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The ‘Republican Dilemma’ and the Changing Social Context of Republicanism in the Early Modern Period

University of Ulster, g.kennedy{at}ulster.ac.uk

This article relates the evolving relationship between republicanism and the problem of ‘empire’ to the changing social contexts within which republican political theory emerges in the early modern period. It is argued that the initial antagonism between republicanism and empire was a politically constituted dilemma that related to the specific configuration of economic and political power characteristic of pre-capitalist societies. With the development of capitalism in England in the early modern period, the problem of empire becomes partially resolved due to the way in which the separation of economic and political power under capitalism reconstitutes the nature of empire itself. This new social context — characterized by new social, economic and political relationships specific to an emerging capitalist context — laid the foundations for the resolution of the ‘republican dilemma’ of empire and the ideological establishment of the first ‘Republican Empire’ in 18th century America.

Key Words: absolutism • agrarian capitalism • commercial society • empire • Machiavelli • republicanism

European Journal of Political Theory, Vol. 8, No. 3, 313-338 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1474885109103833


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