Book Review: CÉCILE LABORDE AND JOHN MAYNOR (EDS), Republicanism and Political Theory. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008, 280 pp., ISBN 9781405155809, £19.99 (pbk); ISBN 9781405155793, £55.00 (hbk)
| Date | 01 June 2009 |
| Published date | 01 June 2009 |
| Author | Christopher McCorkindale |
| DOI | 10.1177/09646639090180021002 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
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REFERENCES
Arendt, Hannah (1966) The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt Brace.
Arendt, Hannah (1998) The Human Condition. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press.
Michelman, Frank (1996) ‘Parsing “A Right to Have Rights”’, Constellations 3(2):
200–8.
ANDREW SCHAAP
University of Exeter, UK
CÉCILE LABORDE AND JOHN MAYNOR (EDS), Republicanism and Political Theory.
Oxford: Blackwell, 2008, 280 pp., ISBN 9781405155809, £19.99 (pbk); ISBN
9781405155793, £55.00 (hbk).
If John Adams was correct, if there really is not a more unintelligible word in the
English language than republicanism, then the title of this collection edited by Cécile
Laborde and John Maynor, Republicanism and Political Theory, remains true to the
tradition’s reputation for ambiguity. A greater hint to what lies in store can be found
in the cover art, where not only do we see the solid steel and glass of modern archi-
tecture juxtaposed with the pillared monument of a by-gone age, but a touch more
subtly we see the reflections of that monument within the panes of the former. And
so we soon find that for the purposes of this body of work, ‘political theory’, that
against which the case for ‘republicanism’ is made, does not refer to a broad and
deep spectrum of theorists, thoughts and traditions but seems to be a narrower, and
inherently modern phenomenon; a mainstream of contemporary political theory. The
editors’ aim, made explicit in a provocative introduction, to demonstrate the (almost
unnoticed, and certainly undervalued) ways in which republicanism, so often discarded
as something no longer of our time, in fact reflects itself in, and even colours the
political mainstream today. By ‘focussing on the pre-liberal origins of republicanism’,
Laborde and Maynor argue that critics of republicanism obscure ‘the fact that most
contemporary republicans take seriously what we may call the circumstances of liberal
modernity – moral individualism, ethical pluralism, and an instrumental view of politi-
cal life – and seek to adapt old republican insights into them’ (p. 1). More than this,
it is their hope that the contributions throughout...
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