Republican freedom, social justice, and democracy

The long republican tradition, by contrast with the classical liberalism that appeared in the early nineteenth century, takes the freedom of citizens to require the absence of exposure to arbitrary or discretionary interference: the absence of domination. That requires protection and empowerment under the law, to a level securing a republican version of social justice. But a legal and political system that guards against personal domination in that way may enable public domination by those in office. How to guard against this? The answer lies in a distinctively republican conception of democracy. Its guiding goal, generating a range of constitutional demands, is to reduce the discretion of those in power, forcing them to operate on terms laid down by their people.