Republicanism within IR: A History of Liberty and Empire

Introduction

The development of International Relations (IR) as an academic discipline has an under-acknowledged link with the history of republican polities and the legacy of republican thought. Republicanism is a theory centred on the goal of securing political liberty and freedom for the polis. ¹ It exists as both a discursive tradition in political thought and as an experience based on the historical practice of veritable polities, such as the city states of Venice and Florence, the English Commonwealth, the Dutch United Provinces, and the early United States. ² The republican tradition is under-recognised by IR, but has long been influential within the discipline of political theory. Contemporary republicanism is understood by political theorists as a broad school of thought that represents common themes of civic virtue, liberty for the public sphere and the active participation of republican citizens. ³ Within political theory, republican ideas of freedom are applied to a wide range of issues, such as social justice, ⁴ international institutions, ⁵ and global political order. ⁶ But for IR, republicanism has been largely overlooked as a distinct tradition with a few exceptions, most notably, Daniel Deudney’s approach to republican security theory. ⁷ The legacy of republicanism within IR deserves to be examined further because republican thought and conceptions of republican politics continue to influence normative ideas within international thought. ⁸ IR theory has largely developed by looking to republican polities and early modern sources. ⁹ It has also built upon early modern authors who lived in republican polities, in which concerns about political liberty dominated their thinking, such as James Harrington, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Niccolò Machiavelli. ¹⁰ The legacy of these thinkers has left ‘fragmentary’ elements of republican ideas within the broad schools of realism and liberalism. ¹¹ This is particularly evident in the way IR theory has built upon the presumed normality and ideals of a republican polis. In building upon teleological narratives that trace the development of political freedom from ancient Athens to the modern United States, ¹² IR theory has implicitly celebrated republicanism as the foundation of political liberty.

As this article shows, realist and liberal approaches include a discourse of normatively advocating the republican polis of Athens as a political ideal. The latter is then used as an historical analogy to legitimise claims about democracy and political order. ¹³ International thought has built upon a teleological narrative of liberty developing from the ancients to the moderns in which the United States is the climax of political liberty. ¹⁴ The story of the discipline of IR is built on a ‘mythical epic history’, ¹⁵ which sees the West as ‘simultaneously ancient and modern’. ¹⁶ This influential narrative imagines a history of republican liberty emerging in the rivalry between Athens and Sparta, before being reborn in the warring city states of Renaissance Italy, transferring to English thinkers such as James Harrington in the 17th century, and then finally crossing the Atlantic to North America. ¹⁷ Recognising this grand narrative of political liberty and its development shows that IR is built on many underlying assumptions about republican political order, which fail to recognise the connection between republican liberty and the history of republican empire.

The history of empire is not considered as central to contemporary understandings of republicanism. Instead, the link to republicanism is often celebrated with reference to the creation of the United States. The founding moment and the history of the American republic has provided inspiration for countless foreign policy debates as an ideal of political liberty and democracy. ¹⁸ Examining the influence of the early American republic on IR theory demonstrates a normative concern for the republican politics of citizenship, restraints on power and a free public sphere. For liberal-internationalist strands of IR, the early United States and its republican founding is even seen as a model for overcoming an anarchic states system. ¹⁹ Daniel Deudney’s Bounding Power: Republican Security Theory from the Polis to the Global Village (2007), represents much of the current understanding of republicanism within IR ²⁰ and has been acknowledged for its achievements by winning the 2010 International Studies Association Book of the Decade Award. Republican security theory presents an ambitious and illuminating attempt to recover republicanism within IR. But as this article argues, Deudney’s interpretation is problematic in that its ontology of presentism rests on a triumphalist account of US history.

