The Role of Participation in Pettit's Republicanism

I have been reading a colleague's very well written and thoughtful thesis, which follows some of the same lines I intend to trace in my comprehensive paper. In the thesis she describes various perspectives on citizenship in order to identify what they would require of education. The three approaches to citizenship she examines are republican, liberal, and critical. Having just spent some time with Pettit's Republicanism (1997), I was especially interested in her description of the republican citizen.

In her analysis, the central principle for the republican citizen is participation in the civic society. Now I agree that this works for many republican visions, and particularly communitarian visions which often take a republican form. However, Pettit does not give participation the same importance. At the beginning of Republicanism (1997), Pettit attempts to distance himself from this vision of republican thought. I quote him at length:

“When thinkers like Skinner, Sunstein, and Braithwaite describe themselves as republican, and when indeed I describe myself in that way, I should mention that the tradition with which we identify is not that sort of tradition – ultimately, the populist tradition – that hails the democratic participation of the people as one of the highest forms of good and that often waxes lyrical, in communitarian vein, about the desirability of the close, homogeneous society that popular participation is often taken to presuppose” (p. 7-8).

He continues:

“And while the republican tradition finds value and importance in democratic participation, it does not treat it as a bedrock value. Democratic participation may be essential to the republic, but that is because it is necessary for promoting the enjoyment of freedom as non-domination, not because of its independent attractions: not because freedom, as a positive conception would suggest, is nothing more or less than the right of democratic participation” (p.8).

Now, it is one thing for Pettit to claim that his vision avoids raising participation to this level and another to show that participation does not play this role in his philosophy. This is not the place for a thorough defense, so just a few comments. First, Pettit's success in this effort is based on the conception of freedom as non-domination, which he claims is neither a positive vision of freedom nor the traditional liberal sort of freedom as non-interference. I think there are some serious concerns here – in one way, non-domination might not be significantly different from non-interference. On the other hand it could demand something as strong as positive freedom. Thought I have more doubts that non-domination can be significantly differentiated from non-interference, I think that he does successfully avoid a positive freedom that raises participation to the level of intrinsic value. Rather, in Pettit's work, participation, though a necessary element of citizenship, remains in service to securing freedom rather than constituting it. This brings Pettit closer to the liberal vision of citizenship, which can also require some level of participation.