The fettered republic: The Anglo‐American commonwealth and the traditions of Australian political thought

Abstract

This article advances the argument that republicanism, both in its pre‐modern and modern character, has always been a substantial but unrecognised part of the Australian political tradition. Republicanism is already within the mainstreams of political discourse, but its presence has not yet been identified. Instead, ‘the republicans’ have been seen as a political sect and set up in opposition to the dominant political culture of constitutional monarchy. Thus, Prime Minister Keating, as a ‘republican’, is construed to be against — rather than already within — the dominant political culture. The argument in this article is that republicanism has always had a pervasive presence within Australian political discourse and that to separate it as ‘other’ misapprehends the republican tradition.