As I acknowledged in my recent book, the term 'republicanism' means different things to different people. Adding the adjective 'radical' to the term only complicates matters further, especially when the focus is the early modern period. The term 'radicalism' was not in use until the early nineteenth century, leading some scholars to argue that it should not be applied before that time. Yet 'Radical Republicanism in Early Modern Europe' was the title of an excellent conference organised by Anna Becker, Nicolai von Eggers, and Alessandro Mulieri in late June 2021. The conference organisers did not shy away from the difficulties with the terminology, indeed Nicolai von Eggers opened the proceedings by asking whether it is valuable to speak of 'radical republicanism'. What followed was a rich and lively discussion about what we mean by that label, what role the people should play within a republic, and why radical republicans are so often neglected within the historiography.
Niccolò Machiavelli by Santi di Tito. Taken from Wikimedia Commons.
The constitution of the citizen body and the role its members should play have been key questions for those discussing republican rule ever since ancient times. As Alessandro Mulieri noted in his paper, Aristotle argued for the wisdom of the many over that of the few, insisting that as a collective body the many (understood as the middle orders rather than the poor) would have greater expertise, prudence, and virtue when it came to the selection of magistrates and the judgement of their actions. Niccolò Machiavelli famously expanded Aristotle's assessment to incorporate the plebs and to include lawmaking as well as the selection of magistrates. John McCormick has drawn attention to this aspect of Machiavelli's thought in his published work on the Florentine's democratic credentials. He developed this idea further in his paper at the conference, by exploring in greater detail the aristocratic republicanism of Francesco Guicciardini, which was in large part a response to Machiavelli's democratic republicanism. McCormick convincingly demonstrated that Machiavelli had got under Guicciardini's skin, leading him to adopt awkward positions (such as justifying genocide).
Plans that appeared in the Revolutions de Paris for platforms designed to make it possible for orators to be heard in a large assembly that was part of the wider proposals made by radical republicans during the early years of the French Revolution discussed by Nicolai von Eggers. Source gallica.bnf.fr/BnF.
One feature of the more aristocratic form of republicanism advanced by Guicciardini is the mixed constitution. Both Markku Peltonen and Annelien de Dijn questioned its dominance within the republican tradition, showing that many seventeenth- and eighteenth-century republicans explicitly rejected that model, opting instead for a purer form of democratic rule. One of the key claims of Peltonen's excellent paper was that not only were republican arguments boldly made by a large number of English commentators during the period of the Commonwealth and Free State (1649-53), but that many described the government under which they were living positively as a democracy. De Dijn cited another seventeenth-century radical republican, Pieter De la Court who insisted that freedom would only be secure in a true democracy where decision-making power lay firmly with the people. Moreover, De Dijn argued that De la Court (along with his contemporary Baruch Spinoza and, later, Jean-Jacques Rousseau) took Aristotle's argument to its logical conclusion, insisting that the people were more likely to rule in the common good than the elite and arguing, therefore, that there should be no restraint on popular power but only a strict form of majoritarian rule.
In the discussion, Camilla Vergara articulated the distinction being explored very clearly: one form of republicanism involves the sharing of power between the elites and the plebs; whereas the other (democratic or plebeian republicanism) involves giving power to the people. Of course this raises further questions about how popular power can and should be exercised (especially in large modern states). This issue was broached in the two papers on the French Revolution. Ariane Fichtl explored the influence on the French revolutionaries of ancient institutions such as the popular tribunes. Nicolai von Eggers focused on those radicals who adopted an intermediate position between representative and direct democracy by calling for the use of imperative mandates that would bind deputies or delegates to act only on the instructions of those who had elected them.
Samuel Hayat's paper on the recent 'gilets jaunes' protests in France, opened up a further question of whether 'the people' speak with a single voice. This is certainly the impression the 'gilets jaunes' seek to present, but to do so they must downplay differences of opinion based on race, sex, or class. A further issue raised by Hayet's paper is the thorny relationship between the terms 'popular' and 'radical'. The importance of distinguishing the 'popular' from the 'radical' has long been acknowledged by historians of the British civil wars - not least John Morrill. Moreover, not only in that Revolution but also in France in 1793 and again in 1848, the revolutionary authorities were presented with a dilemma. Should free and fair elections be suspended if the outcome of such elections was likely to be a rejection of the revolutionary regime?
Portrait of Pieter de la Court by Abraham van den Tempel, 1667. Taken from Wikimedia Commons.
Regardless of the different ways in which it has been defined, radical republicanism has long been obscured or even neglected. Throughout the conference we heard papers calling for the rehabilitation of important figures as diverse as Ptolemy of Lucca, Pier Filippo Pandolfini, and Pieter De la Court, as well as for recognition of the republican implications of the works of figures such as Étienne de La Boétie (examined in an interesting paper by Saul Newman). Selective borrowing has been in operation throughout history. In papers by Miguel Vatter and Alessandro Mulieri, Machiavelli was shown to have rejected Platonism and Aristotelianism while simultaneously taking on board certain ideas from them. In my own paper I showed that selectivity was also in operation in the use of James Harrington's ideas by eighteenth-century British thinkers.
This selectivity has continued in later scholarship. Jérémie Barthas noted that Rudolf von Albertini was crucial in downplaying the significance of radical republicans like Pandolfini, because of the perceived connection between his ideas and those of the Jacobins. Following John McCormick's account of the brutal side of Guicciardini's thought, Anna Becker posed the leading question of where the more positive reading of him had originated. Similarly, Markku Peltonen argued that radical republican writings of the early 1650s have largely been ignored by recent republican scholars.
Gaby Mahlberg and Anna Becker both wondered whether part of the reason for the dominance of a more elitist reading of the republican tradition arises from the source material that tends to be used - in particular the focus on a range of printed canonical texts. Gaby's exploration of translations, reviews and networks - along with Anna's work on women and republicanism - have the potential to offer an alternative view. While source material may be part of the problem, political attitudes and priorities no doubt also play their part. For this reason, radical republicanism not only offers a rich vein for future historical research, but also a potential source of valuable material to help us to understand the nature of the political system we have inherited and the means by which it might be improved in the future.