Civic republicans define freedom as non-domination, not mere non-interference

Evidence

The older, republican tradition of which I speak is the tradition associated with Cicero at the time of the Roman Republic; with Machiavelli—‘the divine MachiaveP of the Discourses—and various other writers of the Renaissance Italian republics; with James Harrington and a host of lesser figures in and after the period of the English Civil War and Commonwealth; and with the many theorists of republic or commonwealth in eighteenth-century England and … America and France. I focus most often on the ‘commonwealthmen’ who dominated English and American political thought in the late seventeenth and in the eighteenth century. The commonwealthmen were devoted to the ideal of freedom as non-domination—freedom as escape from the arbitrary—and they helped to shape habits of political reflex and thought that still survive today. Their distinctive refrain was that, while the cause of freedom as non-domination rests squarely with the state and its officials—it is mainly thanks to the state and the constitution, after all, that people enjoy such freedom—still those officials are also an inherent threat and people have to strive to ‘keep the bastards honest’; the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. — Philip Pettit, Republicanism, 68

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines freedom as non-domination as the core republican ideal.
• XREF: Pettit’s freedom-as-non-domination bears directly on the reader’s solidarity-research — vigilance as a stance toward the state, relevant to resistive community without enemy-formation. — connects to: Freedom in the republican tradition means non-domination rather than merely non-interference — Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and…, 186; Republican freedom means absence of dependence on arbitrary power, not non-interference. — Frank Lovett, Republicanism, 18; Republicans hold liberty as non-domination while liberals define it as mere non-interference. — Frank Lovett, Republicanism, 46 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Freedom in the republican tradition means non-domination rather than merely non-interference #corroborates (0.98) — Philip Pettit, Republicanism, 186
• Republican freedom means absence of dependence on arbitrary power, not non-interference. #corroborates (0.98) — Frank Lovett, Republicanism, 18
• Republicans hold liberty as non-domination while liberals define it as mere non-interference. #expands (0.97) — Frank Lovett, Republicanism, 46
• The republican tradition prized liberty as non-domination, not democratic participation #expands (0.90) — Philip Pettit, Republicanism, 166
• Freedom can be reconceived as non-domination rather than non-interference or self-mastery #corroborates (0.90) — Philip Pettit, Republicanism, 1207