Republicanism
공화주의
Republicanism is the ideology and movement that advocates a republic, in which sovereignty lies with the citizens and their representatives rather than with a hereditary monarch or other absolute personal power. Named after the Latin res publica, 'the public thing', it holds that the state exists for the common good and stresses civic virtue, political participation, a mixed constitution, the rule of law and freedom as non-domination. Drawing on Greek, Roman and Renaissance Italian thought, it took modern shape in the American Revolution and the French First Republic of 1792, and spread in the 19th and 20th centuries to Italy, Spain, Latin America, China and Turkey. It long overlapped with liberalism in opposing absolute monarchy, but is distinguished by its stress on civic virtue and the common good.
In depth
Name and core ideas
The word comes from the Latin res publica, 'the public thing'. French usage defines republicanism as the view that the aim of the state, its reason for existing and its decisions must serve the common good, not only the prosperity of its rulers. English-language surveys list as its principles civic virtue, active political participation, civic education, the fight against corruption, a balanced and mixed constitution, government limited by constitutional law, freedom as non-domination, and the rule of law. In modern times it stands against monarchism, authoritarianism and despotism; where the monarch's role is largely ceremonial, as in the United Kingdom, it names the wish to replace the hereditary crown with an elected head of state.
Classical roots and the modern revolutions
Plato, Aristotle and Polybius already discussed mixed government and civic virtue. Polybius described the Roman Republic as a mixture of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy, and Cicero's De re publica linked the Roman res publica to the Greek politeia. Late-medieval trading cities such as Florence, Genoa and Venice were republics, and Machiavelli wrote on republics in his Discourses on Livy. After the execution of Charles I, England became the Commonwealth (1649–1660), with James Harrington and John Milton as leading republican writers. Montesquieu and Rousseau extended the tradition; French républicanisme is described as a social contract derived from Rousseau's general will. Republicanism contributed to the American Revolution and gained great influence in Europe through the French First Republic of 1792–1804. The Society of United Irishmen, founded in 1791, was inspired by both revolutions.
Nineteenth-century republicans
In Italy Giuseppe Mazzini founded Young Italy in exile in Marseille in July 1831 to make Italy a unitary democratic republic, but unification came under the House of Savoy; Carlo Cattaneo refused his seat rather than swear loyalty to the monarchy, and the Italian Republican Party was founded in 1895. France proclaimed its Second Republic in 1848 and its Third in 1870; the latter legislated freedom of assembly and the press, free secular compulsory primary schooling and, in 1905, the separation of church and state. Spain's first clearly anti-monarchist movements appeared under Isabella II, leading to the First (1873–1874) and Second (1931–1939) Republics, with republicans divided between unitary and federal designs. In Latin America republican ideals shaped the independence movements, and in Brazil radical liberals founded a Republican Party in 1870.
Twentieth-century spread and neo-republicanism
Republicanism is counted among the sources of the Xinhai Revolution of 1911; Chinese reformers had taken the vocabulary of liberty, constitutionalism, popular rights and republic through Japan. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Mustafa Kemal declared the Republic of Turkey in 1923, and republicanism remains one of the six principles of Kemalism. From the 1970s J. G. A. Pocock and Quentin Skinner rewrote the history of the tradition; in the 1990s Philip Pettit and others formulated neo-republicanism around freedom as non-domination.
Liberalism, socialism and Marxism
Because both opposed absolute monarchy, liberalism and republicanism were often conflated in the 18th century; modern scholars treat them as distinct streams, republicanism stressing civic virtue and the common good, liberalism economics and individualism. Liberalism and socialism are described as having departed from classical republicanism. Engels, criticising the draft Erfurt Programme in 1891, wrote that the workers' party could only come to power in the form of the democratic republic, 'even the specific form for the dictatorship of the proletariat'. Lenin quoted this in The State and Revolution (1917) while also arguing that the democratic republic is 'the best possible political shell for capitalism'.