Republicanism

Quentin Skinner is the Barber Beaumont Professor of the Humanities at Queen Mary, University College London. He is the author of numerous books and articles on early modern political thought and is a founder of the so-called ‘Cambridge School’ of the history of political thought.

This interview, conducted by Teresa Bejan with Professor Skinner at his home in London in March 2011, is our longest yet. We’ll be publishing it in two parts: the first on Prof. Skinner’s research and method is below, and the second, on his own intellectual context, will follow in December.

En la teoría política cristiano-occidental se ha entendido al
político como a un servidor que debía prestar a su señor auxilio y consejo.
Lo primero empezó siendo ayuda militar para después derivar hacia la
fórmula del servicio económico. Lo segundo era apoyar a dicho señor (casi
siempre un rey) en sus labores de gobierno y gestión. Así, los políticos, los
ministros, los oficiales, eran, primordialmente, consejeros, administraban o
intermediaban dicho servicio real o público. Las reflexiones sobre el particular,
desde la óptica del habitus, servirán para entender mejor los grupos
dirigentes y oligárquicos, y de su labor y justificación frente al aparato
real. De hecho, la tratadística sobre el consejo y los consejeros constituyó
todo un subgénero de la literatura política de la que participaron junto a
los castellanos otros tantos súbditos de la Monarquía Hispánica. En este análisis se trazan dos líneas no siempre fáciles de deslindar. Por una parte,
la consideración de los consejeros desde arriba, como apoyo al gobierno
principesco mediante el sistema polisinodial; aquí encontraremos a autores
como Furio Ceriol, Madariaga, Ramírez de Prado, Álamo de Barrientos
y Mártir Rizo, los cuales acusan numerosas influencias de Erasmo, Vives,
Bodin, Lipsio, Chokier de Surlet y Simancas. Y, por otra parte, los que
propugnan posturas más republicanas o ciudadanas, entre los que hay
que destacar a Costa Beltrán, Castilla Aguayo, Ballesteros Saavedra y
Acevedo Salamanca.

In the Christian-Western political theory has been understood
as a political server should provide his lord help and advice. The first
began as military aid and then drift into the economic service. The second
was to support this lord (usually a king) in their governance and management tasks. So, politicians, ministers, officers were primarily councillors, administered or intermediated this royal or public service. The reflections on the matter from the perspective of the habitus, helps understanding social leaders and oligarchies, and its work and justification against the real device. In fact, the treatises about the councillors was an entire subgenre of political literature of which the castilians participated with other subjects of the Hispanic Monarchy. In this work two not always easy to delimit lines are drawn. On the one hand, consideration of the councillors from above as support for the princely government by polisinodial system; here we find authors like Furio Ceriol, Madariaga, Ramirez de Prado, Álamo
de Barrientos and Mártir Rizo, all have numerous influences of Erasmus,
Vives, Bodin, Lipsius, Chokier de Surlet and Simancas. On the other hand,
those who advocate more republican or civic positions, among which we
should mention to Costa Beltrán, Castilla Aguayo, Ballesteros Saavedra
and Acevedo Salamanca.

Northern Irish people still hide secrets behind doors because of the fear of potential resurfacing of conflicts. The changes brought about by “the Good Friday Agreement (GFA)” present a lack of equality in terms of housing, employment, healthcare, politics, and education. Nowadays, the North illustrates cracks everywhere as a backlash from the errors of the past.
The creation of modern Belfast will not change stories, because memories maintain people aware of the suffering that they had to pass through. Indeed, Eibhlin is going to talk about the reasons why the government should remember the struggles of its people, from the BallyMurphy Massacre to the Hunger Strikes.

מאמר זה בוחן את המושג רפובליקניזם, בפרט אל מול המושג לאומיות, ומסיק שישראל זקוקה לתודעה רפובליקנית אך כזו המחזקת את הלאומיות ולא באה תחתיה.
חלקו הראשון של מאמר זה (סעיפים א-ג) מתאר את ליבת העמדה הרפובליקנית ואת הגרסאות השונות לה זכתה במחקר ובהגות הנאו-רפובליקנית בעשורים האחרונים. עיון זה מלמד שהעמדה הרפובליקנית איננה בהכרח חלופה ללאומיות ובגרסאות מסוימות שלה היא אף השלמה נדרשת עבורה.
בחלקו השני (סעיפים ד-ה) המאמר בוחן את את היתכנותו של רפובליקניזם לאומי מתוך המסורת היהודית ומתוך המחשבה הציונית. הוא מתאר את קיומם של יסודות רפובליקניים במחשבה היהודית אך גם מבהיר מדוע נדרש מאמץ פרשני וחינוכי לשם הטמעתם בחשיבה הישראלית.
חלקו השלישי של המאמר (סעיפים ו-ז) מנתח את השימוש הכושל בשיח על רפובליקניזם סביב הדיון על לימודי האזרחות בישראל, וכן בוחן את המשמעות המיטיבה האפשרית של תודעה רפובליקנית עבור מיעוטים במדינת לאום ובפרט עבור ערביי ישראל.

