Republicanism refers to a kind of a normative theory about political life, one that was very influential in the early modern period and that strongly influenced Spinoza’s thinking on the proper nature of the state. A republican theory has several key theoretical elements. Among these elements are the absence of a monarch, a mixed regime of government, being sui juris (that is, having the right to determine one’s own actions), an idea of freedom (whether conceived as positive or more negatively as non-domination), and the value (to the subject and the sovereign) of participation in the governance of a state. However, republican theories are not all uniform. A theory may contain some elements and not others, and emphasize some features more than others. Republicanism took different forms depending not only on the views of the theorist but also on the traditions of the country. For example, while English thinkers like James Harrington praised the virtues of an agrarian economy based on equal land ownership, the De la Court brothers emphasized the advantages for the Dutch of a commercial system of trade. These distinctions are not of mere theoretical interest.