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Daniel Leighton
© Daniel Leighton 2007
The present feels like one of those historical moments where, to quote Gramsci, 'the old is dying and the new cannot be born'. The old is the crumbling neo-liberal consensus that attempted to atomise society into competing rational utility maximisers and reduce the public realm into a dumping ground for market failure. The new that is struggling to be born is an alternative modernity with robust public institutions that can help us negotiate difference, diversity and the unequal power relationships that traverse every domain of contemporary society. I argue below that we should draw on recent 'neo-republican' thinking to guide us in making this re-imagined public domain. For it offers what was so glaringly absent from New Labour's Third Way, namely a robust theory of the common good and the institutional and socio cultural requirements for articulating and sustaining it.
Retrieving and
reassembling the republican puzzle
The word Republicanism tends to connote either anti-monarchism or what
Bruce Ackerman calls 'polis envy': well intentioned but hopelessly idealistic
calls for active citizenship in a fragmented and individualised world.
Yet anti-monarchism is by no means the common trait linking thinkers
as diverse as Aristotle, Machiavelli, Rousseau and Arendt into something
that can still be identified as a 'republican tradition'. Moreover while
active citizenship is certainly an important element in all republican
thinking it is only one piece of a larger puzzle. The historical reconstruction
of this puzzle has provided the impetus for one of the most significant
developments in political philosophy in the past three decades. The
key, though by no means only, figures in this endeavour have been the
historian Quentin Skinner and the political philosopher Philip Pettit.
I draw from their work to sketch out some key republican themes that
I believe could be of use in informing an alternative modernity.
Quentin Skinner's work (for more on Skinner see Wikipedia) has retrieved a hitherto underlooked republican discourse of liberty and the common good which emerged in 17th century England during the civil war. He claims that this was both distinct and superior to the liberal discourse that eventually took hold in the 18th century. It was moreover this discourse that fuelled the French and American revolutions, long regarded as the touchstones of political modernity. Phillip Pettit uses this history to construct a contemporary republican political philosophy which he argues provides a superior framework for dealing with contemporary social problems and aspirations than those offered by neo-liberal or communitarian alternatives. At the same time it offers a more nuanced understanding of power than the power-blind Third Way on one the hand, and the total critique of power that underpins much neo-marxist theorising on the other.
Putting the
public good back in to the public realm
I concentrate below on three interlinked elements of this 'neo-republican'
approach: the common good, liberty as 'non-domination' and the institutional
and cultural strategies for sustaining it. Etymologically 'republic'
means 'public thing' and a republican political system serves the good
of and belongs to all citizens, as opposed to that of a factional group
or ruling individual. For neo-republicans the common good is best defined
as the common interest that each citizen has in being a free individual.
Yet in contrast to liberal accounts, the goods provided by the state
and participation in public affairs become constitutive of freedom rather
something we accept as a grim but necessary trade off between liberty
and security. Liberty is made possible by certain institutional and
social arrangements, rather than impeded by them.
Building on Skinner's notion of 'liberty before liberalism' Pettit has attempted to advance a theory that is irreducible to either negative (freedom as non-interference) or positive (freedom as self mastery) conceptions of liberty. In essence republican liberty consists in freedom from domination, which is defined as arbitrary interference. The key claim is that 'non-domination' is a more exacting standard than the liberal one of 'non-interference' and less demanding than socialist calls for 'self mastery'.
In liberal thought we are free even if there is a power that may interfere with us (such us an unregulated employer in the case of an employee, a landlord in the case of a tenant or a party whip in the case of a backbench MP ), as long as that power does not actually interfere. For a republican we are not free if there is a power that dominates us, even where that power does not for the time being interfere. Crucially, however, if interference is non-arbitrary it does not undermine liberty. As Adam Tomkins puts it, "the point of our freedom is not that it should not be interfered with but that when it is (necessarily, inevitably interfered with) the interference comes from a source whose authority over us is legitimate rather than illegitimate…This means authority which is neither arbitrary nor capricious, but which is reasoned and is contestable at the instigation of those who are subject to it" (Our Republican Constitution, Hart Publishing, 2005 ) This is a more exacting standard as non-domination requires not only an absence of arbitrary interference but "positive security'" against arbitrary interference. This notion of 'positive security' against domination offers a fruitful starting point for rethinking the aim, role and reach of political institutions in a way that is socially radical, inherently dynamic and pluralistic. It is socially radical, since it "requires not just the absence of arbitrary interference but the absence of capacities for arbitrary interference across social domains", for which the state, on the proviso that it is non-dominating, can and should play a central role. In turn it is a dynamic ideal, as the pattern of such capacities is constantly changing. It is a plural ideal as it provides a language to articulate a range of different grievances resulting from disparities of power in different social contexts.
