Democrats should worry when philosophers begin to speak the language of “republicanism.” When philosophers espouse purportedly objective principles, such as the common good, the rule of law, depolitization – that is, normative standards that they claim will make democracy operate more justly – democrats should be very worried indeed. History teaches that this discourse of republicanism – of a common good not fully achievable through extensive popular participation and ultimate popular judgment – enjoys a rather dubious legacy. Republicanism, in its original forms, either prompted aristocratic coups against popular governments, or justified oligarchic consolidation once democratic regimes had been overthrown. On principle, neither of these outcomes is necessarily problematic for contemporary adherents of philosophical republicanism; after all, as I demonstrate in what follows, they value popular participation much less than they do policy outcomes that supposedly benefit the populace at large or track the common good. Minimal authorization of elite governance by common citizens, they suppose, is sufficient to promote and protect liberty.

James Madison famously redefined republics as regimes characterized by electoral representation and by “the total exclusion of the people in their collective capacity” from the workings of government. Very shortly then before “democracy” would reappear on the Western political horizon, Madison, like most of his fellow eighteenth-century republicans, had already precluded from the democratic agenda prominent features of earlier popular governments or governi larghi: class-specific magistracies or assemblies; socioeconomically unbiased methods for selecting public officials; and formalized procedures through which citizens directly deliberate over and decide public affairs. Madison's rationale was not quantitative but qualitative: it was not the scale of modern regimes that necessitated representation but rather the assumption that elections conducted over large territories would generally produce the “best” statesmen. Arguably, the aristocratic character of elections and the abandonment of class-specific or directly participatory practices portended the pacification of modern democracy before its triumph.

True enough, Madison was less elitist than most of his American contemporaries, and he would become more politically egalitarian not long after the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, when he helped found the first political party in history to adopt the designation “democratic.”

Freedom is the sine qua non of popular government. Political actors and political philosophers dating back as far as Pericles and Aristotle convincingly attest to this fact. Yet the freedom so prevalent in governi larghi or democracies, ancient and modern, often allows citizens with considerable material resources and the cultural capital of family and personal reputation to enjoy these advantages at the expense of less privileged citizens. Obviously, if “liberty” is to be more than an empty slogan or an ideology permitting haves to oppress have-nots, common citizens must live unmolested and unthreatened by fellow citizens of whatever rank. Such liberty is, however, notoriously difficult to achieve and maintain: ordinary citizens intimidated by the prospect of retaliation by those with greater economic, political, or social wherewithal will not readily accuse, indict, or convict abusive and self-aggrandizing members of the privileged classes. How can the common people, in addition to well-intentioned but perhaps vulnerable public officials, confidently take steps that protect genuine freedom for all citizens? Absent political institutions that allow them to do so safely and without disrupting public order, “republican liberty” signifies nothing but the freedom of wolves among lambs.

Machiavelli's prescriptions for a widely inclusive and popularly empowered form of government rest on a remarkably favorable assessment of the common people's abilities, especially their capacity for political judgment. In previous chapters, I accentuated Machiavelli's arguments concerning the people's humor not to be dominated and demonstrated how these arguments undergird his case for democratic republics or governi larghi. In this chapter, I examine Machiavelli's arguments in favor of popular judgment and his various engagements with the serious criticisms of the people's capacities voiced by advocates of principalities or oligarchic republics. Machiavelli identifies at least three arenas in which the people exercise better judgment than do any other political actors, specifically, princes and the few: deciding political trials, appointing magistrates, and creating legislation.

Virtually every aristocratic critic of the people denies the latter authority to decide political trials, and most of them strongly advise against granting the people direct judgment over legislation. In general, such critics, when countenancing any popular participation at all, confine such participation to the appointment of magistrates through general elections. Beyond endorsing the popular election of public officials, however, Machiavelli also recommends widely participatory, substantively deliberative procedures through which the people refine their judgments over both political prosecutions and the law.