II. Political Identity

The cosmopolitan idea of political identity has been well known since antiquity.⁹

Citizenship has often been identified with human civility. Socrates called himself “a citizen of the world.” According to Democritus, “the home of a great soul is the whole world”; hence, wise men belong to all countries. Zeno and other Stoics viewed all men as their “fellow-countrymen.” In the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church claimed to be a united Christian community. Renaissance thinkers advanced similar ideas. In The Education of a Christian Prince, Erasmus referred to the res publica Christiana. Francis Bacon, Justus Lipsius, and Michel de Montaigne looked upon “all men as compatriots.” As travel and trade increased, these philosophical ideas reflected a changing world that grew beyond borders. Merchants, bankers, priests, artists, musicians, teachers, philosophers, and mercenary soldiers journeyed all over Europe and did not identify themselves as the subjects of any French or Dutch or Italian ruler.

The classical republicans of the Renaissance were well acquainted with the cosmopolitan trend that had gained currency during the Middle Ages and was embraced by many of their contemporaries, but republicans explicitly rejected this trend. Machiavelli passionately declared that he loved Florence more than his own soul.¹⁰

The Prince subverted the idea of a Christian state founded on universal moral values. Republicans identified themselves with their polity and its values. The cultivation of patriotic solidarity and loyalty created a strong collective bond—a sense of unity and integrity that made living together possible.

Contemporary republicans continue the classical legacy. Political theorist Michael Sandel emphatically rejects globalization: “Despite its merits … the cosmopolitan ideal [of democracy] is flawed, both as a moral ideal and as a public philosophy for self government in our time.”¹¹

In particular, cosmopolitan values do not have the same motivating power as patriotism. In discussing patriotism, Philip Pettit remarks upon “the unchosen nature of [patriotic] identification”: such “identification is not an intentional initiative but something that comes to people as naturally as breathing.”¹² “Habitual” and “natural” civility are part of a republic's cultural heritage. Every member of the community should acknowledge and cherish that heritage since “this is where you are coming from: this is what you are.”¹³ Political theorist Iseult Honohan compares the civic community to the family, with its distinctive emotional and moral ties.¹⁴

In both its classic and its contemporary versions, the republican notion of patriotic citizenship is quite exclusionary in character. The strong collective identity that republicans seek to cultivate does not accommodate other identities and values. Republican civic morality is in many respects hostile to nonrepublican values. For Machiavelli, the Roman republic's ability to impose its civil values on other peoples was even more glorious than its power to conquer them. Political philosopher Charles Taylor argues that modern states require their citizens to exhibit “much greater solidarity toward compatriots than toward humanity in general.”¹⁵

Maurizio Viroli puts it strongly: “[M]y patriotism is explicitly particularistic, because it describes love of country as the citizens' passionate love of their republic's institutions and way of life.”¹⁶

Contemporary republicans realize that today the only form of passionate patriotism is nationalism, which is often incompatible with toleration and pluralism. Taylor accepts nationalism as a natural implication of patriotism: “Civic humanism requires a strong identity with a community and the nation is the community of modern times.”¹⁷

Honohan worries that “the nation is an inadequate substitute for participation; it does not generate the sense of responsibility in citizens in areas where it matters,”¹⁸ but then she realistically admits that “it is hard to find examples of places where citizens do see themselves as bound together without some kind of national commonality.”¹⁹ Others try to establish a moderate line of “enlightened patriotism.” Viroli tentatively argues that love of country “easily extends beyond the national borders and translates into solidarity.”²⁰ He envisions a kind of “rooted republican patriotism” that is supposed to be “patriotism without nationalism.”²¹ Pettit claims that patriotism, properly understood, is an admiration of “my country for the values it realizes.”²² It seems to be Pettit's tacit assumption that a republican patriot would never face a dilemma when his country pursues values that he does not admire. For classical republicans, such a dilemma did not exist: the common interests of the res publica should always prevail. Machiavelli brutally declared that human lives could be sacrificed when the common interest was at stake. Preemptive strikes could be used to crush potential opponents; innocent citizens could be sacrificed to appease an angry mob. It is hard to imagine that Pettit would accept such conclusions.

