On 3 October my intellectual biography of James Harrington will be published by Oxford University Press. While I have already said much about that book, its origins and its arguments, in my blogposts, I could not let this date pass without revisiting some of the aims of that book and how working on it has affected my research interests and priorities.
Something I've learned from my research into Harrington is the multivalence and malleability of key political terms not least 'republic' and 'democracy'. Harrington has conventionally been characterised as a leading republican thinker - particularly since the publication of John Pocock's groundbreaking research on him in the 1970s. Yet Harrington's republicanism was complex and he failed to adhere either to the conventional constitutional definition of a republic as a government without a single person at its head, or to the necessity of a genuinely virtuous citizenry. He accepted the possibility, even the potential benefits, of having a single figurehead at the apex of a republican system of government, as long as that individual was not treated as sovereign and was carefully constrained in the exercise of executive power. Indeed he even suggested that the former king Charles I or the protectors Oliver or Richard Cromwell could have performed this role if they had behaved differently. He also argued bitterly with other republican thinkers in the late 1650s, eschewing the conventional republican understanding of civic virtue and instead adopting a Hobbesian view of human nature and acknowledging the role of self-interest in public affairs.
A Proposition in order to the Proposing of a Commonwealth or Democracy, one of several Harringtonian works that explicitly advocates democracy. Taken from James Harrington, The Oceana and Other Works of James Harrington… (London, 1737). Author’s own edition.
In some ways, given his firm commitment to the primacy of popular power, Harrington might be more appropriately described as a 'democrat' than a 'republican'. It is certainly significant that while he generally avoided the term 'republic' (preferring instead the more ambiguous 'commonwealth'), he did describe the system that he advocated as a 'democracy'. Yet, Harrington's understanding of this term is equally idiosyncratic. He certainly saw the people as performing an important role within a commonwealth, making them the final arbiters as to whether a piece of legislation should be enacted or not, and insisting on measures to make officeholders accountable to those they represent. But, at the same time, he argued that the popular will should be tempered by the wisdom of the few, assigning them the right to frame legislative proposals; and he imposed other restrictions on the democratic participation of citizens. Ultimately, as Colin Davis has argued, Harrington's aim was to protect the popular will and the pursuit of the public interest from the danger of demagoguery and party diverting it in the direction of particular interests (J. C. Davis, 'James Harrington and the Rule of King People', in Democratic Moments: Reading Democratic Texts, ed. Xavier Márquez, London: Bloomsbury, 2018, pp. 65-72).
A second lesson I have drawn from this project is the importance of taking an interdisciplinary approach to the history of political thought, while at the same time acknowledging the difficulties inherent in doing so. Harrington has tended to be understood as a narrowly political thinker - while Pocock paid attention to his economic, historical, scientific, and religious ideas, these aspects of his thinking have not received much attention from subsequent scholars. Yet a full understanding of Harrington's position requires an appreciation of all aspects of his thought, unhindered by the imposition of disciplinary divisions that only emerged long after his death. Harrington applied his understanding of democracy not just to politics but also to religion. Ultimately, not only could the political, religious, military, and judicial organisation of Oceana be mapped directly on to its economic foundations, but the whole system was grounded in Harrington's philosophical understanding of the nature of human beings and their relationship to God, the state, and the universe.
The Manner and Use of the Ballot in which Harrington makes use of a visual image as a means of bringing his ideas alive for his reader. Taken from Harrington, The Oceana and Other Works.
What this implies is that a full understanding of Harrington's ideas requires the skills of the historian, economist, and the theologian. Also important are those of the literary theorist. Harrington sought to convey his ideas not just via the content of his works, but also through the genres in which he wrote, and even placed emphasis on the material form of his texts. The form of Oceana blended royalist and parliamentarian genres (illustrated by the use of different typefaces), just as his arguments were designed to reconcile these groups to his proposed constitutional framework. Moreover, Oceana, and his other works, were written in the light of his belief that people learn better via experience than by instruction. His adoption of a quasi-utopian format, his thick sensory-rich descriptive passages, and his occasional use of visual devices, were all designed to bring his model alive for his readers to allow them to experience it in their imaginations.
Finally, as earlier blogposts have made clear, researching Harrington over the last three years has made me particularly attentive to the continued currency of his ideas today, and of the utility of understanding past political events and debates as we propose future solutions.