We tend to think of freedom as something that is best protected by carefully circumscribing the boundaries of legitimate state activity. But who came up with this understanding of freedom, and for what purposes? In a masterful and surprising reappraisal of more than two thousand years of thinking about freedom in the West, Annelien de Dijn argues that we owe our view of freedom not to the liberty lovers of the Age of Revolution but to the enemies of democracy.

The conception of freedom most prevalent today—that it depends on the limitation of state power—is a deliberate and dramatic rupture with long-established ways of thinking about liberty. For centuries people in the West identified freedom not with being left alone by the state but with the ability to exercise control over the way in which they were governed. They had what might best be described as a democratic conception of liberty.

Understanding the long history of freedom underscores how recently it has come to be identified with limited government. It also reveals something crucial about the genealogy of current ways of thinking about freedom. The notion that freedom is best preserved by shrinking the sphere of government was not invented by the revolutionaries of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries who created our modern democracies—it was invented by their critics and opponents. Rather than following in the path of the American founders, today’s “big government” antagonists more closely resemble the counterrevolutionaries who tried to undo their work.

En España hubo una época, lejana ya, en la cual la historia política contemporánea era, en gran medida, una historia de los aparatos institucionales del Estado y de los actores que en ellos operaban cuando no, de manera complementaria a la anterior, un ejercicio académico, más o menos depurado y/o creativo, del ámbito de la sociología política conocido como estasiología. En esos tiempos, en los que se privilegiaba el análisis de la vida política oficial, el interés por el republicanismo en tanto que cultura, movimiento social o espacio en el que la actividad asociativa concitaba un estilo de vida y unas determinadas expectativas de futuro era más bien escaso. Lo republicano era, en el pasado de España, una extravagancia, por lo demás asociada a contumaces fracasos, y no ocupaba, en las aproximaciones al mismo, más que un lugar accesorio. Tan ocasional era la aproximación al republicanismo cuanto lo había sido la relación del mismo con los ámbitos gubernativos del Estado liberal, tanto en sus primeras fases como en los años cenitales del régimen de la Restauración o en sus estertores primorriveristas. La magra atención al republicanismo quedó atrás. Desde el terreno de interacción de la historia social con la cultural se salió al encuentro del dato republicano hasta incorporarlo a las interpretaciones de la contemporaneidad hispana. Clave en la apertura de los estudios fue, junto a las interrogaciones que se formulaban nuevas generaciones de historiadores, el impacto que tuvo el concepto de experiencia. Una noción que ahora ha sido usada para dar visibilidad, en forma de libro, a los trabajos de un proyecto de investigación que, dirigido por Juan Sisinio Pérez Garzón, se propuso explorar los espacios de interacción entre los combates seculares por la libertad y los procesos de modernización política social y cultural. No está de más recordar que el concepto de experiencia impactó, de manera epidérmica en unos casos, sustantiva en otros, por diversas vías. La pluralidad, que en ocasiones se pierde de vista, esas fuentes nos retrotraerían al Maurice Agulhon de La République au village, a E.P. Thompson y las posteriores enmiendas de Perry Anderson y William H. Sewell. La experiencia irrumpiendo y reclamando una creciente centralidad explicativa desbordó la historia política más clásica — versiones tardías de lo que vendría a ser una historia whig adaptada a las singularidades nacionales— y, además, chocó de frente con algunas de las aproximaciones de impronta marxista estructural. El ser social, experiencia mediante, determinaba la conciencia social. Una conciencia para la cual eran determinantes, ahora sí, tanto las resistencias que se formulaban desde y en el republicanismo como los instrumentos de defensa y los proyectos para un porvenir gestados en el seno de un radicalismo liberal orientado, o abierto en sus sectores más tibios y/o individualistas, a la reforma social. El nudo a deshacer consistió en la minusvaloración de las dimensiones psicológicas, culturales y éticas de la acción social. La opción por la experiencia fue, con todas sus limitaciones e inevitables malentendidos, decisiva para el éxito de los estudios sobre el republicanismo en un país sin apenas repúblicas. Se trataba de rescatar las razones plurales del ayer. La experiencia republicana remitía al análisis del conflicto social, a las mentalidades y a las prácticas de sociabilidad, a los lenguajes y los discursos, a las biografías heterodoxas, al combate secular por la ampliación de las posibilidades de participación, y lo hacía desde la periferia del sistema político liberal y atendiendo a actores minusvalorados. El libro que aquí referimos no explora, o no lo hace de forma directa, el andamiaje conceptual republicano. Lo que procura es abordar las plurales experiencias sociales que hemos referido en el párrafo anterior y en todo caso a través de ellas acercarnos al armazón republicano. En buena medida, y en tanto que obra colectiva, el volumen recoge aportaciones de casi todas las tareas anunciadas. Pérez Garzón propone, para enmarcarlas, un análisis secular que lleva desde las Cortes de Cádiz hasta los años treinta del siglo XX. La propuesta, razonada, consiste en afirmar las raíces del republicanismo en un liberalismo radical que va configurando su programa en función de las luchas políticas y sociales que acaecen en las sucesivas coyunturas. Un programa en el que, de manera tan temprana como coincidiendo con los primeros procesos de transferencia a la nación de