Obviously, those who hope that global citizenship becomes a realistic objective would rather see the evolution of political identity go in a quite different direction. After all, despite the continuous turmoil of nationalistic and ethnic movements, there are some indications that national identity has been losing its dominant status.²³

The relationship between one's citizenship and one's nationality is becoming less rigid, and in some cases the link between the two is merely symbolic. For many people, citizenship is no longer inherited for life but becomes a matter of choice. The citizens of one country live and work in other countries. Some have dual citizenship. Their overlapping identities are no longer strongly attached to a specific nation, language, and territory. Instead, many nonnational and nonterritorial identities have emerged. Individuals identify themselves as environmentalists, pacifists, human rights activists, gays and lesbians, and so forth. As global issues attract more attention, people become more aware of international interests and more disposed toward international cooperation. The meaning of patriotism has evolved in a similar fashion. As national identity has become less intense, it has become more tolerant, less exclusionary, and less prone to fanaticism. The elements of national and local identities have not disappeared but have become weaker. The ideas of “enlightened patriotism,” “constitutional patriotism,” and “civic cosmopolitanism” have emerged as hopeful alternatives. Political activists appeal to “global consciousness” and seek “common identity.”

The conflict between republican and global identities is unavoidable and acute. Timid attempts to propose the concept of “republican pluralism” or “patriotism without nationalism” merely paper-over the contradiction. For republicans, universal moral values are too abstract to motivate citizens to engage in civic activity. Members of a global community would be less politically engaged than citizens of the res publica. They would lack healthy feelings of collective unity, solidarity, and civic virtus. Almost by definition, global citizenship flies in the face of the civic spirit.

III. Rights and Liberties

Contemporary politics is firmly grounded on the ideas of human and political rights. Most international organizations have defined their goals and policies in those terms. In 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The 1966 Covenant of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, the 1975 Helsinki Accords, and other international agreements have further developed the universal standards of rights and liberties. These documents reiterate the fundamentals: freedom of speech, conscience, and religion; the free exchange of ideas; protection of the rights of minorities; the right to travel internationally; and so on. Currently, a great number of international organizations—the International Court of Justice, the Red Cross, Amnesty International, the World Health Organization, and the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), to name just a few—are deemed, despite many problems, to protect these rights.

It would be hard to overestimate the enormous influence of international human rights agreements. They have systematically pressured nondemocratic states to respect the rights of their citizens. Governments who have violated international standards of human rights have compromised their own legitimacy. For anti-Communist activists in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Helsinki Accords were powerful weapons against Communist ideology and propaganda. In a sense, the agreements contributed to the collapse of the Communist empire. Today, in Iran, Myanmar, Sudan, and China, the standards of universal human rights help to rein in autocratic regimes. It seems almost self-evident that political globalization will continue that historical process. The universality of individual rights transcends the confines of national, ethnic, religious, and civil identities. The ideals of global citizenship and global community bring with them aspirations toward the unification of all human beings independently of their identities as Spaniards, Tutsis, Sikhs, Jews, and so on. A citizen of the world has to respect the universal rights of others, and his rights have to be universally respected.

Just as civic republicans disregard the ideal of global identity, they also disregard the notion of universal rights. When they use the concept of rights, it is merely a legal concept, not a philosophical or moral one. It is a concept that follows the Roman legal tradition. “Rights are in fact only rights if custom or law recognizes them as such and are therefore always historical, not natural,” writes Viroli.²⁴

“In the republican view,” Honohan adds, rights “will not be formulated in terms of absolute boundaries.²⁵ Even the rights to privacy or property “are not absolute or primary.”²⁶ The res publica grants rights and privileges to its citizens, and it has the authority to trump those rights when public interests make it necessary to do so. Clearly, as Pettit observes, “republicanism cannot be represented by any stretch of the imagination … as a tradition of rights akin to that which is sometimes associated with liberalism.”²⁷

This approach to rights is deeply rooted in the classical republican heritage. Republicanism has been strongly connected with the rhetorical tradition of antiquity and the Renaissance.²⁸

