High republican ideals depend on mundane institutions like committees working reliably.

Evidence

It was customary earlier in the century to refer disparagingly to the Fabians and other such practical-minded reformers as ‘gas-and-waterworks socialists’. But it is no longer so clear what there was to disparage in the achievement of these figures; they have left us a rather more solid and attractive legacy than anything that can be traced to their more romantic, high-flying comrades. What I want to argue for in this book is a sort of gas-and-water-works republicanism. Certainly the goal is a dispensation under which the high ideal of freedom as nondomination flourishes. And certainly that dispensation requires a regime under which constitutionalism and democracy rule. But constitutionalism and democracy come to be stabilized only via arrangements that are no more intellectually beguiling than the infrastructure of gas and water supply. … There is hardly a more humdrum reality in political life, for example, than that of the committee. Yet if the argument of this chapter is on the right lines, then our republican faith may have to depend crucially on getting this most pedestrian of institutions to work reliably. The committee consists of a body of individuals selected for a particular time or for a particular task: to hear appeals and make recommendations; to search out candidates and make appointments; to promote or dismiss those in current employment; or to investigate charges and review performance. It may assume a very formal status, as in a judicial body like the jury, or an executive body like the cabinet, or it may have a status that is more or less informal. The committee is the enzyme of the body politic, at least in the republican conception of that body. — Philip Pettit, Republicanism, 1081

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘gas-and-waterworks republicanism’ framing pairs naturally with infrastructure-focused argument from the user’s own essay on trees as infrastructure — both make the mundane mechanical substrate the real bearer of grand ideals. — connects to: Well-designed republican institutions can generate norms of policy-making through games of acceptability. — Adelin-Costin Dumitru, Forging the Resistive Republic: Social…, 19; Institutional fit, not sincerity, makes political conduct feel natural. — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics: how Americans…, 1277; Republican ideals could be advanced by studying real-world successful collective action — Adelin-Costin Dumitru, Forging the Resistive Republic: Social…, 83 (+2 more)
• SEED: The committee-as-enzyme metaphor opens an essay angle on overlooked procedural machinery as the actual engine of high ideals, drawing a parallel between plumbing and politics.

Broader Connections

• Republican ideals could be advanced by studying real-world successful collective action #expands (0.80) — Adelin-Costin Dumitru, Forging the Resistive Republic, 83
• Institutions and traditions persist because they are conspicuous coordination solutions. #corroborates (0.78) — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 222
• Institutional fit, not sincerity, makes political conduct feel natural. #expands (0.75) — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics, 1277