Civilising International Politics: Republicanism and the World Outside

Abstract

The link between republicanism and international relations theory is far from obvious. Among the many schools of contemporary theories of international relations there is not one that makes any explicit reference to republicanism. However, during the Enlightenment ‘republicanism’ emerged as a theory of liberty that offered an alternative and opposing set of ideas to the domination of absolute monarchy. It provided insights on preserving freedom within the state but it also, and this is less well known, offered a different way of thinking about interstate relations. The ambition of this article is not to elaborate a contemporary republican theory of international relations, but to expand the vocabulary of the current trend of republicanism in international political theory by bringing to light part of the considerable contribution of classical republicanism to the fundamental questions of international politics. To do so, the focus will be on the international dimension of the political thought of Montesquieu.