Browsing by Subject "Republicanism"

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The American Home: An Emblem of Republican Virtue, Democratic Ideals, and Independent Thinking
(1992-11-11) Peatross, C. Ford
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Horizontal rights : constitutionalism and the transformation of the private sphere
(2019-07-12) Bambrick, Christina Rose; Jacobsohn, Gary J., 1946-; Brinks, Daniel; Ferreres, Victor; Tulis, Jeffrey K
Though jurists have traditionally understood the constitution as a separate kind of law that obligates only the state, courts increasingly understand constitutions as creating obligations for private actors such as private individuals, businesses, schools, and hospitals. The practice of applying rights “horizontally” to private actors raises a range of questions from the theoretical to the practical and from the jurisprudential to the political. I argue that we better understand the practical and political implications of such “horizontal rights” by studying them through the lens of republican political theory. Specifically, republicanism grounds (and foregrounds) the solidarity between citizens and the uniformity between public and private spheres that horizontality ascertains. Applying this framework, I examine constitutional debates, court cases, and political histories to show how courts have applied rights horizontally across time, place, and subject-matter. By situating my study in the larger historical-political context of each place, I examine the conditions that surround the horizontal application of constitutional rights to individual citizens and other private actors. Chapter I lays out this theoretical grounding, drawing on classical and neo-republican theory to demonstrate the explanatory power of this framework. In the next two chapters, I examine the development of horizontal rights in national contexts, contrasting efforts to bring solidarity to the private sphere in India and the United States (Chapter II), and comparing attempts to establish uniform standards to govern public and private spheres in Germany and South Africa (Chapter III). Chapter IV extends this discussion to the European Union, considering how the republican framework for horizontal effect accounts for duties and standards occurring across national boundaries. In accounting for the practical power of courts to determine the rights and duties of private entities, this project contributes to our knowledge of how constitutional politics shape conceptions of public and private in our increasingly pluralistic world. This research engages and contributes to law and courts scholarship in political science. However, its findings will be of interest to all scholars interested the relationship between the state and civil society.
Political liberalism and its internal critiques: feminist theory, communitarianism, and republicanism
(2007) Saenz, Carla, 1974-; Martinich, Aloysius
John Rawls's political liberalism has shaped contemporary political philosophy. Three other theories, feminism, republicanism, and communitarianism, devote a good deal of space to refuting Rawls's theory, and claim to be superior alternatives to it. My main thesis is that they are not alternatives to Rawls's political liberalism but variations of it. That is, although these theories present themselves as external critiques of liberalism, they are ultimately internal critiques, because their own theories are built upon the basic principles of liberalism. This is not to deny that many of their criticisms are well-taken and thus need to be addressed by liberal theorists. I also argue that Rawls's theory of political liberalism is in general terms correct. It needs however to be revised in other to solve what I take to be its main problem: Its lack of a foundation. In my dissertation I propose a revised version of political liberalism, which includes an argument in support of the political liberal conception of justice.
"Though it blasts their eyes" : slavery and citizenship in New York City, 1790-1821
(2011-05) Maguire, Jacob Charles; Thompson, Shirley Elizabeth; Meikle, Jeffrey L.
Between 1790 and 1821, New York City underwent a dramatic transformation as slavery slowly died. Throughout the 1790s, a massive influx of runaways from the hinterland and black refugees from the Caribbean led to the rapid expansion of the city’s free black population. At the same time, white agitation for abolition reached a fever pitch. The legislature’s decision in 1799 to enact a program of gradual emancipation set off a wave of arranged manumissions that filled city streets with black bodies at all stages of transition from slavery to freedom. As blacks began to organize politically and develop a distinct social, economic and cultural life, they both conformed to and defied white expectations of republican citizenship. Over time, the emerging climate of social indistinction proved too much for white elites, who turned to new ideologies of race to enact the massive disfranchisement of black voters.