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Republicanism and the Political Economy of Democracy
David Casassas, Universitat de Barcelona
Jurgen De Wispelaere, McGill University
Abstract: Europe is experiencing rapidly accelerating poverty and social exclusion,
following half a decade of financial crisis and austerity politics. The key problem behind
Europe’s malaise, in our view, is the economic disenfranchisement of large parts of its
population in the winner-takes-all-society. This paper proposes that we examine the
contribution of republican political theory as a distinctive approach that provides us with
the conceptual and normative resources to reclaim what we call the political economy of
democracy, the constellation of political and economic institutions aimed at promoting
broad economic sovereignty and individuals’ capacities to govern their own lives. In this
paper we identify three key ideas that together constitute a distinctively republican
approach to political economy: establish an economic floor, impose an economic ceiling to
counter excess economic inequality, and democratize the governance and regulation of the
main economic institutions.
Keywords: republicanism, domination, freedom, economic governance, inequality, basic
income
Europe is in turmoil. A little more than half a decade of global financial crisis and a
deep economic slump has seen large swaths of European citizens facing dire economic
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uncertainty and social exclusion. Austerity politics, an unimaginative knee-jerk
response, continues to push already disadvantaged citizens across Europe into
precariousness of a sort not seen since the 1930s. The brunt of the crisis is largely borne
by those who are already struggling, with those at the top (the much maligned One
Percenters) facing little or no adverse effects (Duménil and Lévy, 2013; Sayer, 2014).
The resulting dramatic rise in inequality of economic opportunities, income and wealth
is deeply problematic, morally and politically.
Proposals to keep economic precariousness and inequality in check, let alone
reverse it (e.g., Piketty, 2014), rapidly find themselves gridlocked by a political and
economic elite that has committed itself to riding out austerity policies at all cost for
ideological rather than persuasive economic reasons (Stiglitz, 2010; Krugman, 2013).
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The key problem behind Europe’s malaise, in our view, is the economic
disenfranchisement of large parts of its population in the winner-takes-all-society
(Hacker and Pierson, 2010).
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Against this backdrop, this paper proposes that we
examine the contribution of republican political theory as a distinctive approach that
provides us with the conceptual and normative resources to reclaim what we call the
political economy of democracy, the constellation of political and economic institutions
aimed at promoting broad economic sovereignty and individuals’ capacities to govern
their own lives (Malleson, 2014).
In the wake of Liberalism’s complicity in bringing about the disastrous state of
affairs we find ourselves in and Socialism’s apparent failure to offer a persuasive
alternative, political theorists have started to find inspiration with the earlier tradition of
political thought associated with classical thinkers as diverse as Aristotle, Cicero,
Machiavelli, Harrington, Rousseau, Paine, Robespierre, Jefferson, Madison,
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Wollstonecraft, and so on. This “republican turn” (White 2011) is explored today in the
writings of, amongst others, Philip Pettit, Michael Sandel, Quentin Skinner, Richard
Dagger, Frank Lovett, Stuart White, Antoni Domènech, Alex Gourevitch, Eric
MacGilvray and John McCormick. The attraction of republicanism lies precisely in its
insistence that the core value of being a free person – understood in Pettit’s terms as
being free from alien control or domination – entails the constitution of collective self-
determination. Republicanism is simultaneously a theory of freedom and politics (Pettit,
1997), or put differently an account of freedom through politics.
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This makes it an
appealing starting point for examining the economic conditions of democratic
governance.
The aim of our paper is to build on the work of the republican political theorists
mentioned above by reconsidering the foundations of economic independence as a
condition for freedom from domination and economic sovereignty. We begin in the next
section to briefly outline the political theory of republicanism, as we understand it.
Republicanism of course contains a variety of different ideas, and not all claims are
endorsed by all who self-identify as republicans. Nevertheless, we hope our outline will
sufficiently appeal to those who share our republican intuitions and concerns to form a
basis upon which to build the next sections. The bulk of the paper examines three key
ideas that together constitute the republican political economy of democracy. First,
republican political economy must secure a universal and unconditional economic floor.
Second, republican political economy must ensure that unequal economic opportunities
or power does not impede a person’s freedom from domination, by imposing an
economic ceiling. Third, while economic floors and ceilings are important,
republicanism nevertheless insists that economic sovereignty also be guaranteed in a
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more direct manner, by establishing robust democratic control over the economy. These
three dimensions of economic governance each have spurred a considerable literature.
The main contribution of our paper is to bring them together (albeit summarily) and to
reclaim them as the foundation of a distinctively republican approach to political
economy.
Republicanism as political economy
What is republican political economy? The starting point – as always – is the distinctive
idea of freedom that informs republican political thought.
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Republicanism adopts a
notion of freedom that is distinct from the (more familiar) liberal ideal of freedom from
interference (Pettit, 1997, 2001, 2012). Republican freedom requires not merely the
absence of interference, but also protection against the mere possibility of interference.
Liberal freedom says a person is only unfree when actually interfered with, but
republicans entertain a more demanding view: a person who is placed in a position
whereby a third party (individual or group) can impose their will on her is not
considered free, even if that person refrains from actually interfering. Republican
freedom requires that a person at all times is able to prevent or counter any attempt at
undue interference, not merely its contingent absence. Republicanism and Liberalism
also part ways in relation to what counts as interference. Liberals insist every form of
interference is an infringement of freedom, whereas republicans believe that many
forms of interference are in fact positively sanctioned by the person interfered with.
Interference that is appropriately sanctioned by the individual or group that is subject to
it cannot count as a constraint on freedom. Instead, republicans are only concerned with
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arbitrary interference which does not track the avowed or readily avowable interests of
the person(s) interfered with. They are concerned with what Pettit (2001, 2012) calls
alien control.
Republicanism doesn’t merely give us an idea of what freedom is really about,
but also an account of how to ensure that a free society – a society in which its citizens
are all as equally free as possible – comes about. The republican conception of freedom
as non-domination requires robust institutions that secure that all citizens are free from
domination, both horizontal domination by others (dominium) and vertical state
domination (imperium). Republican institutions come in three main forms. First, there is
the legal regulation of rights (including property rights) as encompassed by the rule of
law. Second, there is the constellation of economic resources (assets) that provide each
citizen with a form of bargaining power to negotiate economic life on free and equal
terms. Third, there is the set of political institutions that provide the opportunity of
citizens to individually and collectively shape the institutional forms of social and
economic life.
Recent republican thinking has been mostly devoted to exploring the rule of law,
and its role in determining when interference counts as arbitrary (Pettit, 2009a; Lovett,
2014, List, 2006), or political mechanisms as a means for protecting citizens against
arbitrary interference (Pettit, 2009b, 2010, 2012). Important as legal and political
institutions are, republican political economy must extend its efforts farther to
theorizing how politics and the law interacts with the economic sphere. This view has
considerable pedigree in the history of political thought (Gargarella, 2012).
Almost all the great theorists of citizenship [...] have believed that in order to be a
citizen of a polis, in order to be able to participate fully in public life, one needed to