INTRODUCTION: THE REPUBLICAN RENAISSANCE

The growing popularity of civic (or classical) republicanism can hardly be unnoticed. Numerous studies attempt to demonstrate not only that republican ideas were extremely influential in the past—in republican Rome, Renaissance Florence, or Revolutionary America—but also that they offer us an inspiring perspective on how to perceive political thinking today. In particular, republicanism is often seen as a leading alternative to both liberalism and communitarianism. Some scholars have gone as far as to speak of a historical “paradigm shift,” a “republican revival,” or a “republican turn” in political thought.

Inspired by Hannah Arendt, two historians of ideas, J. G. A. Pocock and Quentin Skinner, initiated the revival of civic republican theory, and soon many others followed. Philip Pertit, John Braithwaite, Maurizio Viroli, Nicholas G. Onuf, Cass Sunstein, John Maynor, Iseult Honohan, Michael Sandel, and Adrian Oldfield, to name a few, have developed the ideas of republicanism in a variety of areas. They have established a contemporary version of the classical theory and have emphasized the extra ordinary importance of its historical roots. New republicans treat very seriously the wisdom of the old masters and attempt to show its vitality. They constantly refer to Cicero, Montesquieu, James Harrington, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Alexis de Tocqueville, and Alexander Hamilton, among others. Niccolò Machiavelli, however, remains the towering authority and the main source of inspiration. The publication of Pocock's The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (1975) brought with it a renewed interest in Machiavelli's political thought.