Both Cicero and Machiavelli were champions of rhetorical eloquence, and modern-day republicans continue that tradition, arguing that the key tool of republican political reasoning is not rational analysis but effective rhetorical persuasion. According to Viroli, contemporary republicans need to rediscover a piece of “classical republican wisdom”: “political theory is a department not of philosophy, or law, or science but of rhetoric.”²⁹ For republicans, “[e]valuations of all political actions tend to be partisan, subjective, driven by passion; disputes in the real world are neither scientific nor philosophical.” The goal of republicans is not “to ascertain or demonstrate the truth”³⁰—because there are no universal moral values or truths for which to argue. The common good, justice, and freedom are just “regulative ideas that political deliberation should aim at, though what this implies in practice will be different in each case.”³¹ Thus, rhetorical discourse is the domain of moral relativism.³² On this view, when political opponents appeal to rights, what they have in mind never goes beyond partial interests. Political actors use the language of rights only when it serves their interests. Viroli makes it clear that, in political debate, ideological bias and manipulative propaganda are both unavoidable and useful. From the republican point of view, the Sophists decisively won the ancient debate with Socrates.

The notion that eclipses rights-oriented thought in classical and contemporary republicanism is liberty. Both Quentin Skinner and Philip Pettit build their interpretations of classical republicanism on the basis of this central notion—and for good reason. The classical republican tradition refers to the Roman legacy of libertas and civitas, a community of free citizens. In the Renaissance, republicans revitalized that heritage. As Pocock demonstrates, Machiavelli, Francesco Guicciardini, and Donato Giannotti were the key figures in this revival. Contemporary republicanism's challenge to liberalism inevitably leads to a debate over the concept of freedom.

The idea of republican liberty has evolved into several versions, but two of them have emerged as the most cogent: liberty as self-government and liberty as nondomination.³³

Charles Taylor and Quentin Skinner have developed the self-government version. Skinner reminds us that the ancient republican paradigm of libertas and civitas, revived in the Renaissance as vivere libero e civile, establishes “an intimate connection between the defense of free communities and the capacity of individual citizens to secure and maximize their own liberty.” The connection is very tight: “the one is a necessary condition of the other.” Thus, within the classical tradition, “the discussion of political liberty is generally embedded in an analysis of what it means to live in a ‘free state’.”³⁴

The state is free when its citizens are free to decide how to live, when they participate in their own system of self-rule. Charles Taylor interprets the connection this way: “[W]e cannot do what we really want, or follow our real will, outside a society of a certain canonical form, incorporating true self-government. It follows that we can only be free in such a society, and that being free is governing ourselves collectively according to this canonical form.” In other words, “freedom involves at least partially collective self-rule.”³⁵

As Skinner notes, “a self-governing republic is the only type of regime under which a community can hope to attain greatness at the same time as guaranteeing its citizens their individual liberty.”³⁶ Individual freedom is not possible without collective freedom understood as self-government. Needless to say, the conception of liberty as “self-government” or “collective self-rule” is for Taylor and Skinner a key alternative to the liberal conception of the freedom of the individual to make choices.

The other concept of republican liberty, nondomination, has been developed by Philip Pettit.³⁷

Most recent republican theory revolves around this concept.³⁸ On Pettit's view, an agent is free when not under someone else's domination, that is, when not subject to someone else's capacity to interfere in an arbitrary manner in the choices the agent should make himself. Pettit adds that liberty as nondomination is not a mere lack of domination; it is itself a form of power to act: “It represents a control that a person enjoys in relation to their own destiny and such control constitutes one familiar type of power: the power of the agent who can prevent various ills happening to them.”³⁹

A defining feature of nondomination is its difference from the liberal “negative” conception of liberty as noninterference. The two concepts overlap but are not identical. An agent may interfere in another agent's actions yet not dominate him. Since only arbitrary interference qualifies as domination, the agent who legitimately interferes due to fair principles or democratic laws is not engaging in domination. In particular, when it is not an individual but a legal institution or a democratic political body that interferes, the intrusion is not considered domination. At the same time, it is possible to be wholly dependent on and subservient to another and yet free from interference. Pettit illustrates this point with an allegory of a master-slave relationship. It is possible to imagine a slave with a very permissive master. The slave may be allowed to do practically anything, but behind his activity there is always the master's capability to intrude without any respect for the slave's interests and wants. That potential power is arbitrary and dominating.

