Abstract
Republicans understand freedom as the guaranteed protection against any arbitrary use of coercive power. This freedom is exercised within a political community, and the concept of arbitrariness is defined with reference to the actual ideas of its citizens about what is in their shared interests. According to many current defenders of the republican model, this form of freedom is understood in strictly negative terms representing an absence of domination. I argue that this assumption is misguided. First, it is internally inconsistent. The central republican focal point of arbitrariness is a necessarily socially constructed ideal that only exists as the creation of the citizens themselves. Second, republican freedom operates in two distinct realms or spheres. There is freedom under a law that is required to uphold the collective good as reflected in society’s norms, and there is freedom within that very system of norms. The threats to freedom from within each sphere are different and must be addressed accordingly. The negative approach, however, conflates the two and emphasises only the dangers faced under the law. This exposes citizens – especially those from marginalised social groups – to domination in the second realm from oppressive social norms. Only by clearly recognising the nature of both kinds of threats can a comprehensive republican freedom be formulated.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Pettit (1997) attributes this view to Machiavelli (p. 28). See also Laborde and Maynor (2008, p. 3).
On an alternative model often described as civic republicanism, it is argued that political participation and citizen virtue are constitutive of the ideal form of human life. This approach is derived from an Aristotelian or Athenian tradition and can be found in Pocock (1975) and Sandel (1996). Pettit (1997) distances his work from this, appealing instead to a tradition rooted in the Roman republic (pp. 283–305; see also Skinner, 1998).
Notable recent accounts include Lovett (2010), Laborde (2008), Maynor (2003) and Viroli (2002). See also the contributions to volumes edited by Laborde and Maynor (2008) and Besson and Martí (2009).
I defend a historical version of republicanism based on the republican writings of Mary Wollstonecraft and Richard Price in Coffee (2013, 2014).
The definition of ‘arbitrariness’ must reflect the subjective ideas about the interests of the citizens while being sufficiently determinate to serve as the basis of law and government. Satisfying both conditions at once is a notoriously difficult philosophical task.
In recent work, Pettit (2008) has articulated his model in terms of alien/non-alien control rather than arbitrary/non-arbitrary power. Although each pair approaches the subject slightly differently, both represent the domination/freedom distinction.
Although it is central to his model, Pettit (2007) says surprisingly little in support of this claim. A potential theoretical justification is available to him, based on his own ideas about intentional action and ‘persons’ as ‘orthonomous agents’ (p. 238). Space does not allow further discussion of these ideas, and they do not affect my argument. In any case, Pettit’s (1997) case is said to be grounded in ideas accessible from any methodological standpoint (p. 11).
For useful contributions from a republican perspective, see Bellamy (2007), Laborde (2008), Miller (2000), Shapiro (2012) and Sunstein (1993). More specifically, for discussions around the dangers of social exclusion in the context of public deliberation, see Young (2000), Tully (2008) and Coffee (2013).
Even in the Nordic countries, which are often regarded as having done most to eliminate gender-based disparities, men’s advantage over women (on an index that measures economic opportunity, access to education, indicators of health, and political empowerment) has been calculated to be between 15–20%. In the United States, this rises to almost 30 per cent (Hausmann et al., 2012).
The UK Equality Commission notes, for example, that the gender pay gap ‘has never threatened to drop below 10 per cent, and progress today appears to be grinding to a halt’ (How Fair is Britain?, Pettit, 2010, p. 44).
Despite some convergence in the respective ratio of paid to unpaid work performed by each sex, the gender gap shows no sign of disappearing. See Craig (2007).
Although broadly in favour of Pettit’s ideas, Costa believes that the definition of arbitrariness should have some substantive content to ensure that equality is maintained. This option is not available to Pettit, who holds that freedom is non-moralised and determined according to a people’s own ideas about what is in their common avowable interests, even where the outcomes may seem unpalatable to outsiders. For example, where a population’s beliefs prevent them from avowing a common interest in reducing women’s ‘domination by their husbands’, he maintains that ‘the state is not authorized to act’ (Pettit, 2006, pp. 282–283).
One question this might raise is whether republican policy can be determinate. I set that aside for this discussion. See McMahon (2005) and Pettit’s (2006) reply.
This remark by Hirschmann (2003) comes in a different context from the present discussion. She questions the notion of interference used in Pettit’s conception of domination. An abused wife, she argues, who believes that it is a woman’s role to make a relationship work may not notice all the interference she suffers, which is no less real for that (p. 27).
There is historical republican support for this principle. I have argued that Mary Wollstonecraft’s most significant contribution to republican theory was to make just such a point (Coffee, 2014). Men’s ability to reason impartially, she argued, had been ‘clouded’ by widely held social prejudices about women’s capacity to act independently. This meant that women were dominated (or as she puts it, slaves) twice over, first by the unequal laws that restrict them and again by the force of opinion that prevents these laws from being challenged. It is only by creating a ‘revolution’ at the second of these levels, she argues, that their freedom at the first can be secured.
Pettit recognises that the fact of cultural change poses him a problem. In response, he has recently articulated a ‘dual aspect democracy’ in which he distinguishes between a short-run politics bound by accepted norms of policymaking and a longer-run politics in which the rules of policymaking may shift (Pettit, 2012, p. 269). These aspects are not the same as my two spheres. First, Pettit is writing about democratic politics, which does not alter his stance on freedom, which remains strictly negative. Second, both of his aspects operate at what I define as the first level. As a by-product of fast and combative politics, certain options or mechanisms come to be replaced by others over time. Using the example of the changes in Britain since the nineteenth century, Pettit argues that the combined influences of industrialisation, a growing and more mobile population, and democratic pressure meant that government could no longer abide by its originally accepted laissez-faire attitude to social policy. Long-term procedural changes were set in motion that eventually transformed the institutional landscape far beyond what policymakers had initially imagined. The focus of Pettit’s remarks, here, is on norms of policy-making and procedure. Norms of this kind, however, still sit within the controversial and ever-changing (second level) conceptual schemes I discuss.
