What's Wrong with Republican Political Theory Today? Force, Conflict and the Moment of Decision

Growth of Republican Theory
There has been a recent growth in Republican political theory, though the earliest aspect of it in J.G.A. Pocock goes back some way now. Pocock worked on Civic Humanism in Renaissance Italy and Early Modern Atlantic Republicanism. In the former field, he worked particularly on Machiavelli; and in the latter on James Harrington and the continuation of Machiavelli. Machiavelli's line of influence obviously goes up to Rousseau, after which the idea of a direct Republican line of influence is harder to maintain.

Kinds of Liberty
More recent work on Republicanism has included Phillip Pettit's work of normative (analytic) political philosophy of that name, Quentin Skinner's work on Roman Freedom/Liberty and Machiavelli, and Samuel Fleischer on a third liberty, between the negative and positive liberty I discussed in a recent post, 'Negative and Positive Liberty: A Short History'. That idea of the third liberty corresponds to the idea of 'non-domination' in Pettit. In a comparable manner, Skinner opposes 'Roman Liberty' to 'Liberalism' which he defines a pure negative liberty, on utilitarian grounds.

Tocqueville and Egalitarian Liberalism
Here I am continuing themes in a recent post on Tocqueville on Republican Politics and the Tyranny of Small Communities, where I suggested that Republicanism recently has been a form of social democracy, a development out of Rawlsian egalitarian liberalism. The recnet Republicans continue Rawls' theme of defining harm resulting from inequality very broadly, and defining necessary compensation very broadly. For Tocqueville Republicanism is more about maintaining institutions that prevent those with lower incomes from seeking to compensate themselves through limiting the property rights of those with property. That goes along with the wish for institutions that prevent a temporary majority from undermining liberty through any kind of attack on unpopular minorities. Tocqueville's version of Republicanism has clear precedents in Montesquieu, Locke, and Aristotle. Considering that Tocqueville was inspired by the emergence of democracy as we know it now, in the USA, we could say that this kind of anti-egalitarian Republicanism is at the heart of modern liberal, or representative, democracy. The issue is somewhat more ambiguous than that. Though Tocqueville was against strong egalitarian social measures, he recognised that modern liberty was democratic in the sense that a broad equality of conditions was emerging between citizens of all classes.

State Force
There is another question here. We can place Tocqueville in the context of more egalitarian style liberalism, but we would still need to notice something else about Republicanism, it does not just uphold moral community action, it upholds the state and the authority of the state as something that rests on force as well as consent. That is the dimension that Lockean liberal republicanism and Rousseauesque egalitarian republicanism are overlooking. The state has a an active role in establishing and maintaining republican beliefs, and it uses force against those who threaten those beliefs. Centralised force is necessary to restrain the conformist force which can build up to an irresistable intensity at the local level. as Spinoza suggests, democracy rests on the force of the majority of the people.

Elites and Aristocracy
The point of Machiavelli's Republicanism is not not just the moral advantage of a community of citizens. While it is important to avoid the still prevalent image of 'evil Machiavelli', we should not ignore that recognition of force and coercion in Machiavelli, which does sometimes have a gleeful edge to it. It can be like Nietzsche' enjoyment of wickedness, which is certainly not an enjoyment of evil for its own sake though. Nietzsche expresses admiration for those states which institute a great political aristocracy, or elite. Tocqueville considered the formation of a modern democratic substitute for aristocracy as necessary in order to maintain liberty under democracy.

Natural and Positive Law
Republicanism in Aristotle is the idea that the political community is a natural good in its own right beyond the aggregation of individual interests. Republicanism in Machiavelli adds the recogniiton that state power is not 'natural' and must be instituted, and maintained by force. Tocqueville's own thought is rooted in Pascal who emphasised that law is based on force in a godless unjust world, as Derrida also emphasises. Pascal finds positive law (law created by institutions, by the sovereign) is not rooted in natural law (objective moral order outside individual interests and historical constructions).

