotion of diverse laws in defense of the rights and interests of vulnerable groups (e.g. women, homosexuals, and illegal immigrants). In relation to the second objective (reducing public domination), the Spanish government took some important steps in the right direction: It established a law of publicity, gave more power to parliament, fostered the independence of the national broadcaster, and so on. The balance, in any case, is not entirely positive. According to Pettit, what the Spanish government did was not sufficiently effective in terms of strengthening the welfare rights of the disadvantaged, improving the life conditions of prisoners, or restoring confidence in the judiciary as an independent power.

Concerning the more general and more significant objective of the book, which was to explore the possibilities of a republican public philosophy to serve in public life, the authors' conclusions are also positive. In effect, Pettit and Martí claim that republicanism does well concerning the three main conditions that a political ideal should fulfill in order to serve public life. The ideal, they claim, should be “shareable, realistic and energizing” (p. 159). Taking these aims into account, the authors assert that freedom as nondomination is, first, a perfectly sharable alternative, given its nonsectarian character. Second, they consider republicanism to be a realistic political option, given that “it does not make extravagant assumptions about the motivational or cognitive capacities of human beings,” while at the same time being “broad enough to impose constitutional constraints on the state” or “deep enough to support a demanding set of political policies” (p. 159). Finally, they assert, republicanism would be a political philosophy capable of motivating political action, given its capacity to connect with basic human concerns.

Now, it is difficult not to share the authors' enthusiasm for Zapatero's experiment in Spain, and also difficult not to share their analysis about the possibilities of republicanism as a political philosophy capable of providing guidance to actual politics. But one problem with this analysis resides precisely here. To be more specific, the problem resides in the level of scrutiny with which one assesses the nature, character, or performance of a particular government vis-à-vis the demands of a particular political philosophy. Not surprisingly, what we face here is a problem of translation, or more precisely, a problem about how to translate the demands of an ideal political philosophy into the actual political practice of a particular government. As expected, if we raise the standards of our theoretical scrutiny, then no actual government tends to “pass the exam” (say, the exam about the quality of its republican credentials). By contrast, if we severely drop our requirements, then most contemporary democratic governments tend to pass our evaluation (any evaluation): Barack Obama's rule in the United States; Nicolas Sarkozy's government in France; Angela Merkel's administration in Germany, and so on. All of these governments could claim to have taken fundamental steps in order to serve the general interest, in times of profound and global economic crisis. All of them could list in their favor a group of laws or initiatives capable of satisfying our (now less demanding) ideal criteria: All of them have their merits; all of them have some interesting things to show us: a health-reform plan, a particular concern for the environment, some important initiatives in favor of women's rights.

Would this mean that the entire world is getting closer to, say, republicanism? Well, the answer could be yes or no depending again on the strictness of our level of scrutiny. Pettit and Martí are well aware of this problem and others, but the problems are still there. We still seem to have significant problems concerning how to engage political philosophy in a dialogue with actual political practice.

The book is lucid, clearly accessible to the general public, well written, and full of insights that are useful both to academic and nonacademic readers: It is a must-read for those who are interested in how a political philosophy can enter into dialogue with a real-world experience in politics. Pettit and Martí have been protagonists of a unique experience, and it is a privilege for us readers to have the opportunity to learn about this experience directly from them.