Both conceptions of republican liberty—self-government and nondomination—face serious difficulties. For Taylor, Skinner, Viroli, and Adrian Oldfield, the superiority of collective liberty over individual liberty is undeniable. No member of the republic can achieve the common good fully “without its being achieved for all members.”⁴⁰

Collective self-government is “a necessary condition” of individual liberty, and a republican constitution is “the only type of regime” that ensures liberty. Republican thought contradicts the liberal philosophy of individual freedom: “republicans speak of societies as the primary subjects of freedom, individuals as the secondary, so that individuals count as free in virtue of the freedom of their society, and not vice versa.”⁴¹ In his most elaborate presentations of the ideal of nondomination, Pettit pays relatively more attention to the individual side of republican liberty, but that does not alter the fundamental thesis: “freedom as non-domination is a communitarian ideal.”⁴² For Oldfield, too, republicanism is a form of communitarianism.⁴³ Collective interests should prevail, and an individual can be forced, in his own best interest, to choose wisely; as Skinner writes, “the enjoyment of our personal liberty may often have to be a product of coercion and constraint.”⁴⁴ Yes, declares Taylor, “men can, in short, be forced to be free.”⁴⁵ In addition, as I have indicated, the republican emphasis on rhetoric transforms liberty, individual as well as collective, into a mere device of political persuasion. It is ultimately a matter of subjective judgment which institutions serve self-government and which political agents have the potential to be dangerously dominant. Those political actors who are rhetorically more skillful and persuasive are able to impose their own normative judgments. Finally, as we will see in the next section, for republicans, collective duties easily override individual liberties.

It seems hard to imagine how global citizenship could be based on principles steeped in moral relativism and collective partiality. One cannot be a citizen of the world if one's individual goals and values are secondary to multiple group interests, local community values, and national policies. Moral and civic norms, even if they are not intended to be universal, lose their meaning when subject to ideologically biased interpretations and partisan rhetoric. The republican model of liberty (in either version) seems to remain at odds with the idea of global citizenship.

IV. Goals and Responsibilities

Republican citizenship is not about rights but about the common good and the duties associated with achieving it. The common good is the ultimate goal of the republic and the essence of republican citizenship is commitment to this goal. Laws and civic institutions protect the common good; political activity is directed toward it. To depict the republican understanding of the ultimate goal of citizenship, modern-day republicans constantly return to their classical forerunners. Every study of republicanism begins with an extensive presentation of its historical context, and in particular, Machiavelli's thought.⁴⁶

For Machiavelli, “it is not the particular good but the common good (bene comune) that makes cities great. And without doubt the common good is not observed if not in republics.” According to him, the ancient founders, such as Moses, Lycurgus, or Solon, established laws “for the purpose of the common good,” and every prudent ruler should have the same intent. The Roman people, as “lover[s] of the glory and common good of [their] fatherland,” were the perfect model of spirited citizenship.⁴⁷

Contemporary republicans continue the tradition but struggle to define the common good. The notion includes a complex set of goals and values: the satisfaction of communal needs, liberty, the rule of law, security and strength, civic spirit and unity, dignity and honor. The rhetorical approach makes the complex notion even more difficult to untangle. After all, both the common good and its various components are just regulative ideas that, in political practice, “will be different in each case.”⁴⁸

The republic's common good may have an entirely different meaning at different times and contexts. Iseult Honohan accepts such vagueness as inevitable and proposes a pluralistic model of this key notion: “if there is not a single common good, or goal of society, there are common goods.”⁴⁹

The common good requires high standards of responsibility. When there is a conflict between one's liberties and one's duties, the choice is simple: “Republicanism does give a heavier weight to duties as they are better guides to action for citizens.”⁵⁰

Both self-government and nondomination are unattainable without individual motivations that make civic actions effective. Skinner writes:

This motivation to serve the common good is a theme that runs through the writings of contemporary republicans. Viroli appeals to “the passions that political liberty needs.”⁵²

Sandel refers to “the moral energies of a vital democratic life.”⁵³ Since only a free and strong republic can guarantee individual liberty, in order to be truly free we have to, in Skinner's words, “devote ourselves wholeheartedly to a life of public service.”⁵⁴ Political institutions serve the common good and so should every citizen. Citizens should fulfill their duties with comprehension and commitment. It should go without saying that such service overrides individual freedoms. Skinner openly admits the enigmatic character of the relationship between service and freedom: “Public service, paradoxically enough, constitutes our only means of ensuring and maximizing our own personal liberty.”⁵⁵

