The rise of the Roman Republic was grounded on the conception that the state could not be separated from the people, and society was reliant upon a “partnership of citizens” (Swift 2013: 177). Finally, presenting a case study of a modern republic, the United States of America, will be conducted to observe whether contemporary applications of a ‘mixed constitution,' including ‘checks and balances,' has successfully resulted in democracy avoiding tyranny.Īddressing the roots of the republican system is essential before we can more thoroughly analyze its features. The responsibility to uphold law, typically maintained in the form of a constitution, by both the government and the individual is essential in a republic for the preservation of societal order.īefore addressing these two areas, the key historical foundation of the ‘mixed constitution,' the ancient Roman Republic, will be analyzed as a prime illustration of the successes and failures of its application. Secondly, the pursuit of complete ‘negative liberty’ in pure democracies is susceptible to anarchic disorder, as it disregards law. By institutionalizing class disparities into a balanced representative structure, republicanism attempts to preserve order between distinctive subdivisions of society. This is analyzed under two major conditions from which tyranny arises in pure democracies, and subsequently the methods are considered via which the republican ‘mixed constitution’ counteracts these.įirstly, the ignorance of class differences that are necessitated in democracy’s pursuit of equality makes it vulnerable to class conflict. This essay argues that ‘checks and balances,' which are embedded within the republican ‘mixed constitution,' can best counteract tyranny as implicit within democracy functioning independently. All characteristics addressed henceforth will be characterized under the term ‘republicanism’.
While it is noted that there exist a multitude of understandings regarding republicanism, republicanism will be dealt here in its central theme of “reconnecting liberty with the common good of the citizenship” (Honohan & Jennings 2003: 7). Republicanism as an ideology will therefore be considered as being centrally concerned with “political participation, civic virtue and mixed constitution” (Laborde & Maynor 2009: 3). In this way, the republic transcends a simple representative democracy by specifically including a ‘mixed constitution’ limiting the power of ‘the majority’ and working for the ‘public good’ (Epstein 1988: 1639). To provide a guiding definition, the republic can typically be regarded as “a constitutionally limited government of the representative type with its powers divided between separate branches” (Casper 1988: 213). These republican ideas have become so widespread in Western political thought that they have often been confused and distorted.
#Tyranny of the majority free#
Stemming most notably from the works of Aristotle, later popularized by Polybius, the ‘republic’ is grounded equally in the concept of constraining the free citizenry from unlimited power, and in the prevention of “the government from degenerating into hateful tyranny” (Brett & Hamilton-Bleakley 2006: 46).
#Tyranny of the majority how to#
Arguments of how to best maintain and preserve order in this creed have consequently been tied to ideas of “freedom as non-domination” (Skinner 1990: 127). That the nature of man in unconstrained assemblage will lead to a “tyrannical abuse of power” is a central assumption in the construction of political structure in the res publica (Chomsky 2007: 314). The assertion that unconstrained power brings with it inevitable corruption has occupied theorists since the first considerations of authority.
0 kommentar(er)
