Maurizio viroli republicanism government

A meditation on the form of government best suited to accommodate—but by no means depend on—the active participation of citizens.

A native of Italy and close student of Renaissance politics, Viroli (Political Science/Princeton Univ.; Niccolò’s Smile: A Biography of Machiavelli, 2000) apparently conceived this volume in a fit of righteous pique after the election of prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, a communications magnate who “concentrates in his hands a personal power that no democratic leader before him has ever enjoyed.” To Viroli’s mind, Berlusconi’s rise signals a collapse of civic virtues among his compatriots, and this discourse on republicanism—a form of government perfected, if not invented, in Italy—is intended to tweak civic consciousness on his native ground.

"The idea of the republic is basic to Western political theory, yet the political philosophy of republicanism is all too often marginalized or misunderstood.

"But Republicanism is much more than a historical survey, for Viroli is also calling for a contemporary renewal of classical republicanism.

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Viroli makes a passionate and convincing plea for a rebirth of republicanism to rescue patriotism and civic engagment from nationalistic and religious demagogues, and to reinvigorate our democratic institutions so that we can face the challenges of a dynamic and uncertain future."--BOOK JACKET.

Without a return to republican virtues, he insists, “we shall have to resign ourselves to living in nations whose governments are controlled by the cunning and the arrogant.”

Though repetitive and sometimes vague, Viroli’s examination of political ideals should be of great interest to students of civics and practical philosophy.

In this authoritative, eminently readable study, Maurizio Viroli explores its history and meaning, from its origins with Aristotle and in classical Rome to its renaissance with Machiavelli and other exponents of Italian republican ideals, then to its great flowering in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with Locke, Kant, Rousseau, Thomas Paine, and the Founding Fathers.".

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Its liberal, democratic, and conservative variants differ chiefly in their conception of individual liberty. Its relevance to American readers, used to a low level of individual political involvement before mid-September 2001, extends even to the most apolitical or apathetic, whom Viroli’s elusive definition of republicanism assures that their involvement in government isn’t really necessary, since “it is often more important to have good rulers than to have citizens participate in every decision.