Republican Democracy

The main concern of this dissertation is the relations between republicanism and modern political society. It demonstrates that republican commitment is the legitimacy of modern politics, which means that all members of a civic community share the political sovereignty and civic community should put more emphasize collective self-rule, but both dynamics of modern society and cotemporary dominating political social and moral language of liberalism go against the republicanism's commitment, so this dissertation explores that the civic community should renew the common good, regenerate the deliberative public sphere and foster civic virtue so as to remedy the maladies of modern society. Firstly, the author illuminates classic republicanism through the political theories and experience of ancient Greece and Rome Republic, affirms that the political nature of the polity is sharing the political sovereignty by all members of a civic community, which is the core principle of classic republicanism. This principle calls for appropriate institutions and the best polity, it also require citizenship and civic virtue. Secondly, through mediaeval Italian city-state republics and renaissance civic humanism, republicanism became the important intellectual resource of modern political thoughts. Because the historical political environments have changed greatly, while republicanism became the normative foundation of modern politics, it needs to be reconstructed. Modern democracy is imperiled by the dynamics of modern society which includes atomization individualism and the dominating bureaucracy system and capitalism economy and the decline of public space, and contemporary liberal political language couldn't offer proper approach for the modern society's maladies, while contemporary liberalisms persist in absolute human rights, appeal to political space of market-style. In order to ensure and realize the normative commitment of civic community's self-rule, republicanism maintains that a healthy democracy needs to renew common goods, to regenerate the deliberative public sphere and foster civic virtue. In the end it needs to explain that republican model of democracy also has defects, liberalisms illuminate these dangers more clearly, neither should be neglected.