Across the globe, authoritarianism is in the ascendancy. As Freedom House have reported, over the last two decades many repressive regimes across the world have increased their domestic power, and amplified the influence of autocratic norms internationally. Moreover, many established democracies are also backsliding, with increasing attacks on civil liberties, marginalised groups, and the rule of law by a series of populist governments in the United States, Europe, and beyond.

With the democratic system under such threat, it is more important than ever to reassert and reconsider its philosophical foundations and to renew our understanding of its core commitments and its practical implications as a system of government. This kind of clear, conceptual articulation is not only vital in order to help promote the normative values associated with democracy, but also to emphasize where our democracies require urgent reinforcement and reimagination.

In this blog, I outline how the republican tradition of political philosophy can support this task, by clarifying the dangers of unchecked, arbitrary power associated with authoritarian politics and illuminating the path towards a deeper, more demanding, democratic model that can respond to the challenges of the twenty-first century.

The recent revival in republican political philosophy is typically traced back to the “Cambridge School” of intellectual historians, including J.G.A Pocock and Quentin Skinner, who since the mid-1970s have helped to excavate a distinctive tradition of thought spanning from Ancient Rome, through sixteenth century Italy, to the English Civil War and the American Revolution. However, it was in the 1990s and 2000s that this republican revival reached a critical momentum, with Philip Pettit in particular developing what has become the most influential and comprehensive articulation of republican ideas within contemporary political philosophy.

According to Pettit, the republican tradition encapsulates three core commitments:

(i) Freedom as non-domination: Republicans have long understood freedom as the absence of domination, or the capacity of powerful agents to exercise unchecked, arbitrary interference over others—especially where this undermines the possibility for intersubjective equality between citizens. Recently, more radical interpretations of republican theory have also acknowledged more impersonal forms of structural domination, including those associated with the systemic disempowerment of workers under capitalism or women in patriarchal societies.

(ii) Suitably republican government: Republicans recognize that that “it is only possible to be free in a free state,” where government power itself does not represent a source of arbitrary power in and of itself. Moreover, to the extent that any interference by the state is non-arbitrary—that is, transparent, applied consistently, and forced to track the interests of those subject to it—it can be considered entirely consistent with, and even constitutive of, individual liberty. As such, republicans have favored forms of constitutionalism that ensure state power is simultaneously constrained, diffused, and channeled towards neutralizing wider sources of domination in society. Typically, this includes maintaining a nonvoluntaristic system of law, institutionally-enforced separation of powers, as well as welfare state measures that help to insulate citizens against arbitrary interference.

(iii) Vigilant citizenship: While the state has the capacity to act as a guarantor of freedom, it nonetheless carries with it the immanent potential for corruption and tyranny. As such, republicanism teaches that “the price of liberty is eternal vigilance,” with an emphasis on the need for citizens themselves to continually guard against the threat of state domination. Within contemporary republican thought, this insight has informed calls for distinctive forms of “contestatory” and participatory democracy, where ordinary citizens have an institutionalized capacity to check and challenge the decision-making of political elites.

Across its long history, such republican ideas have emerged within, and in reaction to, real-world political struggles for emancipation—from autocratic power, imperialism, or the insidious forms of control associated with systems of class, race, and gender.

However, despite the weight of recent academic interest (and innovation) in republican theory, there have seemingly been few contemporary instances where this has practically informed or influenced policymaking. Indeed, there has been no comprehensive translation of what republicanism could mean for contemporary politics in over a decade, with the only previous example (to my knowledge) being Pettit’s own consideration of how republican ideals could inform public policy in mid-2000s Spain.

And yet, as an analytic framework for interpreting, and navigating, our political world, republicanism remains both highly valuable and extremely relevant. This relevance is starkly apparent in an age of resurgent authoritarianism, where the expansion of arbitrary power is becoming increasingly normalized.

At the local level, many communities are exposed to the exigencies of the market, with few democratic mechanisms to influence the future development of their neighborhoods. We see this wherever local residents face being priced out and displaced as a result of gentrification. We see this wherever major employers can cut jobs, or close entire industries completely, with little regard for the communities that have traditionally relied upon them. And likewise, we see it wherever multinational companies seek to wield control over entire urban districts, in an effort to capture the city itself as a source of private profit.