Yet if the republican state is to create the conditions that prevent citizens from dominating each other in social and economic life this can only be done legitimately if it is itself structured so that it has a non-dominating relationship to its citizens. According to Pettit this means a State that is subject to the rule of law, the separation and dispersal of power, the screening for virtuous officials and sanctioning of corrupt ones, is insulated from the sway of big business, and above all one that provides channels for citizens to deliberate and contest the laws and policies under which they are to live. This is where the familiar civic republican call for active and other regarding citizens comes in to play. Where issues are of public concern citizens must be prepared to refine their individual preferences in light of the interests and needs of others. In turn if citizens do not contest arbitrary actions of the state it makes it less likely that it will serve the common good. There is thus a cultural requirement to educate citizens to be both vigilant of arbitrary power and public spirited in the way they deliberate with each other. This must be matched with institutionalised arenas and opportunities for deliberation and contestation of all state decisions.
As Stuart White points out, moderating inequality of wealth (not just income but property) would be a central requirement for both non-domination in social life and the maintenance of public spirited political participation in the common good (for a masterful overview and critique of recent republican thinking see his article "Is Republicanism the Lefts' 'Big Idea'?" ). As he suggests: "Even if the republican regime does not collapse into tyranny, its operation can be slowly but surely corrupted by the way wealth inequality distorts public deliberation. Not least, wealth inequality can lead directly to relationships of domination. If the poor rely on the rich for subsistence, then the rich can use this dependency to lord it over the lives of the poor. This is bad in itself and bad for political equality"
Even if we disagree with the heavy emphasis Pettit puts on the State for securing 'non-domination (other writers influenced by republicanism have stressed the importance of the 'counter power' of civil society groups to take on domination by economic elites) I think the concept gives progressives a powerful way to articulate a public philosophy that undermines the neo-liberal stranglehold over the meaning of individual freedom.
A Neo-republican
critique of the present
Despite being in power for a decade New Labour has failed to develop
a coherent political philosophy of public life and the common good.
There has been much talk of community and some policy aimed at achieving
'active citizenship'. Yet in the absence of a coherent public philosophy
the activity of the state has been driven by two imperatives that have
trumped all others: efficiency (defined according to market criteria
of productivity and consumer satisfaction) and security (defined in
the sense of protection from terrorism from without and anti-social
behaviour and crime from within).
When this state of affairs is assessed according the criteria set above we see how these imperatives undermine many of the basic republican requirements for articulating and sustaining the common good. In effect the 'common good' has been determined from above by the state as the delivery of security and economic growth, despite the fact that these imperatives may undermine peoples ability to live free lives. The imperative of security post 9/11 has enabled the state to extend it's authority in ways that constantly increase it's scope for arbitrary interference. In turn the attempt to model the state on the private sector, which has involved bringing business leaders in to the heart of government, has meant we have witnessed the "corrupting effects of extreme wealth on deliberative democratic politics" again and again. In turn the spread of flexible labour markets and the inequality of wealth that has grown under New Labour has effectively created more people who are dominated by employer or welfare bureaucrat. These imperatives of security and efficiency have been determined by a closed partnership between political, economic and media elites. This shows the crucial importance between non domination and open deliberative forms of democratic rule, or what White calls procedural goods, which enable citizen to participate in the making of decisions and the way goals are pursued.
Up to now New Labour has failed to constitute the State so that it is non-dominating or shown much interest in using it to undermine the relationships of domination that characterise so many areas of contemporary society. As such it has further undermined confidence in the pubic realm and the possibility that the State could be an agent of progressive change. In contrast, a reform strategy guided by neo Republican insights could offer a crucial framework for rebuilding and re-imagining the public institutions and culture decimated by thirty years of neo-liberal hegemony.
Daniel Leighton is reviews editor for Renewal: The Journal of Social Democracy and a researcher for the Power Inquiry.
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