The relationship between liberty and strong civic responsibility goes both ways. The republic's security, freedom, law, and order must rely on the principles of good citizenship. Good citizenship flourishes in a free and secure community. Civility needs freedom, freedom needs civility.⁵⁶

The republic is founded on citizens' emotional involvement, dedication, and public-spiritedness. It needs an intense sense of responsibility, self-constraint, patriotism, loyalty, courage, solidarity, and commitment. Liberal normative neutrality, as republicans see it, “is not a real option.”⁵⁷

A part of that spirited commitment is what republicans usually call “vigilance.” “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance,” writes Pettit.⁵⁸

In order to protect freedom and to prevent corruption, virtuous citizens should monitor public officers, authorities, and lawmakers. Citizens should stay alert and be ready to act in case they see that the res publica is in danger of corruption or abuse of power. Historically speaking, the ideas of civil militia and the right to bear arms are the republican instruments of political protection. Pettit argues that such vigilance may be very helpful today in order to make people aware of important issues (for instance, issues related to environmental protection). Vigilant citizens should be ready to act if such matters are neglected by authorities.

Modern-day republicans do not discuss the historical origins of the idea of vigilant citizenship because they are clearly uncomfortable with it, and rightly so. For Machiavelli and other classical republicans, public service meant, first of all, military service. Courage and discipline were key virtues because public service could require making the ultimate sacrifice. To die for the republic was to achieve eternal glory. Most importantly, public service was not only about defending the state's freedom. External conquest was a vital goal of a free republic: glorious victory was one of the greatest goals—if not the greatest goal—of the res publica. A free state was a regime superior to an autocratic princedom because freedom generated more power. As Machiavelli put it, republics had two major goals: remaining free from the domination of others and conquering them. Free states did not just enjoy their freedom; they either conquered or were conquered, since they were constantly pressed to compete with neighbors who were nothing but potential threats or victims. “The end of the republic is to enervate and to weaken all other bodies so as to increase its own body,” Machiavelli wrote. Republican Rome, for instance, “became a great city through ruining the surrounding cities.”⁵⁹

In the name of a free republic, on this view, virtuous citizens have to be not only alert and vigilant but also militant and powerful. Hence, such values as global peace or worldwide cooperation are left undiscussed by contemporary republicans, because such values do not express the republican civic spirit. Such values were significant to Erasmus and Kant, but not to Machiavelli and Harrington.

To be fair, it seems that the republican notion of civic virtue does have something to offer today. The challenges of global development are demanding and impose pressing responsibilities on the citizens of the global world. Engagement in international projects and institutions can no longer be founded on the traditional structures of authority and obedience. The global communications system makes cooperation between distant agents routine. Dispersed political and economic institutions generate networks of connections between people who never meet and often remain anonymous. The monitoring of the accountability and responsibility of various global actors can be difficult and costly. Under such circumstances, the need for social capital is growing. Global cooperation demands mutual trust between distant partners and commitment to follow the rules even when it is relatively easy to break them. In a global society, a work ethic based on accountability and trustworthiness is more needed than ever. The citizens of the world have to be well motivated, responsible, and knowledgeable.

Of course, the emphasis on civic virtue, participation, and accountability does not counterbalance all the drawbacks of republican morality. The list of drawbacks is long. The central notion of the common good remains vague and breaks into a variety of particular goods which, in a sense, are no longer truly common. Rhetorical relativism makes the principles of the common good and civic virtue easy to manipulate. It also seems contradictory to extend universally the scope of republican civic spirit. Such notions as “commitment to humanity” or “global civility” may sound appealing to some, but republicans themselves reject such slogans as not capable of stimulating civic engagement. Finally, the militant spirit of republican citizenship does not fit the common vision of a peaceful global world, free from terrorism, genocide, and ethnic cleansing.

V. Civic Participation

Modern history can be seen as a constant process of increasing political participation. The Glorious Revolution, the American Revolution, and the French Revolution were all about changing “subjects” into “citizens.” Since then politics has become a sphere of civic engagement. Modern democratic regimes are founded on the universal rights to vote, to freely express political opinions, to organize political parties, and to participate in political decision making.