This article argues for a more critical account of republicanism, which can demonstrate the co-constitutive nature of liberty within the polis and external domination. A critical account of republicanism can illustrate how political liberty is intertwined with imperial practices. Conventionally understood as a domestic theory of political freedom by political theorists and historians, IR scholars have drawn upon republicanism primarily as a guide for theorising normative aspirations at the international level. ²¹ The history of republican polities, however, shows that political liberty has always been of a limited nature and that republican norms and values within the polis were co-constituted by relations with the international sphere. This perspective recognises that political freedoms are not forms of ‘anti-power’, but are rooted in power relations in which republican liberty is possessed by those who can express a voice within the polis. ²² This article begins by articulating a definition of republicanism as a tradition of thought centred on the goal of securing liberty. Section two illustrates these normative ideals of securing liberty by looking to how Athens is seen as a republican model for the United States to emulate. Section three builds on this argument by examining how the American republic and its founding is seen as a solution to an anarchic state system. This section will examine the work of Daniel Deudney and his call for a global federal republican model. The final section of this article will present a more critical reading of republicanism, which, it is argued, is better placed to understand the history of republican polities to develop empires and dominate those outside the polis. Properly understood, the republican tradition offers an analysis of international politics which focuses on the mutual implication of the domestic and international spheres. It does so with the purpose of maintaining domestic liberty firmly in mind, even at the cost of enslaving, colonising or otherwise dominating others abroad.

Republicanism in Theory and Historical Practice

The republican tradition has been developed by a broad range of scholars, including among theorists of law ²³ and sociology, ²⁴ historians of the United States, ²⁵ and historians of the renaissance and the enlightenment. ²⁶ The revival of republicanism has also been influenced by historians of political thought such as J.G.A Pocock, ²⁷ Maurizio Viroli ²⁸ and Quentin Skinner, ²⁹ and normative political theorists, such as Philip Pettit ³⁰ and Michael Sandel. ³¹ IR has also acknowledged republicanism for its lasting influence on both realist and liberal strands of international thought. ³² The following argues for the importance of recognising the history of republics and their struggle to secure political liberty.

The term ‘republicanism’ can be understood as a theory of liberty, which seeks to prevent arbitrary forms of domination. ³³ It is a tradition based on the participation of equal citizens in a free polis with the use of mixed constitutions designed to prevent unaccountable forms of power. ³⁴ Republicanism also recognises that the freedom of political liberty is not a natural attribute of the human condition. Citizens can only be considered free when they have the right to participate in the life of the polis without fear of tyrannical control. ³⁵ A central tenet of republican thought, therefore, is focused on how free citizens must partake in the civic life of the polis in order to secure their own liberty. Philip Pettit, along with the Cambridge School of intellectual historians, ³⁶ has sought to identify a republican tradition stretching from the Roman Republic to Machiavelli, to the English Civil War, and the early United States. ³⁷ Defined as ‘neo-Roman’, this school of thought has sought to show that republican liberty derives from the political ideal of ‘self-government’ ³⁸ and it is the desire for ‘political freedom’, that distinguishes republicanism as a theory of liberty. ³⁹

IR has largely missed the significance of republican thought because the latter was first and foremost a critique of absolutist imperialism. Republican polities evolved within a context of overlapping and blurred boundaries of dynastic politics when the form of the state was not settled. For early-modern republican history, between Machiavelli and the American revolution, republics had to contend with both the norms of international behaviour and the competing world of the Papacy, monarchical dynasties, empires, city-states and corporations. ⁴⁰ Early modern republics sought independence for the polis by rejecting dynastic monarchies which aimed to extend their powers across multiple territories. Republicanism was, therefore, advanced as an ‘alternative and opposing set of ideas to the domination of absolute monarchy’ and the political universalism this entailed. ⁴¹ A polis could only enjoy political freedom by seeking independence from a system of monarchical universalism. The meaning of liberty or libertas for the republican city states of Renaissance Italy, was ‘defined in a restricted sense of political independence’. ⁴² This struggle for political independence was seen repeatedly in early modern history with small republican powers. The United Provinces sought to break away from the Spanish monarchy which made claims to universal rule, ⁴³ and the Venetian republic existed in a precarious geopolitical struggle against surrounding Habsburg powers. ⁴⁴ As the historian Pierre Serna argues, republican struggles for liberty often arose as movements against monarchical absolutism and can be seen as akin to wars of independence. ⁴⁵

