Promise and Peril: Republics and Republicanism in the History of Political Philosophy

Promise and Peril includes eight essays that were first presented at the 2015 A.V. Elliott Conference on Great Books and Ideas, the eighth annual conference sponsored by Mercer University’s Thomas C. and Ramona E. McDonald Center for America’s Founding Principles. Together, these essays explore the idea of republicanism across the history of political thought, focusing especially on the challenges and dilemmas endemic to popular government.

How do we balance the pursuit of private interests with the common good? To what extent can leadership and statesmanship be made compatible with the ideas of equality and popular sovereignty? How do we deal with the perennial threat of factions, or with the potential for popular passion to overwhelm rational deliberation? What do citizens need to know, and what characteristics must they have, in order to exercise responsibly the power to govern themselves and others? To what extent, and under what conditions, is freedom compatible with equality? How do we keep republican citizens from becoming mere subjects? All of these questions, and more, receive extended treatment in the volume, divided into three sections: the first examines ancient republicanism as articulated chiefly by Aristotle and Plutarch; the second turns to modern theories of republicanism and the writings of Michel de Montaigne, John Locke, and Francis Hutcheson; the third considers Alexis de Tocqueville and his landmark study, Democracy In America. All of the essays are written to be of use to scholars and citizens alike.

Contributors include Evanthia Speliotis, Mark Shiffman, Benjamin Storey, Andrea Kowalchuk, Michelle A. Schwarze, James R. Zink, Lise van Boxel, Christine Dunn Henderson, and Aristide Tessitore.