Courses

The course is divided into two main parts. The first half examines features of classical republicanism and its developments from Greece and Rome up to the late eighteenth century. We will analyze the relationship between ethics and politics, the significance of the mixed constitution, the problem of political instability, the role of character in political action, and the relationship between virtuous citizens, good arms and good laws. The second half will be more issue-based, as we will examine the resurgence of republicanism in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, in part as a critique of liberal democracy. We will explore the efforts to define "republican" freedom, the relationship between equality and freedom (and the challenges posed by the market and inequality in resources), the relationship between republicanism and democracy, and the role and nature of civic virtue. The class will end with consideration of recent efforts on the part of some political theorists to redefine patriotism or loyalty to one's particular state in the modern world and to think about what republicanism might require on a global scale.