Contemporary studies of republicanism often focus on the interpretations of historical texts and the discursive legacies of early modern republican authors. This creates a significant gap between republicanism as a literary tradition and republicanism as a historical practice. Republican thinkers, as Nicholas Onuf observes, have often imagined ‘polities offered as alternatives to the ones we live in’. ⁴⁶ A significant part of the republican tradition has been to imagine the ideal polity, with examples ranging from Thomas Moore’s Utopia (1516) to James Harringtons’ The Commonwealth of Oceana (1656) and Rousseau’s imagined communities. ⁴⁷ Conventionally understood as a domestic theory of liberty, contemporary political theorists have developed a sophisticated reading of republicanism through studying accounts of the ideal polis. A broad range of scholars within political theory have drawn on these ideas to theorise a normative republican approach to the international. Republicanism within international political theory has become an ambitious and normative ideal that seeks to address issues of global republican citizenship, ⁴⁸ global justice ⁴⁹ and international institutions. ⁵⁰ The research programme of republicanism is also used within political theory to instigate calls for adopting republican principles across the international sphere, ⁵¹ and even the formation of a global republic. ⁵² These normative approaches to republicanism build on a tradition of theorising the ideal republic, but the international is left effectively absent from their discussion, as the domestic polis is superimposed onto the international sphere. ⁵³ Less attention has been paid within normative political theory to actual historical republics. This has left political theorists unable to appreciate fully the international elements of republicanism.

The development of republican liberty is inherently tied to the international sphere. Republican liberty is built on the ideal of a free polis, but this presents a security challenge to republican polities which must avoid domination both internally and externally in order for liberty to flourish. The threat of domination can arise from both the internal concentration of power and from external rival powers. A republic that expands to secure autonomy and independence risks the militarisation of the polis and the centralisation of power under a tyrant, ⁵⁴ while a republic that stays small and vulnerable, faces the threat of external domination by a larger power. ⁵⁵ This republican security challenge has been central to republican understandings of the international. The historical examples of Athens and its domination of the Delian League, ⁵⁶ or of the Roman republic and its transformation into an Empire have played a significant role in republican debates on the nature of republican empire. ⁵⁷ Early modern republics sought to avoid the fate of republican Rome by seeking commercial expansion as a solution to militarism. The republican desire to avoid martial imperialism abroad and tyranny at home also developed concurrently with forms of domination arising from colonial expansion. Within modern republican thought there are pervasive assumptions that democracy and empire are ‘inherently incompatible’ and that political freedom is the antithesis to domination, ⁵⁸ yet, republican ideas about non-domination developed concurrently with European colonial projects. It is this story of republican liberty that has been widely neglected by IR scholars seeking to revive the republican tradition.

When IR does consider republican polities, it is to illustrate the development of peaceful relations between equal republics. ⁵⁹ Less well recognised is the imperial legacy of republican polities, particularly their expansion outside Europe. In building on teleological narratives that trace the development of political freedom from ancient Athens to the modern US, IR theory has celebrated republicanism as the foundation of political liberty, as the following section explains.

The Presumed Normalcy of the Republican Polis

The legacy of the ancient Greek republican polis has shaped the ways in which citizenship and democracy within a political body are theorised. As R.B.J. Walker notes, IR has traditionally been ‘in thrall to the polis’ and its reimagined conceptions have been the basis for much of modern Western political and international thought. ⁶⁰ For Anglo-American IR, conceptions of the political remain attached to visions of the good life within the republican polis. The polis and the modern nation state are conflated to become the container of political life and it is the polis ‘where political life must occur and thus what political life must involve’. ⁶¹ The following section examines the role the Athenian polis plays within IR discourse and argues that analogies between the United States and Athens create normative claims about republican liberty and political order.

The republican polis has been incorporated within political thought as a strictly Western phenomenon that offers a prototype of modern Western values and institutions. ⁶² Seen as the forerunner of modern democratic nation states, scholars look to the republic of Athens for the beginnings of political values such as freedom, democracy and political liberty. Within international and political thought there is also a desire to legitimise Western nation states and the international order of liberal democracies through comparisons to the republic of ancient Athens. Modern liberal democratic institutions receive this legitimacy when they are framed as the heirs to the political institutions of Athens. ⁶³ The model of Athens as an ideal polis has also shaped the way IR theorises the historical development of political liberty. The republic of Athens is often understood as the ‘original’ democracy and represents the forerunner of modern political ideals of democracy and liberal freedoms. ⁶⁴

The legacy of the Athenian polis can be found particularly within realist theory. Realism is significantly informed by the presumed normalcy of a republican polis as the arena for political life. American IR has been built on an ‘Athenian’ perspective ⁶⁵ and the cornerstone of realist structural theories remains the Thucydidean narrative of Athens. Thucydides has long been read by IR scholars as a ‘prototypical Cold War policy analyst’. ⁶⁶ When realists seek to prescribe policy or provide a political commentary it is often founded on favourable comparisons of the US to Athens or framed with reference to the Athenian republic. ⁶⁷ For Robert Gilpin, the US represents Athens and the Soviet Union could be seen as an ‘undemocratic’ Sparta. ⁶⁸ Despite its infamous military reputation, historians recognise that Sparta had a mixed constitution that acted as a source of political restraint. ⁶⁹ But for realist IR, it is significant that realism is built on presuppositions of comparing the US to a ‘democratic’ Athens.