Este artigo trata das principais disputas por terra desde as décadas de 1940 e 1950 na região conhecida pelo nome de Sertão Carioca (atual Zona Oeste da cidade) até 2010. Região cuja memória histórica sempre procurou notabilizar figuras de maior relevo social e econômico como antigos barões do café e líderes políticos tradicionais, também foi palco de lutas envolvendo pequenos lavradores e moradores de favelas. É sobre a memória dessas lutas esquecidas que esse artigo se debruça, procurando evidenciar ao longo de sete décadas o fio condutor que liga as lutas do passado com os conflitos do presente.

Loin des tentatives classiques de construction d’une histoire homogene du republicanisme, cet ouvrage demultiplie les analyses de cas aussi riches que diverses, s’inscrivant ainsi dans la litterature contemporaine qui voit le republicanisme non comme un programme, mais comme un langage. Le republicanisme est ainsi apprehende comme un projet multiple qui a su faire face a des contextes historiques varies et qui peut fournir des reponses a des problematiques contemporaines : solidarite, laicite...

In this short piece I argue that recent acts of naming the Irish Republic,
either as a “Vulture Republic”, or as a “Republic of Opportunity”, stand as
linguistic attempts to resolve the ongoing housing crisis in Ireland, which
has its roots in the financial crash of 2008. More than that, however, in
such names we find potential avenues for populist action towards a more
egalitarian and just society.

A statement like ‘a person who commits a crime can be prosecuted, convicted, and punished by the government’ is comprehensible only with a host of assumptions, each of which may be questioned. For instance, why does there have to be a response at all by anyone to the crime? Why is it that the government – and not a private individual or individuals – does the responding? Why is it a particular government and not some other one? Why is it that this particular process is called the criminal process, and why does it look the way it does? Why is it that this particular response is called ‘punishment,’ and why does it look the way it does? And is there another way altogether? Can we imagine changes, both big and small? How should we go about thinking about such changes? None of these questions are easy to answer. There are many different ways to go about answering them, and  fierce disagreements are to be expected. However, there are few works out there that are as intelligent, coherent, and comprehensive at addressing these questions as R.A. Duff’s The Realm of Criminal Law. This review essay describes the main argumentative thread of the book, raises some questions, offers a few remarks, and ends with the suggestion that the book may be fairly read as an abolitionist text.

This article outlines a republican perspective on disability policy. Committed to ensuring the freedom-as-nondomination of disabled citizens, such a republican perspective first offers a particular diagnosis of the injustice of disability disadvantage, both in relation to individuals (dominium) and the state (imperium). Next we argue that a republican perspective may be able to sidestep some perverse implications of social contract approaches to social justice, and capable of offering a robust philosophical foundation for a theory of justice for disabled citizens. Finally, we offer a brief outline of republican remedies, grounded in the twin principles of civic participation and democratic contestation, that ought to guide robust institutional protection of disabled citizens’ republican freedom.

