In recent years, there has been a wide-ranging debate about the neo-republican principle of non-domination. Neo-republicans argue that domination is a capacity for one to intentionally use arbitrary power to interfere in someone’s life. Critics of neo-republicanism argue that this definition of freedom as non-domination precludes a structural analysis of domination, which would explain and critique the ways in which societies produce structural domination unintentionally. The article focuses on capitalism’s labor process and its labor markets. It argues that critics are (...) correct to think that the neo-republican principle of non-domination has an insufficient scope, but that an alternative account of structural domination should still support the neo-republican idea that agency must be involved. Otherwise, we might simply fail to explain the social processes that reproduce structural domination. What is needed is to explain how the labor process creates incentives for agents to intentionally produce structures that have unintended, yet dominating effects, and in turn, how the intentions of agents are conditioned by their social positions. Domination is thus agential and structural. (shrink)

Republicanism is an approach within political theory that seeks to secure the values of political liberty and non-domination. Yet, in historical practice, early modern republics developed empires and secured their liberty through policies that dominated others. This contradiction presents challenges for how neo-Roman theorists understand ideals of liberty and political freedom. This article argues that the historical practices of slavery and empire developed concurrently with the normative ideals of republican liberty. Republican liberty does not arise in the absence of power (...) but is inherently connected to the exercise of power. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 1, February 2019, Page 20-39.

This article critically engages with Philip Pettit’s republican political philosophy, and with his republican theory of democracy in particular. After a brief summary of Pettit’s conceptualisation of freedom as non-domination, the paper focuses on the question as to which institutional arrangement Pettit considers commensurate with this normative ideal. The paper prepares the ground for a critical reconstruction of Pettit’s theory of democracy by highlighting the understanding of democracy in the republican tradition within which Pettit aims to develop his contemporary theory (...) of democracy. The reconstruction leads to the argument that Pettit, in neo-Roman republican tradition, has written “the people” as a transformative actor out of the script of democratic theory. (shrink)