The New Republicanism Without Religion?

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe past decades have witnessed a harvest of new books and articles exploring the modern republican tradition and its relevance for contemporary political theory. Members of this movement present the tradition as an alternative to both political liberalism and communitarianism and offer its unique conception of liberty (“freedom from domination”) as a distinct third option beyond the “positive” and “negative” varieties famously identified by Isaiah Berlin. Yet in recovering this view of liberty, civic republicans have neglected the essential role that religion plays in the modern republican tradition. This omission represents not only a serious deviation from the tradition, but, what is more, it fundamentally weakens civic republicanism’s capacity for theorizing and achieving political liberty at the level of institutional life. In the modern republican tradition, religion has been understood to undergird republican liberty both in terms of shaping the morals, customs, and habits of citizens and in providing normative authority for the value of liberty over domination. In this essay, I offer a counter-narration of the modern republican tradition that gives religion its due and challenges civic republicans to recognize the central role that religion has played, and should continue to play, in theorizing and promoting republican liberty.