The republican ideas of civic virtue and liberty as self-government are firmly connected to civic engagement and participation. As I have already indicated, republicans view public service as a salient form of civic participation. But the republican citizen not only serves the res publica, his active involvement constitutes the civitas, the community of agents working for the common good. The pioneers of the republican renaissance, Pocock and Skinner, were inspired by Hannah Arendt's efforts to reanimate the participatory tradition of democracy. Arendt ranked the vita activa over the vita contemplativa as the unique expression of human nature. A person who wants to be in command of her life, and not subject to the will of others, should act in the public sphere. Freedom, the highest value, is impossible without action, since “to be free and to act are the same.” Although action is vital in all spheres of social life, Arendt argues that politics is the essential sphere. She virtually identifies freedom with political activity: “political freedom means the right to be a participator in government.”⁶⁰

To maximize liberty, echoes Skinner, we must “take charge of the political arena ourselves.”⁶¹

The reasons to participate in politics are numerous. First, citizens who want their interests to be represented and realized must get involved in order to manage the political process. Without citizens' active involvement, governments often lose track of citizens' interests and of the common good. Political participation shapes the republic. Second, citizens who participate in civic life strengthen their own motivation and admiration for common values. They express their independence and freedom from domination. By taking initiatives and fighting corruption, active citizens build mutual recognition among their peers. Third, participation is a form of civic education. It shapes and consolidates the habits of civic virtue. Without effective participation, citizens would be unable to consciously control their political bodies and their own destinies. Finally, political activity is not a mere means to achieve a goal. For Arendt, political engagement is a goal in itself, perhaps the most important goal.

Most modern-day republicans modify Arendt's project and follow the recent trends of democratic theory. They distinguish two major forms of political activity: political deliberation and contestation. Honohan puts stress on the former.⁶²

Deliberative democracy is based on the assumption that political legitimacy is to be found not in representation but in public deliberation. In a free republic, decision making should be a process of public debate:

On this view, public forums should be the main form of political institutions and the primary means for resolving civic disagreements. All citizens would have an equal opportunity to debate their interests and bargain to achieve them.

Philip Pettit and John Maynor develop the idea of contestation as a form of political participation. While public deliberation is a form of direct participation in decision-making procedures, contestation is the ability to monitor and challenge governmental decisions. Pettit argues that the ability to contest political decisions and policies is more fundamental than the ability to vote and actively participate in decision making.⁶⁴

The political process is subject to public criticism by those whose interests are affected by its outcomes. Pettit directly opposes the principles of liberal democracy; according to him, nondominant, nonarbitrary political authority “requires not so much consent as contestability.”⁶⁵ Such authority exercises democratic rule “without unduly forcing institutions.” On this view, government is controlled by the people “to the extent that the people individually and collectively enjoy a permanent possibility of contesting what government decides.”⁶⁶

On the one hand, it is easy to understand why contemporary republicans have welcomed and joined recent discussions on new forms of political participation. Technological advancements in the field of communications have generated new possibilities and have made widespread participation in social debates practicable. As international communications networks develop, international political debates become standard procedure. Political theorists attach great expectations to these advancing technologies. Technological progress has made “globalization from below” an appealing project. Some theorists hope that global communications networks can enhance the prospects for participatory (as opposed to representative) democratic politics. Increasingly, social and civil associations are using the Internet to interact and to spread their ideas. People are better educated, and more information is available to them. They become aware of a variety of issues and can make knowledgeable decisions. Despite the fact that international communications networks are still far from being global—since many countries, comprising roughly three-fourths of the world's population, do not have the necessary resources to join the global community—the required technology is becoming more and more available.

On the other hand, however, it is rather surprising that republicans have embraced the trendy models of deliberative and contestatory democracy. In many respects, the new paradigm flies in the face of fundamental republican principles. Political deliberation is the kind of approach to politics that the republican tradition has emphatically opposed. Civic republicanism is not about rational analysis and seeking political consensus. It is about devoted engagement and loyal service. Republican political discourse excels in rhetorical effectiveness rather than thoughtful philosophical deliberation. Classical republicans did not debate new civic values but demanded unconditional respect for old ones. They did not appeal to tolerance and fairness but to faith and duty. The paradigms of deliberative democracy and civic republicanism are not merely mismatched; they are fundamentally at odds.

