European Republicanism: the past and the Potential

Abstract

In this paper, I provide a sketch of the European republican view of freedom and government, marking out its appearance and development in Ireland. And then, looking forward, I highlight the potential of this long, shared tradition of thinking for contemporary politics. As a philosophy of government, I argue, neo-republicanism offers a very attractive alternative to the neo-liberalism that has been recently dominant in policy circles.1 The paper is in three main sections. In the first, I provide a short history of classic republican thinking in Europe and Ireland. In a second, briefer section, I describe the rise of classical liberalism, which displaced republican thought over the following century. And in the third, I look at the alternatives represented in contemporary thought by neo-republicanism and neoliberalism, highlighting what I see as the advantages of the neo-republican approach.