In 1795 the old Republic of the Seven United Provinces collapsed, and Dutch revolutionaries founded a new, ‘‘Batavian’’ Republic. This essay reexamines the Batavian appreciation of the example of the American Revolution by focusing on one specific political phenomenon that troubled both the American and the Batavian minds: the problem of faction in republican states. I will show how the Batavians were introduced to the now famous Madisonian theory of faction by the Dutch federalist Gerhard Dumbar, a supporter of the American Constitution who wrote a Dutch anthology of the Federalist Papers. Subsequently, I will trace the Batavian understanding of factionalism as it was displayed in the parliamentary debates of the Dutch National Assembly and in the political weekly De Democraten. In the last section, I will turn to the Dutch revolutionary events of the year 1798 and their relevance for the Batavian answer to the problem of faction, which will lead me to conclude that the American alternative to an understanding of faction was ultimately rejected by all sides in the Dutch revolutionary debate.

This paper examines Francesco Guicciardini's various efforts to engage, evade or protest Machiavelli's arguments concerning social class, the constitution of liberty and preferable forms of tyranny in his "Considerations on Machiavelli's Discourses" [1530].1 As a prominent Florentine ottimato and a dutiful servant of Medici princes, Guicciardini might be fully expected to resist or refute Machiavelli's frequent endorsements of the moral, cognitive and even pragmatic superiority of peoples over nobilities and princes. Additionally, Guicciardini's antipopular orientation may have been inflamed at the time that he wrote the "Considerations" since

The radical ideas of the French Revolution are generally regarded as the offspring of the theory of social contract. However, even though the Revolutionaries cherished Rousseau’s legacy, the period was not without instances in which this legacy could be subject to variation and the notion of social contract could be attributed, in a decidedly negative tone, less to Rousseau than to Hobbes. In this context, the present study of Jean-Baptiste Salaville’s L’Homme et la société, ou nouvelle théorie de la nature humaine et de l’état social (1799) demonstrates that the idea of natural sociability could provide an opportunity to elaborate a radical republican future without the notion of social contract. Salaville’s political vision, built on the tradition of natural jurisprudence, posited a new idea of the general will and empiricist legislation in the last days of the French Revolution.

Numbers to narratives; a journey through the epistemological landscape.
Conflicts ignite due to complex and contested motives; statistics tell us of the breadth of casualties and scope of cleavages, but they don’t tell us why peace agreements breakdown. Statistics tell us a “how many story”, which leaves out hidden answers and elaborate agendas.  Qualitative analysis is in its ascendancy but which method suits the topic?  Can bias really be bracketed; are researchers able to bracket off their own feelings and opinions? 
This presentation is an insight into the epistemological shift necessary to take when engaging in Interpretative phenomenological analysis, from now on described as IPA.  It is also an acknowledgement of the flexible nature of statistics and how they can be used as a subjective tool in mixed method analysis.
The focus of this presentation is divided into two parts: The argument for more interpretative phenomenological analysis research in politics, peace studies and international relations and, secondly, details of the research being undertaken as a case study to further prove the need for and explain the methodological stance necessary for IPA.
The research has three strands, which will be drawn together to create the main body of work:  firstly what is reconciliation? There are varying academic accounts proposing what reconciliation is as a concept; this research will draw on the recognized and examined aspects of the concept and aims to build on this prior research using ‘The Reconciliation Pyramid’ (Auerbach, 2009).  Secondly participant narratives; who tells the stories, which frame the continued animosity and violent flare ups in Northern Ireland?  There are three intertwining, yet contested, narratives regarding Northern Ireland, told from three perspectives. What are these narratives, who identifies with them and is there any room for integration between these narratives? Finally can the participants be located on the Pyramid? The Pyramid will be used as a framework to investigate where the participants believe their respective communities can be placed.  The Pyramid is a clear representation of the phases adversaries must pass on their way to reconciliation at its apex.

Partiendo del análisis de cómo la crisis de las monarquías ibéricas desatada por la invasión napoleónica a la península impactó de diferente manera a los territorios ultramarinos, se comparan los procesos de independencia de Hispanoamérica con el caso chileno. Se muestra la disyuntiva de las elites que los lideraban con respecto a la forma de gobierno a adoptar en los estados independientes, ya fuera esta una monarquía o la república. En el caso de la opción republicana, se abrió inmediatamente una nueva discusión en torno a una organización política centralista o federal de gobierno. Chile pasó por la misma posibilidad de implantar un régimen federal, pero la mayoría conservadora estableció una República centralista estable a partir de 1830, centrada en el surgimiento de un nuevo orden jurídico formador de virtudes cívicas para el pueblo. Si bien las categorías de patria y de nación actuaban como elementos aglutinadores, las primeras décadas del Chile independiente se afirmaron sobre la construcción de la República.

