The Polycentric Republic: A Theory of Civil Order for Free and Diverse Societies

Abstract

There is a palpable dissatisfaction across much of the world with liberal democratic governments, which seem unable to deliver on their promises of welfare and security, and are out of touch with the values and aspirations of many citizens. This book addresses this unfolding crisis by developing a fresh theory of civil order rooted in a classical, neo-Aristotelian conception of human flourishing. The overall aim of the work is to forge a conception of civil order more hospitable than the modern State to social structures supportive of the human quest for flourishing.

The deficiencies of the modern bureaucratic-administrative State as a potential context for the pursuit of a flourishing and virtuous life have already been ably exposed by moral and social philosophers such as Alasdair MacIntyre and Michael Sandel, who lament the individualistic, socially deracinated conception of community promoted by modern States. However, these critics have not gone very far in developing a positive alternative to the modern State-based order.

This work builds on the MacIntyrean and Sandelian critique of the modern State and its individualistic ethos in two ways: first, by deepening the diagnosis of the corrosive effects of modern politics on community life, through an in-depth analysis of modern conceptions of political authority and their deleterious impact on associational life; and second, by developing the principles of an alternative conception of civil order, more consistent with the requirements of human flourishing.

The book opens with a presentation of a neo-Aristotelian conception of a free, flourishing and meaningful life, as well as an account of the complex social ecology that it presupposes. This ecology involves a wide plurality of self-regulating associations, from churches and schools to businesses and towns, whose normative orders or internal rules, customs and narratives are oriented toward distinctive dimensions of human flourishing.

With these principles established, it is then argued that modern social contract theory, as we have inherited it from thinkers like Hobbes, Locke and Rawls, rests on a reductively individualistic picture of social order, blind to the special interests and prerogatives of non-State associations, and thus unfriendly to the social ecology of flourishing.

The modern sovereign State is traditionally legitimated by a social contract, real or imagined, in which “the people” freely confers its authority on the organs of the State. But this narrative of order inherits deeply problematic features of monarchical absolutism, most notably the neglect of corporate actors as mediators of individual interests, and the attribution of supreme and general-purpose authority to a single organ (or cluster of organs) of governance, whose standardised policies undermine the complex social ecology of flourishing.

To address these problems, this book proposes to replace the individualist-Statist social contract with a federalist, polycentric and bottom-up republic constituted by a plurality of diverse citizens and groups acting in loose coordination without any overarching sovereign authority. Drawing on neo-Aristotelian moral philosophy, modern political science, and political history, the author invites us to reimagine civil order in a way that is more hospitable to the social ecology of flourishing.