The analogy of the US as Athens goes beyond grand strategy to incorporate normative values and ideals of political liberty. Louis Halle made the analogy of Athens after the Persian Wars and its similarity to the situation of the US in the early Cold War. But Halle went further to stress the similarity between Athens and the United States as democracies. He argued that the example of Athens showed how the US had also been ‘called upon to assume the leadership of the free world’. ⁷⁰ Similarly, Hans Morgenthau favourably compared the US with democratic Athens in his work as a political commentator. There, he called for a US foreign policy that sought a ‘national purpose’, which was founded on presuppositions of Athens as a model ‘to be emulated’. ⁷¹ Recent scholarship to revive the connections between realist authors and their support domestically for US liberal democracy demonstrates an underlying republican concern for restraints on power and active citizens within a free public sphere. ⁷² In building on a Thucydidean narrative, realists also incorporate presuppositions of the US as comparable to Athens. G. John Ikenberry has argued that US-American IR has been built on the great debate between realism and liberalism. ⁷³ Yet, the ideals of the US as Athens suggests realism and liberalism are not opposites, but two sides of the same coin. The normative ideal of the US as Athens also frames discussions of cosmopolitan democracy and global governance and creates a view of ‘American liberty’ as the final evolution of political order. ⁷⁴

A narrative of liberty developing within republican polities reflects a whiggish view of historical progression in which ‘the evolution of liberty’, and the ‘exceptional’ moment of the US founding, can be viewed as the natural culmination of a political process. ⁷⁵ This linear interpretation not only limits a consideration of transnational processes, but also risks seeing the United States as the final evolution of republican liberty. An approach which also creates the hazard of US independence in 1776 replacing the Westphalian narrative of 1648 as the foundational year for the ‘story’ of International Relations as an academic discipline. ⁷⁶ A narrative centred on 1776 would essentially nationalise the subject of IR. As the following section explores, republicanism has also been adopted within IR as a celebration of liberal internationalism. This is particularly evident with Daniel Deudney’s account of republicanism, which looks to the American founding moment in 1776 for normative arguments towards creating a global federal republic.

Republican Security Theory and the American Republic

Daniel Deudney’s Bounding Power: Republican Security Theory from the Polis to the Global Village represents one of the most influential current understandings of republicanism within IR. Republican security theory seeks to place an emphasis on material contexts and violence-interdependence, the capacity of actors to use violent force, to create a liberal security theory that can refute the realist dominance in security studies. Deudney’s approach views the United States as the ‘climax of early modern republican theory and practice’. ⁷⁷ This expression of American triumphalism neglects the wider historical context of republicanism and leads to problematic conclusions, as the following section demonstrates.

Bounding Power argues that global federalism would not in itself be particularly novel and could be achieved by following the US model of federal power restraints. Republican security theory follows from a strand of liberal internationalism in support of a ‘liberal-democratic and globalist’ position ⁷⁸ that expresses a normative view of the United States as the end point of republican evolution. Daniel Deudney, along with G. John Ikenberry, has argued for the benefits of the US as a model to overcome interstate anarchy. ⁷⁹ This approach within liberal-republican thought emphasises the example of the American republic as evidence of “co-binding” for international institutions. For this school of liberal internationalism, the growth of an American-led international order in the post-1945 era shows the progress of Western ideas and values leading to the spread of democratic states and the ascendancy of liberalism. ⁸⁰ For liberal internationalists, the early history of the US is understood through a “unionist paradigm” in which the 13 states united in a single political order to overcome an anarchic international system. This paradigm celebrates the US Constitution as a ‘peace pact’ between the several states thereby creating a ‘democratic federal peace’. ⁸¹ In bringing together separate units to overcome systemic anarchy, the US federal political order is advocated as the ‘first case of modern peacebuilding’. ⁸² This statist reading disavows the connection to imperial expansion and forms of domination. The model of the US federation is therefore viewed simply as a way to overcome anarchy and as a ‘prototype for leaders’ of other modern states to follow. ⁸³