From Mill to Machiavelli
In John Stuart Mill, liberalism retains some elitist-aristocratic aspects, but is on the way to being a doctrine of politics based on consent, discussion and rationality which has difficulty with discussing what makes such activities possible. It is the sociologist Max Weber, who was more able to deal with this because he saw politics in terms of a 'realist' theory of pursuing power. Though current Republicanism emphasises politics as a human activity and goal, it lacks any sense of power and the foundations of the state in force. Despite Skinner's references to 'Roman liberty', it lacks a sense of the absolute devotion of the classical citizen to the sovereignty of the state and its laws. They push the more realist 'wicked' aspects of Machiavelli aside as they see Machiavelli in rather Rawlsian terms. Machiavelli did not see politics in those terms, he thought that interests permanently clash and not in the sense of constant dialogue, just as Tocqueville thought that politics must be rooted in human pride and the necessary conflicts in pursuing pride. There is something Realist in Machiavelli and Tocqueville, and there is something 'decisionistic', that is politics refers to the moment of decision which is never completely justified and is never completely rational.

Tocqueville on Republican Politics and the Tyranny of Small Communities

Political Readings of Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville has been taken up within many perspectives: Religious Conservative, Libertarian near Anarcho-Capitalist, Neo-Conservative, Communitarian Left-Liberalism, Any other definition of Liberalism that might exist, Post-Marxist Democratic Theory, and no doubt a few positions I've overlooked. Despite this wide ranging appeal, some Marxists and near Marxists take him as the enemy. His support for, and involvement in the French colonisation of Algeria, and his assumption that Islam is culturally, intellectually and morally inferior to Christianity. are always emphasied by that tendency whoa re rather quieter about the racist and colonialist assumptions that can be found in Marx and other leftists of the time. Foucault's Society Must be Defended provides an account of how left-wing and democratic thought originate in an idea of a kind of 'race war' with a 'foreign' elite.

Universalism and Competition between Nations
The support for colonialism has been regarded favourably by some Neo-Cons as a committment to universalising liberal-democratic ideas, though surely at its best Neo-Conservativism shows more respect for all religions and the right of all nations to self-government, even if with the assistance of US intervention. There is evidently an element of Islamophobia round the fringes of Neo-Conservatism. The Marxists and Neo-Cons are rather too keen to drag support for European colonialism in the 19th Century into another context. Tocqueville's views on international relations were a mix of Realism and idealism. He was a Realist in the sense that he believed that nations conflict around questions of national pride and it is right to support the pride of your own nation. This itself refers to the element of this thought which emphasises the role of pride and the search for superiority in the human imagination, itself rooted in in his reading of Rousseau and Pascal. He was an idealist in the sense he believed that national policy should be directed to moral universalist goals like abolishing slavery, and he was certainly never at all attracted to the idea that any race is inferior or superior to any other. This post is principally concerned with his views on democratic theory and we will progress to that theme.

Tyranny of the Majority
The main concern here is to contest the assumption from a variety of directions that Tocqueville was for localism against the central state. We need to look at what he meant by the 'tyranny of the majority'. Beofre we even consider Tıcqueville's view of the 'tyranny of the majority', we have to deal with the widespread belief that John Stuart Mill coined that phrase. Mill used th phrase in On Liberty, but took it from Tocqueville, who he had met. Their relationship ended awkwardly, but Tocqueville certainly made an impact on Mill, who thought it worth writing long reviews on both parts of Democracy in America. Tocqueville used the phrase 'tyranny of the majority' in the Democracy to refer to local spirit in small town America. Though Tocqueville has enormous respect for the spirit of self-government in small town America, he also had deep concerns about the way that public opinion imposes conformity and crushes individuality in local communities. He thought a strong central state was necessary in order to balance that small town spirit. The inhabitants of the small towns needed to be able to appeal to a federal centre to resist the conformity of small towns. It is important to note that Tocqueville though public opinion could be just as dangerous to liberty as the state. That was the basis of his concern that democracy might lead to the worst kind of tyranny if a government resting on public opinion imposed the majority view in an authoritarian manner. Tocqueville should not, therefore, be invoked in support of the view that local participation in politics or the moral spirit of small communities, is the basis of liberty. This places Tocqueville closer to the more statist aspects of the Federalist Papers, than to the Jeffersonian belief in the absolute value of local community autonomy

Law and Conserving Liberty
Conservatism, in the sense of defending law against the tyranny of the majority, was best upheld by a new aristocracy, of the legal profession, which is necessarily committed to defending law and to its administration in a hierarchical structure headed by the central state. For Tocqueville the aristocracy was important in limiting monarchical power in the pre-democratic world. His
father was deeply connected with the 'ultra-monarchist' current in French politics. This is a misleading label in the sense that this current was for the aristocracy and against strong central monarchical power. Again for a good diagnosis, see Foucault, Society Must be Defended. Tocqueville caused great resentment in his family by adopting liberal constitutional democracy, which in the French context meant accepting the strong sovereignty of the National Assembly. Nevertheless, the concerns of the ultra-monarchists are in some way present in Tocqueville's political thought.

