Republicanism (a theory about freedom and government)

Author: (Australia) Pettit, P. (Author), Liu Xunlian (Translator)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-10-01
Features: The revival of civic republicanism has now been half a century. Over the past half-century, Western political philosophy and ideology have formed a historical tapestry of rise and fall, with one dominating discourse replaced by another. Yet, the grand revival of civic republicanism has not only maintained its momentum despite the passage of time and the ever-changing landscape of academic discourse but has also exerted an increasingly profound influence across multiple levels and broad fields, including the history of political thought, American constitutional law, political philosophy, and even empirical research. The revival of republicanism has become one of the most notable phenomena in contemporary Western academia. At this moment, Pettit's controversial democracy may be even more worthy of emphasis. In a context where a healthy rational consensus has yet to be formed, and even the motivation to form such a consensus remains insufficiently stimulated, while the false "prior consensus" remains unchallenged, is controversial democracy not more targeted or more capable of stimulating the motivation to form a rational consensus than deliberative democracy? This book begins with the republican concept of freedom, elucidating key theoretical issues such as the division between negative and positive liberty, freedom from domination, domination as a political ideal, the egalitarian ideal of the community, the communitarian ideal of the community, the republican destination, constitutionalism and democracy, the repressive mechanisms of the republic, and the civic mechanisms of the republic, proposing a republican theory of freedom and government. This book has been translated into multiple languages and is one of Pettit's important works.