Bounding Power: Republican Security Theory from the Polis to the Global Village

Chapter Two RELATIVES AND DESCENDANTS Only something with no history can be defined. —Friedrich Nietzsche1 SITUATING REPUBLICAN SECURITY THEORY Due to their scope and antiquity, the arguments of republican security theory find partial articulation in a vast number of theorists stretching from the Greek Enlightenment to the present. No one theorist makes all these arguments, and some part of these arguments appears, if sometimes faintly, in virtually every theorist who attempts to shed light on the politics of security. Given this, it is useful to sketch some of the ways in which the arguments of republican security theory relate to and differ from other bodies of ‘republican’ thought and Realism and Liberalism. These general relationships are usefully visualized as a set of partially overlapping sets (see figure 2.1) in which republican security theory is a subset of all republicanism , and Realism and Liberalism are partial (and partially overlapping ) subsets of republican security theory. Overall, security restraint republicanism is the rival sibling of other early varieties of republican thought, while Realism and Liberalism are in significant measure its forgetful incomplete descendants. Fully sketching these relationships is an undertaking beyond the scope of this reconstruction and exegesis. This chapter offers a series of selective encounters with rivals and descendants, stretching from the beginning to the present. These encounters do not provide a full explication of the complexities of the different ideas and thinkers, but rather focus on how they derive and differ from republican security theory in their treatment of security-from-violence, mutually restraining political structures, and natural -material contexts. The first three sections survey other varieties of republicanism , the middle six sections examine hierarchy-restraint and anarchy -interdependence among select Realists, and the next two sections look at contemporary Liberalisms. The concluding section assembles these sketches to finish the overall mapping of where different arguments sit. 62 CHAPTER 2 Figure 2.1 Situating Republican Security Theory CLASSICAL NATURAL LAW AND COSMOPOLITANISM Within the broad body of Western political thought, Plato and Aristotle, the two greatest extant political theorists of the Greek Enlightenment, are commonly associated with ‘republicanism.’ Both are major figures in the broader tradition of ‘natural law’ theorizing, which is further developed by Stoic and Christian metaphysical, ethical, and political thought.2 Three central notions form the heart of the natural law tradition. First, the cosmos is a hierarchical ‘great chain of being’ in which humans have an appropriate position, and there exists a natural or divine template to guide human activity that human reason can apprehend. Second, natural law ethical thought holds that human happiness depends upon individual virtue whose achievement can be aided by philosophy and education. Finally , although natural law theorists often speak of the cosmos and the soul of the individual as ‘republics’ marked by equilibrium and restraint, good polities are characterized by hierarchy and virtue, rather than by political freedom and popular sovereignty. Natural law and republicanism seem intimately related because Plato’s most famous dialogue, the Republic, is one of the greatest works in the natural law tradition.3 Here Socrates’ quest to understand the nature of justice produces a lengthy analogy between the individual psyche and the constitution of the polis. Although concern for restraint, particularly of the appetites and of the warriors, is prominent, Plato evinces little interest in either individual or public freedom. Although there is dispute about [35.202.208.150] Project MUSE (2024-06-15 13:52 GMT) RELATIVES AND DESCENDANTS 63 Plato’s intended teaching in the Republic, the main governance idea commonly associated with it—the absolute rule of philosophical wise men— has much more in common with enlightened despotism than with security -restraint republicanism. The ideal regime described by Socrates is a dictatorship of wisdom, and so might more accurately be called a ‘sophocracy ’ or a ‘solonocracy’ than a republic. The relationship between Aristotle’s political theory and the arguments of security-restraint republicanism are more intimate and complex, but still substantially removed. Many recent theorists of ‘civic humanism’ and the ‘republican revival’ emphasize the Aristotelian roots of the ideas they take to be distinctively ‘republican.’4 Aristotle’s general concern with moderation, his analysis of the mixed constitution or ‘polity’ as the best practical regime, and his many arguments about the interplay of political structures and material contexts (explored in the next chapter) are consistent with the concerns of republican security theory. But central for most ‘republican’ appropriations of Aristotle is his emphasis on the centrality of political participation as an...