Tocqueville and Republicanism: Politics and Human Spirit
Two points here: Tocqueville provides an alternative to recent Republican theory; Tocqueville cannot be associated with anti-political forms of Libertarianism and archaeo-conservatism. This is also present in the Marxist and anarcho-communist wish to abolish the state. These currents tend to find politics degenerate compared with the emergence of decisions from the 'natural' authority present in established communities. Tocqueville's thought is Republican. He
thought politics was a part of the spirit of human communities and is necessary to liberty. He recognised that it rests on pride, envy, egotism and ambition, within himself and all who participate in politics, but considered competitive politics as the best way of using those tendencies in human character.

Tocqueville and Republicanism: An alternative to Current Republican Theory
The very welcome revival of Republican theory in Phillip Pettit and others, is largely a social democratic theory which places social and economic equality at the centre. Tocqueville recognised the need for state sponsored welfare, but was a lot more cautious about state action to promote equality, he thought the state has a role in preventing destitution not in redistributing property. Tocqueville provides an example of Republican participation as and end of human character, based on moderate welfarism and deep respect for property rights as the foundation of liberty and property, and the necessary basis for the independence of all from the state. Current Republicanism is very close to Communitarianism in assuming moral grounds for collective limitation of individualism, while adding more interest in politics as a part of human life. Tocqueville provides an alternative to the economic egalitarianism and to the moralistic view of politic as an instrument for moral goals.

Derrida French Nationalist and Conservative Europeanist

Loyal Derrideans will now doubt be perturbed to see Derrida accused of positions he rejected at the most explicit level. However, we cannot spare Derrida from the kind of reading that he brings to other people.

Derrida, Hegel and Algeria
The issue of Derrida the French nationalist first occurred to me after a class in which I was teaching 'Onto-Theology of National-Humanism' (available in Oxford Literary Review 14 1992, pages 3 to 23; or in Jacques Derrida: Basic Writings, Routledge, London, 2007). The text is devoted to the discussion of the Germanic tradition of identifying German Nationalism with Philosophical Humanism. Fichte, Heidegger and Adorno feature as might be expected. The less well known figure of Karl Grün features strongly. Grün must be best know for being criticised by Marx in the German Ideology, and that is what Derrida discusses. Bringing in Marx might appear to some people, possibly including Derrida himself, to neutralise anything nationalist looking in his work. However, Marx is full of German-European nationalist universalism. For Marx, Germany is the country furthest from revolution and therefore the closest philosophically. For Marx, European colonialism brings the colonised countries into a world community formed by Europeans.

Grün strongly criticises the French on philosophical and national grounds. He condemns the French interpretation of Hegel, a topic that is of great importance to Derrida when writing about the institution of philosophy in France, and which obviously forms a large part of the background to Derrida's own philosophical formation. He takes a critical view of French colonialism in Algeria, referring to the desirability of Algeria becoming a part of Morocco. The consequence of French colonial policies in North Africa was that the Moroccan monarchy continued to exist but was effectively reduced to a French satrapy.

In my class ( part of a course on Derrida based on the texts I selected for Jacques Derrida: Basic Writings), an International Relations students, in a group that was predominantly philosophy students) was very determined to takes this in the terms of IR Realism. Realism in IR refers to the view that states pursue their own interests and state interests conflict. He picked up on thew territorial issue and the issue of reading Hegel, and argued that Derrida's text was a reaction against both. Derrida was a pied-noir, a colon, in Algeria. That is be was born into a colonial family. As it was a Jewish family, no doubt their position in the pied-noir community was no doubt in some respects marginal, nevertheless they were part of that community, a community of a million white Europeans with roots going back to the 1830 annexation.