Contestatory democracy is even more at odds with republicanism. For classical republicans, the concept of a “contestatory republic” would be a contradiction in terms. Civic activity means protecting and executing the laws of the res publica, not contesting them. Civic virtue means fulfilling duties and responsibilities, not questioning them. In addition, contestation is not a kind of political activity that produces mutual trust and solidarity. As republicans themselves put it, contestation is an expression of distrust toward political institutions.

Finally, there is a serious danger that deliberation and contestation would actually decrease civic participation. While contemporary political theorists and politicians alike complain about too few people participating in elections and other political activities,⁶⁷

one may predict that even fewer citizens might be actively involved in deliberation and contestation. One can easily imagine these new models of democracy leaving a great part of society uninvolved and inactive. Citizens who are not motivated strongly enough to learn about political affairs and devote energy to participating in politics would probably remain passive. Political deliberation demands standards that could be too high for many. Only educated citizens with a substantial knowledge of law, politics, the economy, and current events can effectively deliberate about political decisions and economic policies. There would be a grave danger of a deliberative republic turning into a highly elitist and discriminatory regime dominated by educated experts and talented propagandists.

Thus, attempts to combine the traditional principles of republicanism with the trendy inventions of recent democratic theory are bound to fail. Pettit, Honohan, and Maynor try to make old republican principles more practicable in the contemporary world, but the price they must pay is high. Leaving aside whether the models of deliberative and contestatory democracy are practicable in the first place, their basic assumptions are inconsistent with essential republican values: passionate patriotism, devotion to the res publica, and loyalty, not to mention determination to sacrifice in the name of the common good. As a matter of fact, the contradiction cannot possibly be more acute: contestation and deliberation are closely tied to republicanism's persistent nemesis, the liberal tradition of social contract and political consensus. In their efforts to embrace contestation and deliberation, contemporary republicans seem to be indirectly admitting that some nonrepublican models of civic engagement may be more constructive in today's world.

VI. The Community

The idea that civic participation on the part of ordinary citizens is the essence of community has been a mainstay of the republican tradition. Civic activity creates the realm of civil society. Civic virtue and mutual trust make interpersonal bonds stronger and make civil society work more effectively. Adrian Oldfield presents Machiavelli, Rousseau, Hegel, and de Tocqueville as republicans who distinguished two levels of the republican community. While the res publica is a well-organized political body that secures liberty and executes law, the civitas is a moral community. The republic is a centralized body able to formulate and enforce policies and perform military tasks; civil society is a decentralized social order integrating individual and collective interests. Both elements of the republican community need each other, and neither can exist without civic virtue.

Surprisingly enough, the most recent republican literature pays very little attention to the two-sided character of the republican community. Pettit, Viroli, and Honohan express their distrust toward the decentralized nature of civil society. Pettit declares that “freedom as non-domination is not the sort of good that can be left to people to pursue for themselves in a decentralized way; all the signs are that it is best pursued for each under the centralized, political action of all: it is best pursued via the state.”⁶⁸

For Honohan too, the state must be the catalyst, since “purely social groups do little to encourage political activism.”⁶⁹ Since civil society tends to resemble the functioning of a market, it generates a variety of inequalities and unintentional side-effects. Moreover, the state must be strong. Pettit writes: “[W]e are going to be relatively well-disposed towards giving the state considerable power; we are going to look more fondly on state interference, provided that such interference can be bound by constraints that make it non-arbitrary.”⁷⁰ “A strong and active state,” Honohan believes, is “not a necessary evil but a real asset,”⁷¹ and Maynor adds that it is “a positive force in the everyday lives of individuals.”⁷²

The strong republican state has numerous functions. Broadly speaking, its main goal is to foster the common good. Some elements of that task have already been indicated. The state brings external security and internal political stability. It defends justice and resolves the tensions between particular and common interests. It promotes the idea of liberty as nondomination and constitutes an institutional framework for self-government. By preventing domination, it advances individual autonomy and independence. All forms of political participation, deliberation, and contestation are administered by the state. The economic market is so notoriously ineffective in providing public goods that the state must secure them.⁷³

