Republicanism: A Conceptual Approach

Republicanism is often divided into neo-Roman and neo-Athenian versions. Although this division can be useful for certain analytical purposes, both traditions considered separately might provide only more limited and narrower picture of republicanism, and thus decrease the theoretical potential of republicanism as a public philosophy capable to tackle certain problems of contemporary democracy. This paper proposes instead to think about neo-Roman and neo-Athenian strands as two branches of single republican tradition. The paper’s assumption is that there has always been a great overlap between the two strands and that it might be preferable to think of republican tradition as a constant interplay of originally ancient Greek, Roman and contemporary influences. The paper further asserts that republicanism is internally unified by a dynamic cluster of core intertwined concepts retaining relatively stable meanings throughout different historical eras. The aim of this paper is to 1) present such an overarching account of republicanism, 2) discuss its conceptual change, 3) investigate whether human rights can be considered as one of the core republican concepts and if any republican account of human rights might be fruitful in contemporary debates.