Manuel Baiôa, “Jorge de Vasconcelos Nunes. Presidente da Câmara dos Deputados (1-8-1921 │ 17-9-1921)” in Fernando de Sousa e Conceição Meireles Pereira (Coor.); António José Queiroz (Org.), Os Presidentes do Parlamento Português, Vol. II – I República (1910-1926), Lisboa, Assembleia da República, 2012, pp. 371-384

From a staunchly Republican family, Michael O’Hanrahan’s outwardly quiet and serious demeanour concealed a burning desire to see an independent Ireland. He was instrumental in setting up the first branch of the Gaelic League in Carlow. Michael also helped found the workingman’s club in Carlow, which he left when they decided to admit a British soldier. After moving to Dublin, he played important roles in both Sinn Fein and the Irish Volunteers. As quartermaster of the Volunteers, he was responsible for the procurement of many of the arms used in the Easter Rising. Michael O’Hanrahan was also a talented journalist and novelist whose development was cut short by his execution in 1916.

In this new biography Conor Kostick brings to life a man who helped launch the 1916 Rising.

The paper examines the changing conceptions of international arbitration in french pacifism in the second half of the 19th century. In these years pluralist interpretations of arbitration as a conflict resolution scheme comporting an element of consent and negociation replace hierarchical schemes centered on the supreme autority of the arbitrator.

... These are legitimate in themselves, representing pre-political individuality, political equality being a mere corrective complement to them. ... It will alert to social difference by realising a political association through publicity of government and consul-tation of the citizens (1794 ...

The year 2020 marks the 250th anniversary of the infamous 'Boston Massacre', when British soldiers shot dead five civilians on the night of 5 March 1770. Boston, which maintains a 'Freedom Trail' marking key locations of the American Revolution in the city, is commemorating the Massacre with a series of events (Revolution 250, https://revolution250.org).
    As discontent with British rule in the American colonies grew in the 1760s, Irish patriots such as Charles Lucas (1713-1771) naturally felt sympathy for the Americans and considered that they shared a common cause. In the wake of the massacre, the citizens appointed a committee composed of James Bowdoin, Dr Joseph Warren and Samuel Pemberton. The committee’s task was to investigate the killings and to compile a ‘full and just representation’ of what had occurred.
    Lucas was among those to whom the committee members sent their account of the Massacre, which the Irish patriot arranged to have reprinted in Dublin in 1770. In the same year Lucas sent a sympathetic letter in reply to the Bostonians in which he declared that if the Government of Britain should oppress and plunder its dependencies, ‘the Bond of filial Affection and Duty, as well as of Allegiance must be cancelled’, a statement which could be interpreted as a justification of revolution. Lucas’s interesting but little-known 1770 letter to the Boston Massacre Committee, one of his last compositions, is now reprinted in full from the pages of the Freeman’s Journal as a contribution to the 250th anniversary commemoration of the event.

El presente artículo tiene como objetivo mostrar cómo la presencia de dos ideas en el pensamiento político de muchos filósofos modernos y contemporáneos, ha producido como efecto un desplazamiento del concepto de ciudadano como categoría filosófico política. Tales ideas son, por un lado, la de concebir al sujeto político como una entidad colectiva y, por otro lado, la idea de concebir el ámbito de lo político como conflicto. La propuesta de este trabajo consiste en un llamado a la reflexión en torno a la importancia del concepto de ciudadanía como categoría político filosófica que, aun hoy, puede ayudarnos a interpretar el escenario político, e incitar la reflexión filosófica.

This paper analyses a handwritten 1783 map surviving in the Département de Cartes et Plans at the Geneva Public Library, whose first version in colours remained unpublished until now. The map represents the project of New Geneva, a utopian settlement of Genevan watchmakers exiled after their participation in the 1782 Geneva Revolution, in the southern Irish county of Waterford. I first analyse the contexts of this map by crossing Irish and Swiss sources. Then, I address the iconographic document drawing on recent literature on the imperial map and on unorthodox mappings. I conclude that, though contributing to studies on the geographies of revolution and on unorthodox uses of cartography, this document reproduces some features of more classical maps of empire, being inserted in a project which was functional to British imperialism in Ireland. Finally, the project was not realised for lack of agreement between all the actors of this complex story.