Understandings of the early US within IR often features ‘lofty rhetoric’ based on an interpretation of the ‘idealistic, transformative’ and ‘liberating impulse’ of the American republic. ⁸⁴ A recurring theme within IR has been to stress the importance of the founding moment of the United States and its lessons for liberal internationalism. ⁸⁵ US leadership is claimed to have led to a ‘constitutional partnership of free nations’. ⁸⁶ Political commentators frequently look to the example of the US founding as a precedent for the European Union (EU). ⁸⁷ Scholars within IR and political theory also frame the context of European political struggles through reference to the early United States. ⁸⁸ This goes beyond a mere discussion of comparative politics to include a strand of thought that seeks to federalise the EU in the image of the United States. For this strand of liberal internationalism, the founding of the US can act as an impetus to create a ‘United States of Europe’. ⁸⁹ Theorists of global governance go as far as arguing for a ‘Philadelphia moment’ on a global scale to create a US style constitution. ⁹⁰ The normative construct of seeing the US federal republican order as a model for the world is highly problematic. It presents liberal-republican values as a ‘single truth’ which can be applied universally. ⁹¹ This normative ideal is also hard to reconcile with the historical record. The American War of Independence may have brought together 13 republics in an alliance of mutual security, but despite professing universal ideals, the Declaration of Independence only pledges their lives and security ‘to each other’. ⁹² The founders of the American republic therefore based their view of freedom on a narrow view of citizenship in contrast to the normative idealism expressed by contemporary liberal internationalism.

Deudney’s interpretation of republicanism largely dismisses the ideational focus of republicanism within political theory and avoids engaging with the tradition of civic and neo-Roman thought. ⁹³ The traditional republican concerns of civic virtue and community are also replaced by Deudney’s emphasis on the importance of material contexts. This leads to a technologically determinist account of politics in which the material environment formed by weapons such as gunpowder or nuclear arms directly shapes the possibilities of political order. ⁹⁴ Deudney’s approach also displays a methodology of presentism focusing on human security, rather than the idea of non-domination and political liberty. Choosing to focus on human security reflects a distinctly modern bias considering republicans have historically advocated sacrificing one’s life for the good of the republic. ⁹⁵ The emphasis on material capabilities within Bounding Power would also appear to be at odds with the arguments made by the authors of the Federalist Papers. They clearly placed their understanding of conflict within international politics on the unpredictable behaviour of human passions. Alexander Hamilton argued there could be no chance of universal peace because even republics were victims of passions resulting from human associations, such as ‘rage’, ‘resentment’, ‘jealousy’ and ‘avarice’. Hamilton asked, ‘have republics in practice been less addicted to war than monarchies?’ He concluded by arguing that there has been ‘almost as many popular as royal wars’. ⁹⁶ The concept of a global republic overcoming anarchy appears flawed considering the Federalist authors were themselves sceptical of such a possibility. ⁹⁷

Republican security theory makes important strides in reclaiming a republican tradition within IR. But its celebratory account of the American republic overshadows the connections between republican liberty and domination. Early modern republics all developed their ideals of freedom in juxtaposition with those considered outside the polis. Where IR has considered these aspects of domination, they are still dismissed as inherently alien to the republican vision of political liberty. Deudney expresses a contradictory approach to engaging with the republican history of dominating those outside the polis. He dismisses the antebellum period of the US as a ‘historically bygone’ era and ‘simultaneously’ sees it as in part responsible for American liberal-internationalism in the 20th century. ⁹⁸ In accepting the US as the final development of republican liberty, the connection between republicanism and imperial practices has therefore been largely neglected from consideration within IR.

Republican Liberty and Empire

Triumphalist narratives of the US founding present a unidirectional view of history, which privileges an Anglo-American claim to political liberty. Such narratives of republican liberty developing within a Eurocentric context have resulted in the neglect of other claims to liberty, such as the history of the Haitian republic during the age of revolutions. ⁹⁹ Republicanism presents a rich history of political thought, but for IR to develop a republican approach, there needs to be a greater engagement with the history of republicanism which goes beyond US triumphalism. Republicanism is often expressed as ‘self-congratulatory language’ of liberty which often ignores the history of empire-building through warfare, as well as commercial and colonial plantations. ¹⁰⁰ The following section outlines an account of republicanism which recognises the legacy of empire.