In order to defend civic equality, the republican state administers taxation and other forms of redistribution, since this might be necessary to provide “the material preconditions for autonomy”⁷⁴ and “to restrict the wealth of the very rich and powerful in order to ensure equal freedom for all.”⁷⁵ The state can intervene when people “are driven or manipulated to act in ways that undermine their autonomy.” Central government is supposed to protect those who are under duress, dominated by others, misled, or disadvantaged in terms of education or access to information, and who therefore act in ways that jeopardize their interests.⁷⁶

Such a radical model would be impossible without intense civic virtue. The moral legitimacy of powerful governmental institutions must be strong enough to make vast state intervention unobjectionable. Civic education is the heart of the matter.⁷⁷

Following the classical teaching of Cicero, Machiavelli, and Rousseau, contemporary republicans elaborately discuss the process of “shaping citizens” and “internalization” of civic norms in a democratic republic.⁷⁸ This is when citizens can be “forced to be free”; they can be encouraged through education to be accountable, dutiful, and loyal. Needless to say, the state manages the system of civic education.⁷⁹ Part of this management, on Pettit's view, would involve sound measures of governmental media regulation.⁸⁰ According to Pettit, the project of strong and virtuous governance may be difficult to accomplish, but it is far from impossible: “the contemporary state … is well up to the task of realizing such an ideal.”⁸¹

Major questions arise concerning the applicability of the ideals of the res publica at the level of nation-states or even on a global scale. Classical republicans considered their ideal polity to be relatively small, similar to the Greek city-states or the early Roman republic. (The utopia of James Harrington's Commonwealth of Oceana [1656], described as a large territorial republic, seems to be the sole exception.) Hannah Arendt intended to rejuvenate the classical model of the republic as a small civic body. For centuries, only in such small communities has intense civic engagement been viable. Self-government is most effective when fellow-citizens are also neighbors and believe that their voices will be heard in the community. Citizens are most willing to get involved in civic discussions when they care about small-scale issues: clean and safe streets, good schools, reliable utility systems, and good local hospitals.

Today, global interdependence makes large-scale problems omnipresent and daunting. Environmental hazards, nuclear risks, terrorist threats, international crime, human rights violations, and genocide require well-organized, usually internationally coordinated, responses. The classical models of the res publica offer no realistic answers to such problems. Given the manifold functions of the state as the primary vehicle of republican politics, should modern-day republicans expand their ideal to encompass strong international, perhaps global, governance? Few people embrace the idea of such a world government as a viable option. For many, the prospect is a frightening one.

Likewise, if we are concerned with problems of governance on a global scale, the republican flirtation with deliberative or contestatory democracy seems to hold little promise. Leaving aside whether the vast structures of deliberative or contestatory democracy could be effectively organized in the first place, they would be extremely hard to manage on a global scale. They might be susceptible to malfunctions and lead to frequent gridlocks, which would be especially dangerous in situations of crisis. In that sense, these new models of the democratic state are essentially incompatible with the republican ideal of decisive and resolute executive power. The republic should be vigorous and dynamic, vehement and forceful. When contemporary republicans reshape the classical republic into a deliberative and contestatory democracy, they have to abandon those traditional ideals. One may expect that politics based mainly on deliberation and contestation would make executive power slower to act and less potent.

Finally, as I have noted, the strong moral and civic bonds among citizens that form the cement of the res publica are hardly imaginable on a very large scale. It is much too early to talk about a “global village” or a “global community,” or about social bonds that extend beyond national and religious borders. It is unclear what such notions as international civic spirit or global solidarity would really mean. The ideas of “enlightened global citizenship” and “commitment to humanity” still sound utopian and resemble the goals of rationalistic liberalism rather than spirited republicanism. A global system of civic education also sounds both unrealistic and unattractive. It is rather disappointing that contemporary republicans do not even try to solve these daunting problems related to civic virtue—the very heart of republicanism.

Thus, on the one hand, the traditional republican conception of the strong state, applied on a global scale, would bring more serious dangers than it would potential advantages. A free and strong global republic, resolutely administering far-reaching economic redistribution or civic education, does not seem to be a real option. On the other hand, the new models of deliberative or contestatory democracy coopted by many contemporary republicans are inconsistent with important republican ideas. The strong republic cannot be based on contestation and deliberation. Devoted civic engagement repudiates rational political deliberation. Contestation does not build strong civic bonds.