At the national level, we are witnessing the colonization of democratic politics by a more autocratic style of leadership; one that increasingly mimics the culture of private business rather than public service. At its most absurd, this can be seen in the case of Reform UK, a British political party that was run for many years as a private limited company, with its leader as majority shareholder. More seriously still, it can be seen in the authoritarian style of the Trump administration, whose porous relationships with private business and theatrical style of rule by executive order are tangibly eroding the rule of law and testing the independence of public institutions across the United States. This mode of politics appears to thrive in democratic cultures that have been hollowed out by a hegemonic neoliberalism and the idea that we are best able to advance our interests as transactional market actors rather than actively political ones.

At the global level, too, decades of globalization have helped to mobilize capital; enabling multi-national corporations to evade democratic accountability whilst also encouraging an international race to the bottom over labor standards and environmental protections. Simultaneously, we are witnessing a return to a much more explicitly imperialist form of politics on the international stage; with “great powers” free to threaten the self-determination of democracies across the world, from Ukraine to Greenland.

Republican insights help us to decode these phenomena and understand them all as symptoms of the same fundamental problem: domination. Indeed, the opening decades of the twenty-first century have in many ways been defined by the increasing ubiquity, and conspicuousness, of this kind of unchecked power. Whether we focus on algorithmic management in the modern workplace, the perverse wealth of the global “one percent,”  or the autocratic aspirations of political leaders; power appears to be steadily more concentrated, more hierarchical, and more insulated from democratic challenge. It is impossible to live as free and equal citizens under such a shadow.

This descent into authoritarianism and generalized domination is neither inevitable, nor irreversible. An alternative course is possible. Nevertheless, the speed and severity of democratic decline over recent years also emphasizes that the existing (neo)liberal system is ill suited to addressing the critical challenges of twenty-first century politics. Why should we expect a republican alternative to fare any better?

Firstly, by reestablishing freedom as non-domination as a central organizing principle for real-world politics, republicanism can offer a progressive (rather than simply defensive) project for those opposed to authoritarian power. Not only would this help to challenge how the valuable concept of “freedom” has so often been misappropriated by the political right, but it would also help to clearly delineate how power—social and economic, as well as political—should be organized and governed in the future. Whilst we may question whether the abstract philosophical language of “freedom as non-domination” remains the most accessible way to publicly articulate these demands; promoting a republican account of liberty more broadly can nonetheless help to emphasize the manifest dangers of unchecked, arbitrary power in our societies and build the case for an alternative.

Secondly, republicanism forces us to constantly review the kinds of policies, institutions, and constitutional arrangements that may be needed to support our collective freedom from arbitrary power. This insight should encourage us to forcefully rearticulate our expectations for “good government” and highlight the continuing importance of the fair rule of law, strong public regulations, and expansive welfare states in order to address the threat of domination in the twenty-first century. However, beyond simply reinforcing established democratic infrastructures, it will also be necessary to consider new ways to institute effective public control over an increasingly complex, interconnected, and rapidly changing world; not least in the face of an accelerating climate emergency.

Finally, republicanism urges us to revive and nurture a distinctly vigilant form of democratic practice, where citizens themselves play an active role in neutralizing the potential for arbitrary power. At the local level, this could involve a cross-pollination of republican and municipalist insights, with novel forms of participatory democracy and community ownership developed at a neighborhood scale in order to provide citizens a more meaningful voice in local decision-making. At the national level, this thicker conception of democracy will also be required to ensure that the constant, Sisyphean task of maintaining freedom can continue in a world where, as recent events have highlighted, formal institutions are not always enough. Democracy cannot therefore just mean participating in infrequent elections, it must also mean taking the collective action to develop and reinforce the constitutional frameworks that can promote freedom from domination.

At a time when democracy is threatened by an increasingly organized and globally-connected authoritarian tendency, citizens must also look beyond their own walls and understand that freedom at home depends on the freedom of others abroad. In the current climate, this means strengthening forms of transnational solidarity with those committed to the values of liberty and democracy, in opposition to dominating power—wherever this arises, and however it manifests—across the world.

Throughout its history, republicanism has always been a highly dynamic tradition of political thought; constantly responsive to different social and political contexts, as well as our evolving understanding of domination and its sources. In an increasingly authoritarian age, the moment is ripe for another republican revival; one that can help us to rearticulate the problem of unchecked, arbitrary power and guide us towards a world of greater freedom for all. However, if it is to be effective, this revival must not just take place in the cloisters of academia, but in the popular discourses of real-world politics too.