Republicanism is a largely neglected tradition within IR because it was subsumed by the rise of nation states. As Nicholas Onuf has argued, republicanism encompasses a way of ‘thinking about the world of politics before there was a world of states’. ¹⁰¹ However, looking to the republican struggle for independence from universal monarchy is a transnational story. The Dutch (1581–1795), English (1649–1660), and American republics (1776–1861), were fundamental in developing a world of transnational exchanges built on slavery and imperial expansion. Such modern republics were commercial empires which interpreted their own experiences through the lessons of republican Rome transforming into a martial tyranny. ¹⁰² The Dutch republic developed colonies in both the Americas and South East Asia. The English Commonwealth pursued an aggressive foreign policy, including Cromwell’s invasion of Jamaica, and fighting the Dutch for control of the slave trade. Similarly, the United States spread westwards across the American continent through genocide and its development was deeply interconnected with global slave trading networks. The development of early modern republicanism, therefore, was directly tied to European expansion within the Americas and Southeast Asia. The juxtaposition of republican freedoms and the history of republican polities to develop networks of slave trading and colonial projects is not a paradox, but central to understanding the development of political liberty.

Early modern republics wanted independence from universal systems of rule. In doing so, they reproduced the colonial project which they had originally aimed to rebel against. ¹⁰³ In challenging monarchical universal rule, the Dutch republic sought independence in Europe and desired access to trade, slave and colonies in the Americas and Southeast Asia. The United Provinces aimed to challenge Spanish rule and commercial dominance in the Americas and Southeast Asia in order to weaken the Spanish monarchy in Europe. Seeking access to trade and colonies was driven by an ‘extension’ of the fight for independence against Habsburg dominance. ¹⁰⁴ Dutch expansion across the globe for trade and resources saw a ‘reciprocal relationship’ develop between economic reasons of state and warfare. ¹⁰⁵ In expanding commercial opportunities, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) developed colonies in the Americas as well as an ‘informal’ empire across the Indian Ocean from Cape Town in South Africa to Dejima in Japan. ¹⁰⁶ The ideology of republicanism as an ideal of political liberty meant that companies like the VOC and the Dutch West India Company saw it as a moral mission to attack ‘Spanish tyranny in the New World’, but as Benjamin Schmidt argues, ‘behind all this rhetoric . . . one detects a more basic desire for those mainstays of early modern colonialism, conquest and commerce’. ¹⁰⁷ Dutch attempts to ‘supplant’ Spain in South America led to the ‘temptation of empire’. The drive for territory related to commercial interests for sugar plantations and mines for resources. ¹⁰⁸ As Arthur Weststeijn observes in his study of empire and colonialism in the Dutch Golden Age, ‘republican liberty could be maintained not despite, but because of the pursuit of commercial riches overseas’. ¹⁰⁹ In looking to a republican inspired ‘Grotian’ ¹¹⁰ and liberal tradition within IR, Eric Wilson argues, the notion of a republican-inspired Grotian heritage as ‘inherently liberal or pacifistic constitutes an egregious example of ideological mystification’. ¹¹¹ Recognising this imperial legacy leads to a new understanding of republican freedoms as directly connected to competing power relations.

Republican polities developed in a co-constitutive relationship to the international sphere. A strictly structural approach to international relations effectively neglects one of the ‘most distinctively international’ activities of the post-American revolution period, the westward expansion of the United States. ¹¹² The expansion of the US, the practices of genocide it entailed and the reliance on slavery for an expanding commercial republic are unaccounted for in modern republican conceptions of freedom. Within IR, Deudney’s account of US westward expansion across the continent is interpreted through statist assumptions based on an anarchical reading of the international system. ¹¹³ In considering the role of slavery within the United States, Deudney dismisses it as ‘a radically anti-liberal relic of pre-liberal society’. ¹¹⁴ The liberal triumphalism of republican security theory ignores the relationship between slavery, domination, and imperialism, which is not considered central to the founding of the United States. Deudney’s account of republicanism therefore cannot explain republican freedoms in relation to the practice of the United States to expand through a ‘missionary republican ideology’. ¹¹⁵ A major grievance for US independence was the British attempt to restrain western expansion for colonial settlers. ¹¹⁶ Thomas Jefferson also viewed the success of republican liberty as intertwined to the migration of American citizens. ¹¹⁷ The promise of settler freedom within colonial America was therefore tied to ‘practices of subordination’. ¹¹⁸ The elements of domination and expanding through displacing Native Americans is disavowed from the story of republicanism because the Western settlements were incorporated by treaty or purchase as ‘equals’ within the empire of United States. ¹¹⁹ As Ann Laura Stoler observes, imperial formations rest on the development of ‘ad hoc exemptions from the law’ based on race and cultural difference. ¹²⁰ Republican freedoms developed through such practices of domination. This examination of republicanism suggests that the historical development of republican liberty in practice may be ‘inseparable’ from its connection to forms of domination and history of ‘oppressive aspects’. ¹²¹

