ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: A BETTER PLACE TO BE: REPUBLICANISM AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE AUTHORITISM-DEMOCRACY DICHOTOMY Christopher Ronald Binetti, Doctor of Philosophy, 2016 Dissertation directed by: Dr. Charles 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. A BETTER PLACE TO BE: REPUBLICANISM AS AN ALTENATIVE TO THE AUTHORITARIANISM-DEMOCRACY DICHOTOMY by Christopher Ronald Binetti Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2016 Advisory Committee: Professor Charles Frederick Alford, Chair Professor Mark Lichbach Professor Vladimir Tismaneanu Professor James Glass Professor Rachel Singpurwalla © Copyright by Christopher Ronald Binetti 2016 Dedication To my grandfather, Herman Schoeb, to my supportive parents, Maureen and Ronald, and my sister Tara. ii Acknowledgements Without Dr. Philip Pettit and Dr. Ian Ward, I would be nowhere in my dissertation research. iii Table of Contents Dedication ............................................................................................................................i Acknowledgements ii Table of Contents iii Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Introduction to the Introduction 1 An Old Typology/Taxonomy of Human Freedom and Political Regimes 3 Of Republics and Republicanism 10 Where I Differ with Other Republican Writers 16 My Definition of A Republic is Based off of Aristotelian and Roman-Italian traditions 20 The Four Cases 25 Rival Hypotheses 34 Conclusion of the Introduction 38 Chapter 2: Assyria 40 The Old Assyrian Regime and the Transition into Non-Republicanism 40 The Middle Assyrian and Neo-Assyrian Regime 48 Lessons from the Assyrian Case 58 Chapter 3: Persia 66 From the Origins of Persia to Cyrus the Great 66 The Empire After Cyrus the Great 81 Lessons, Summary, and Conclusions 91 Chapter 4: Venice ……………………………………………………………….. 97 The Creation of an Unique System 97 Early Modern Venice 108 Collapse of the Republic, Mechanisms, Themes, and Conclusions 114 Chapter 5: Florence 120 A Typical Italian Commune 120 Decline of the Commune and Rise of the Medicis 128 Themes and Conclusions 132 Chapter 6: Conclusion- Making the Best Practicable Regime 139 Introduction of the Conclusion 139 The Criteria for Diagnosing which Type of Republic is Best 140 Assessing of the Four Modern Cases 143 Conclusion of the Conclusion 148 Bibliography ..................................................................................................................... 156 iv A Better Place to Be: Republicanism as an Alternative to the Authoritarianism-Democracy Dichotomy Chapter 1: Introduction A. Introduction to the Introduction The obsession with individual liberty in the modern or post-modern “West” has led to the formulation of artificial dichotomies: political theory liberalism/libertarianism and communitarianism/authoritarianism and in comparative politics autocracy/authoritarianism and liberal democracy. However the relationship between individuals and the community, between personal, group and state power within any regime are much more complex than these simple dichotomies. Interference in one’s personal life for the benefit of that person is not simply reducible to authoritarianism if properly controlled by institutions, norms, and laws. Interference’s relationship to domination is also often misinterpreted in liberal societies, by actors such as politicians and everyday people to political theorists and comparativists. A more complex, practical view of personal liberty, individual rights, the community/communities, society, and the state is an important part of redefining the typology of human political regimes that holds back contemporary democratic theory and the study of democracies, democratization, and “autocracies” in modern comparative politics. I argue in this dissertation for a practical definition of personal freedoms and political regimes. I differ in my definition of domination and my conceptualization of its relation to interference and human freedom somewhat from Philip Pettit and others of the classical republican school, but I still find the view point of the republicans mostly correct. I test the republican theory of the ethics of non-domination with four real historical cases of regimes that I 1 argue were mostly non-dominating regimes of historical importance. Although none of the regimes- Assyria, Persia, Venice and Florence- adopted the often-popular maxim of “Do whatever you want unless you hurt someone else”, a boiled-down version of the modern “liberal” attitude, they still limited their interference in the personal lives of their political subjects though norms, institutions, and laws and for the most part, succeeded in not dominating their subjects. In a real world in which liberal democracy struggles to overcome the deeply entrenched hierarchical and clan structures of various states in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, many in the policy and political science communities are quick to dismiss these countries as unready for and potentially always incapable of a non-dominating form of self-governance. Better an enlightened despot or other form of strongman dictatorship than chaos, many seem to conclude. Just as in their home countries, “Westerners” see human freedom and the demands of community, society, and the state as a truly dichotomous variable. While in the home countries, they see any restrictions of human choice in “one’s own personal life” as “authoritarian” or “autocratic”, they view the choice in Afghanistan or Iraq as the between failed democratic states and chaos on one hand and authoritarianism on the other. I view republics and the norms, attitudes, and beliefs that support them, what I call republicanism, as a way out of the dichotomy. To be sure I view republicanism and liberal democracy to be compatible, but they are not synonymous. Additionally, republicanism has both sub-types that are democratic and those that are not, and within these sub-types, some are more liberal than others. However, none of these republics are true authoritarian regimes, nor are they true autocracies. I seek no less to argue both that the political theoretical and comparative political conceptions of freedom and regime types need to be re-taxonomized if you will, but also 2 that these broken Middle Eastern states, such as Afghanistan and Iraq, are not doomed to the dichotomous dilemma of disastrous democracy or authoritarianism, but have an alternative in some form of republic and the norms of republicanism that would support it. For these countries, republics are truly “a better place to be”. B. An Old Typology/Taxonomy of Human Freedom and Political Regimes The famous political theorist and comparativist Dahl has the best classical definition, conceptualization, and taxonomic scheme of democracy in the modern/contemporary period. He views democracy as an ideal condition that is not really attainable in this world. However he views its two major components as two dimensions: participation and contestation. Participation is relatively liberalized, meaning that most people have access to electoral power, the power of the ballot box. Democracies are often measured as allowing 50 percent of more of the adult population to