Derrida of course never identified with French colonialism but he did identify with his Algerian origin. There is a difference between justifying colonialism and valuing origins in a colonial community, but this can be a tangled issue particularly when we consider the pied noirs, who wished to stay in Algeria and wished for Algeria to be treated as part of France. They were not just a colonial addition on the top of a native community, that was what made their resistance to decolonisation and then de Gaulle (their saviour turned traitor) so bitter, and what made decolonisaiton of Algeria so trauamtic in France and so protracted and bloody in France.

Derrida and Tocqueville
Behind the pious image of progressive Derrida, let us admit there is someone with some French nationalist impulses with regard both to philosophical institutions and to colonial history. Rather tantaslisingly Derrida refers to a coming lecture on Tocqueville. 'Onto-Theology of National Humanism' is a lecture Derrida gave at the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales. All of these lectures will be published but it will necessarily be a protracted process. The last I heard Geoffrey Bennington and Peggy Kamuf will edited the collected Derrida, but the publisher was unclear. Tocqueville was a enthusiast for French colonialism in Algeria and regarded Islam as clearly inferior to Christianity, on the basis that Mahgreb Muslims were less developed than European Christians (on religious-cultural grounds not racial-ethnic grounds). This is invariably the issue with which Marxist, or Marxisant, critics of Tocqueville like to attack with him, and to attack liberalism. Of course in this context they like to forget that Marx supported European colonialism, the rights of great nations and thought that Jews (like himself) should all give up all elements of Jewish identity. What did Derrida have to say about Tocqueville? Would it bring us any close to an understanding of the relationship between Derrida's own French philosophical universalism and the particularistic world view of the pied-noirs.


Europeanism: Plato and Christianity
On the issue of Europeanism, Derrida criticises Husserl's idealistion of Europe as the place of philosophy, and therefore of human goals in Introduction to the Origin of Geometry. What do we see in The Gift of Death in the discussions of Jan Patocka? Patocka was a Phenomenologist oriented to Plato and Christianity, influential on Czechoslovak anti-totalitarians, lie Vacllav Havel, and Catholic theologians including Karol Wojtyla (Pope John-Paul II). Derrida emphasises the Europe of Plato and Christianity in Patocka, a Europe that is identified with Christian spirituality and philosophical truth. Derrida emphasises heresy in Patocka and European responsibility, but the end result is still a taking up of an idea of Europe as a unified entity with a specific philosophical role.

It all looks very much Derrida thinks that Europe is the land which contains the spiritual and philosophical goals of humanity. Derrida would have denied such an ambition. Occasionally he makes gestures to the non-European origins of European culture, as when he refers to 'hetera' (other) as a word of Sanskrit origin in 'Signature Event Context' (though as far as I know it is a word which appears both in India and Europe and could with no clear indication of where it appeared first). Despite himself, no doubt, did not Derrida give way to a Eurocentric form of universalism, a universalism defined by the European philosophy (including Marx) and high literary tradition which forms the basis of his texts.

Montesquieu, Tocqueville, Foucault

Foucault's work from Society Must be Defended onwards needs to be understood in relation to Montesquieu and Tocqueville. We could even read Foucault as the third figure in a French liberal triumvirate spanning three centuries. This reading may have some problems attached to it, but no more than the other readings of Foucault around and less than most. Foucault's reputation has been taken over by Post-Marxist/ Post-Modernist/Post-Structuralist leftists for whom liberalism is a dirty word. However, Society Must be Defended coincides with a liberal revival in France which includes a Tocqueville revival. It uses the terms and references of the two great French liberals (and republicans). It's concerned with the kind of liberty that can exist under different kinds of regime. It's concerned with the limitation of society in relation to the state. It uses Montesquieu to establish the evolution of the French state, bureaucracy and aristocracy in the Eighteenth Century. The understanding of the relation between the Ancien Regime and the French Revolution follows the analysis of Tocquville's book of that name. Foucault refers to majoritarian and demagogic aspects of the emergence of left wing and democratic politics, very much in line with Tocqueville's understanding of the possible dangers of democracy.

The reading of Foucault's later work will be very incomplete until it is thoroughly understood and discussed in the terms of his two French predecessors in social and political thought devoted to liberty.