Posted by Jacob T. Levy:
Newly posted:
The paper I've been writing this summer instead of blogging (where are
my priorities?) is [1]now online.
"Beyond Publius: Montesquieu, liberal republicanism, and the
small-republic thesis"
Abstract: The idea that republicanism as a form of government was
only suitable for small states, given its definitive 18th-century
formulation by Montesquieu, rested in that formulation on three
major pillars: the difficulty of sustaining public-spirited virtue
in the face of diversity of interests and inequality of fortunes;
the problem of knowing the public interest when citizens'
circumstances varied; and the danger posed to republican government
by a large state's large armed forces. The first two worries
declined as republican theory changed from classical and civic to
modern and liberal, a change associated with Hume's and Publius'
re-understanding of faction and interest in large republics. But
Publius did not offer the only, or the final, defense of large
republics. Other liberal republicans understood the problems
differently, or denied that there as a problem at all. The
intertwined problems of executive-legislative and civil-military
relations, the worry that republicanism in large states would end
in military rule � la Caesar, Cromwell, or Bonaparte, stimulated
continuing work in constitutional theory decades after The
Federalist. Accordingly, even among those who endorsed the new
logic of faction, institutional remedies for the problems facing
large republics remained, with particular dispute over federalism,
the makeup of the executive, and the creation of a neutral or
conservation-preserving power. This paper aims to broaden our view
of the shift in republican constitutional thought beyond Hume and
Publius; to bridge the Atlantic gap in our understanding of late
18th-century constitutional thought; and to show the breadth of the
rejection of civic republican assumptions as well as the range of
thought about institutional design in the era.
References
1.
http://archive.allacademic.com/publication/getfile.php?file=supporting_docs/apsa_supporting_proceeding/2004-08-20/1188/apsa_supporting_proceeding_1188.pdf&PHPSESSID=18c6772b8ee63432d6bbcee4149ed0bf
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