A Better Place to Be: Republicanism as an Alternative to the Authoritarianism-Democracy Dichotomy

dc.contributor.advisorAlford, Charles Fen_US
dc.contributor.authorBinetti, Christopheren_US
dc.contributor.departmentGovernment and Politicsen_US
dc.contributor.publisherDigital Repository at the University of Marylanden_US
dc.contributor.publisherUniversity of Maryland (College Park, Md.)en_US
dc.date.accessioned2016-06-22T05:47:20Z
dc.date.available2016-06-22T05:47:20Z
dc.date.issued2016en_US
dc.description.abstractABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: A BETTER PLACE TO BE: REPUBLICANISM AS AN ALTENATIVE TO THE AUTHORITARIANISM-DEMOCRACY DICHOTOMY Christopher Ronald Binetti, Doctor of Philosophy, and 2016 Dissertation directed by: Dr. Charled Frederick Alford, Department of Government and Politics In this dissertation, I argue that in modern or ancient regimes, the simple dichotomy between democracies and autocracies/dictatorships is both factually wrong and problematic for policy purposes. It is factually wrong because regimes between the two opposite regime types exist and it is problematic because the either/or dichotomy leads to extreme thinking in terms of nation-building in places like Afghanistan. In planning for Afghanistan, the argument is that either we can quickly nation-build it into a liberal democracy or else we must leave it in the hands of a despotic dictator. This is a false choice created by both a faulty categorization of regime types and most importantly, a failure to understand history. History shows us that the republic is a regime type that defies the authoritarian-democracy dichotomy. A republic by my definition is a non-dominating regime, characterized by a (relative) lack of domination by any one interest group or actor, mostly non-violent competition for power among various interest groups/factions, the ability of factions/interest groups/individual actors to continue to legitimately play the political game even after electoral or issue-area defeat and some measure of effectiveness. Thus, a republic is a system of government that has institutions, laws, norms, attitudes, and beliefs that minimize the violation of the rule of law and monopolization of power by one individual or group as much as possible. These norms, laws, attitudes, and beliefs ae essential to the republican system in that they make those institutions that check and balance power work. My four cases are Assyria, Persia, Venice and Florence. Assyria and Persia are ancient regimes, the first was a republic and then became the frightening opposite of a republic, while the latter was a good republic for a long time, but had effectiveness issues towards the end. Venice is a classical example of a medieval or early modern republic, which was very inspirational to Madison and others in building republican America. Florence is the example of a medieval republic that fell to despotism, as immortalized by Machiavelli’s writings. In all of these examples, I test certain alternative hypotheses as well as my own.en_US
dc.identifierhttps://doi.org/10.13016/M2J782
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/18210
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledPolitical scienceen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledAncient historyen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledMedieval historyen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledAristotleen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledcomparative politicsen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledpolitical theoryen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledrepresentationen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledrepublicen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledrepublicanismen_US
dc.titleA Better Place to Be: Republicanism as an Alternative to the Authoritarianism-Democracy Dichotomyen_US
dc.typeDissertationen_US

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