| Abstract [eng] |
The object of this master’s thesis is the idea of the republic, the normative foundation of a republican political community. Contemporary political thought often reduces the republic to an institutional or procedural model, obscuring its normative foundations. The aim of the thesis is to reconstruct the idea of the republic through the political philosophies of Cicero, Montesquieu, and Madison, demonstrating that the republic is not merely a form of government, but a normative mode of political thinking centred on the public matter (res publica). To achieve this paper’s goal the following objectives are formulated: 1. To analyse Cicero’s conception of the republic as a natural political community grounded in duty and human sociability. 2. To examine Montesquieu’s understanding of civic virtue as the generating principle of republican government. 3. To assess Madison’s solution to the problem of republican scale through representation and institutional design. The research employs conceptual and hermeneutic analysis of primary philosophical texts. The thesis argues that the republic is a normative form composed of the priority of the common good, a civic epistemological orientation, and institutional mechanisms preventing domination and political decay. Republican crises are shown to stem not from institutional failure, but from the erosion of civic thinking and the subordination of public interest to private aims. This reconstruction provides a critical framework for evaluating contemporary political systems identifying as republics. |