Republican empire occurred within a context in which Europeans believed in a standard of civilisation. ¹²² As Manjeet Kaur Ramgotra argues, republicanism saw absolute monarchies as seeking conquest and domination, while the trade and colonies of republican polities had a beneficial effect in developing ‘backward societies’ and the preservation of domestic political liberty. ¹²³ The desire for access to trade and slave labour was built on practices of domination arising from colonialism because republican theorists developed their ideas within a context of assumed racial superiority. These hierarchical conceptions directly influenced the development of republican freedoms during the early modern period. The Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) established Haiti as the first black majority republican state which explicitly rejected slavery and the European empires. ¹²⁴ However, its racial identity and liberty as a slave-free enclave radically undermined the racial and hierarchical organisation of the Atlantic political order. ¹²⁵ The Haitian Revolution sought to reject forms of absolute power by both attacking slavery and in seeking an independent republic. A challenge that was considerably hindered by Haiti’s geopolitical position surrounded by slave trading states from North America to Brazil, which could not accept the liberation of former slaves. Isolated by its racial identity, the autonomy of the Haitian republic was effectively ignored and ostracised by the international community. ¹²⁶ Haiti’s revolution was therefore hindered by its status as an outcast of European international society which refused to confer legitimacy on the new republic.

As these brief examples show, political liberty, freedom, and the republican ideals of the polis are conventionally understood as ‘emancipatory’ ideals. However, as critical theorists recognise, they also ‘facilitate’ and ‘legitimate exploitation and inequality’. ¹²⁷ Republican ideals of political liberty and the history of republican polities are often treated as unproblematic normative ideals within both IR theory and international political theory. But while theoretical republics and republicanism have played a major role in IR, actual republican polities have not. Recognising the history of republican liberty and republican domination will build on the movement for a more robust historical approach within IR.

Conclusion

The imagined ideals of the republican polis underlie the modern state-centric understandings of political liberty and political order. ¹²⁸ For contemporary republican theorists, the political order of the polis developed solely within a European-Atlantic lineage and the key to achieving a republican or federal peace is to extend the lessons of this order to the global level. In equating the republican polis to a project of international political order, these approaches neglect the history of republican states as empires and the domination of those considered outside the citizenship of the polis. When republicanism is considered within IR, it is through a discourse of expanding liberal-republics and their peaceful relations. These debates are founded on the idea of sovereignty and political liberty originating in a series of developments ‘endogenous to Europe’. ¹²⁹ The eurocentrism of contemporary understandings of republicanism disavows the connection with empire and the oppression of liberty. Recognising a more critical and historical account of republican polities shows that the dichotomy between power and ideals is misplaced. Political ideals are not a solution to power politics. In contrast, republican ideals of freedom and non-domination were products of domination and power relations. It is therefore misleading to think that political liberties were constituted within the polis before expanding internationally. ¹³⁰ The republican liberties of citizens within the polis were established through the external use of power that reinforced imperial violence. The relative neglect of republican empire within IR reflects a more general failing of IR to treat empire as an analytic. ¹³¹ The state-centrism of traditional IR is built on an ontology comprising a sharp distinction between the internal and the external sphere. Theorists of empire and imperialism, however, have long stressed the cross-currents and co-constitutive elements of imperial history. ¹³² This critical account of republicanism has highlighted how republican thought was bound up with colonial and imperial expansion and violence. The benefit of this view of republicanism is that it draws on the intertwined nature of both the internal and external relations of the polis.