In his discussion of freedom and domination, Tully (2005) defends an ‘agonistic’ model in which continuous negotiation and conciliation over the constitutional order is central. Although I am sympathetic towards much of his analysis, I make no appeal to agonistic politics. My purpose is only to show that negative freedom under law cannot be replicated at the level of social norms.
References
Bellamy, R. (2007) Political Constitutionalism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Benschop, Y. and Verloo, M. (2006) Sisyphus’ sisters: Can gender mainstreaming escape the genderedness of organizations? Journal of Gender Studies 15 (1): 19–33.
Besson, S. and Martí, J. (2009) Legal Republicanism: National and International Perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Coffee, A. (2013) Mary Wollstonecraft, freedom and the enduring power of social domination. European Journal of Political Theory 13 (1): 1–20.
Coffee, A. (2014) Freedom as independence: Mary Wollstonecraft and the grand blessing of life. Hypatia 29 (4):(forthcoming), doi: 10.1111/hypa.12093.
Costa, V. (2013) Is neo-republicanism bad for women? Hypatia 28 (4): 921–936.
Craig, L. (2007) Is there a second shift and, if so, who does it? Feminist Review 86 (1): 149–170.
Dimova-Cookson, M. (2010) Republicanism, philosophy of freedom and the history of ideas: An interview with Philip Pettit. Contemporary Political Theory 9 (4): 477–489.
Habermas, J. (2006) Religion in the public sphere. European Journal of Philosophy 14 (1): 1–25.
Hirschmann, N. (2003) The Subject of Liberty. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Hirschmann, N. (2008) Gender, Class, and Freedom in Modern Political Theory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Hausmann, R., Tyson, L. and Zahidi, S. (2012) Global Gender Gap Report, Geneva: World Economic Forum, p. 8.
Jaggar, A. (2005) Arenas of citizenship: Civil society, the state, and the global order. In: M. Friedman (ed.) Women and Citizenship. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 91–110.
Laborde, C. (2008) Critical Republicanism: The Hijab Controversy and Political Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Laborde, C. and Maynor, J. (2008) Republicanism and Political Theory. Oxford: Blackwell.
Lister, R. (2003) Citizenship: Feminist Perspectives. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Lovett, F. (2010) A General Theory of Domination and Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
McMahon, C. (2005) The indeterminacy of republican policy. Philosophy and Public Affairs 33 (1): 67–93.
Martí, J. and Pettit, P. (2010) Philosophy and the Public Life. Woodstock: Princeton University Press.
Maynor, J. (2003) Republicanism in the Modern World. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
Miller, D. (2000) Citizenship and National Identity. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
Pateman, C. (1990) The Disorder of Women. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
Pettit, P. (1997) Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pettit, P. (2001) A Theory of Freedom: From the Psychology to the Politics of Agency. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
Pettit, P. (2004) Depoliticizing democracy. Ratio Juris 17 (1): 52–65.
Pettit, P. (2006) The determinacy of republican policy: A reply to McMahon. Philosophy and Public Affairs 34 (3): 275–283.
Pettit, P. (2007) Joining the dots. In: M. Smith, G. Brennan, R. Goodin and F. Jackson (eds.) Common Minds: Themes from the Philosophy of Philip Pettit. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 215–344.
Pettit, P. (2008) Republican freedom: Three axioms, four theorems. In: C. Laborde and J. Maynor (eds.) Republicanism and Political Theory. Oxford: Blackwell, pp 102–130.
Pettit, P. (2010) A republican law of peoples. European Journal of Political Theory 9 (1): 70–94.
Pettit, P. (2012) On the People’s Terms. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Pocock, J. (1975) The Machiavellian Moment. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Pocock, J. (1995) The ideal of citizenship since classical times. In: R. Beiner (ed.) Theorizing Citizenship. New York: SUNY Press, pp. 1–28.
Sandel, M. (1996) Democracy’s Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Shapiro, I. (2012) On non-domination. University of Toronto Law Journal 62 (3): 293–334.
Skinner, Q. (1998) Liberty before Liberalism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Sunstein, C. (1993) The Partial Constitution. London: Harvard University Press.
Tully, J. (2005) Exclusion and assimilation: Two forms of domination in relation to freedom. In: S. Macedo and M. Williams (eds.) NOMOS XLVI. New York: New York University Press, pp. 191–229.
Tully, J. (2008) Public Philosophy in a New Key. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Viroli, M. (2002) Republicanism. New York: Hill & Wang.
Walby, S. (2005) Gender mainstreaming: Productive tensions in theory and practice. Social Politics 12 (3): 321–343.
White, L. (2009) The United States in comparative perspective: Maternity and parental leave and child care benefits trends in liberal welfare states. Yale Journal of Law and Feminism 21 (1): 185–232.
Young, I.M. (2000) Democracy and Inclusion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Acknowledgements
I am extremely grateful to Susan James for all her help with my wider republican project, and to Quentin Skinner for his thoughtful and insightful reading of an earlier draft. I would also like to thank the editors at Contemporary Political Theory, and the two anonymous reviewers, for their exacting, yet ultimately invaluable, comments.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Coffee, A. Two spheres of domination: Republican theory, social norms and the insufficiency of negative freedom. Contemp Polit Theory 14, 45–62 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1057/cpt.2014.5
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/cpt.2014.5