Republican democrats treated participation as a means to, not the definition of, liberty.
Evidence
In the later commonwealthman tradition, there is a growing stress on the importance of democratic decision-making: quite rightly, as I shall argue in the second part of the book. A Whig defender of the American cause, Richard Price (1991: 25), argued that, if those in government ‘are subject to no control from their constituents, the very idea of liberty will be lost and the power of choosing representatives becomes nothing but a power, lodged in a few, to choose at certain periods a body of masters for themselves and for the rest of the community’. But neither Price nor anyone in this camp defined liberty by participatory access to democratic controls. It is true that Joseph Priestley, a close friend of Price’s , described the democratic power of voting as political liberty; but he distinguished between political and civil liberty and argued, like Price, that such a power was a means, and not necessarily an indispensable means, to civil liberty: ‘the more political liberty a people have, the safer is their civil liberty’ (Priestley 1993: 33; cf. — Philip Pettit, Republicanism, 158
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: The republican tradition prized liberty as non-domination, not democratic participation — Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and…, 166; Republican institutions constitute freedom as non-domination rather than cause it. — Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and…, 401; Republican liberty is a protected status, with democracy merely instrumental to it — Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and…, 161
Broader Connections
- The republican tradition prized liberty as non-domination, not democratic participation
#corroborates(0.92) — Philip Pettit, Republicanism, 166 - Republican liberty is a protected status, with democracy merely instrumental to it
#expands(0.88) — Philip Pettit, Republicanism, 161 - Republican institutions constitute freedom as non-domination rather than cause it.
#expands(0.85) — Philip Pettit, Republicanism, 401