The neo-republican conception of freedom as non-domination has emerged as a powerful framework for conceptualizing the dynamic relationship between power, democracy, and constitutionalism in modernity. Despite this, I argue that adaptations of republican freedom to the problem of slavery displace attention to race and foreclose more productive ways of addressing how racial slavery constitutes a distinct form of oppression. To illuminate the limitations of neo-republicanism, I turn to the political thought of abolitionists David Walker and Ottobah Cugoano. Both utilize comparative histories of race and slavery to reveal the specificity of modern slavery as a form of oppression, which cannot be captured as an issue of domination in the technical sense of the term. They thus pose challenges to neo-republican theory for its failure to fully appreciate the historical differences between ancient and modern slavery. To do so would illuminate how neo-republican theory faces severe limitations in providing an adequate conceptualization of oppression in the case of racial slavery.

"Sometimes dictators are benevolent. Sometimes masters are kind and gentle to their slaves. John Adams was a pretty good "husband" to Abigail Adams. But it seems like there’s something very wrong with being a dictator or a master or a spouse with the power that John Adams had over Abigail Adams in late 18th Century America. A theory of domination tries to pinpoint what’s distinctive about dictatorship and mastery and traditional husbanding, and what is distinctively wrong with such—even the benevolent, kind, gentle, and pretty good varieties.

There has been a lot of thinking about domination over the last twenty-five or so years. This is due largely to the efforts of republican political philosophers, who have used domination and its absence — nondomination — as the primary moving part in their conceptions of freedom. Even so, perhaps because domination has often appeared in a supporting role for the analysis of other concepts, conceptualizing domination itself is still a fairly nascent endeavor.

Accounts of domination need at least two movements. First, domination is a subset of a social phenomenon with—at least more or less—unobjectionable varieties. Maybe this social phenomenon is power; maybe it’s the capacity to interfere with choice; maybe something else. Whatever it is, it’s plausible to think it’s not always bad. Sometimes it’s perfectly alright to have power over someone else; sometimes there’s nothing wrong with the capacity to interfere with someone’s choices. (For example, if what you’d rather do is go after your neighbor with a meat-axe, it’s a good thing if someone is in a position to interfere with you, or if your choice situation can be worsened, so that charging next door, axe in hand, without having to worry about a lengthy prison sentence is not among your options.) The first task of a theory of domination is to specify exactly what this broader social phenomenon is.

Next we need to figure out what gives domination its negative moral valence, and thus sets it apart from that broader social phenomenon. Republicans usually say that what makes domination
morally problematic is its arbitrariness. Frank Lovett claims that domination is instantiated in a social relationship between A and B only if A is permitted to exercise power over B arbitrarily (2010, 120). Philip Pettit, until recently, claimed that domination is a capacity for arbitrary interference. Marilyn Friedman calls it “arbitrary interference in someone’s choices…”(2008, 265). If that’s right, and arbitrariness is the difference maker between forms of social power that aren’t domination and those that are, we need a story about what arbitrariness is.

Such are the two essential tasks of conceptualizing domination. I offer here what I think are important course-corrections for recent attempts to complete them. In §1 I set out some desiderata for a useful conception of domination before sketching the elements of earlier attempts I think we can’t do without. §2 addresses the problem of “cheap domination”. This is the problem of identifying ordinary, innocuous human interactions with anything we call domination. I don’t think we should do this, but some of the most influential accounts of domination on offer nowadays — in particular, Lovett’s and Pettit’s — have this result. Instead, I contend that only certain forms of social power can underwrite domination, and try to provide a principled way of identifying what these forms are like. Finally, in §3, I address the nature of arbitrariness."

Is social justice possible within capitalist societies? Or should progressives and egalitarians be looking for viable alternatives to free-market capitalism? John Rawls, one of the most influential political philosophers of the last century, advanced the view that social justice is indeed impossible within the constraints of the capitalist welfare state. Rawls believed that familiar capitalist societies in which a small minority holds a massively disproportionate share of wealth could not possibly be just. Instead, he argued that justice requires a different form of socioeconomic organization, one in which human and nonhuman capital is dispersed widely. He called it a "property-owning democracy".

Property-Owning Democracy: Rawls and Beyond presents the first extended treatment of Rawls' important ideas about the practical implementation of his theory of justice. Contributors to this volume approach Rawls' idea from a number of perspectives: its philosophical foundations, institutional implications, and possible connections to the future of left-of-center politics. Readings shed new light on a variety of topics, including the inequality of current wealth distribution in advanced capitalist societies; ways of funding a system of universal asset holdings; novel democratic forms of ownership; the link between asset ownership and human capital; and many others. Property-Owning Democracy: Rawls and Beyond offers thought-provoking insights into the concept of social justice in the 21st-century world.