Communitarianism, like feminism, public choice theory, and environmentalism, is one of the latest entrants in the lexicon of political theory. It stands for community-centric thoughts, theories, ways of living, and ideals of society. Civil republicanism is designed to contrast with monarchy.
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Communitarian – An Introduction
Communitarian puts emphasis on the community and the community life or the communal life as used in the west, but in India it is used as the antonym of secularism. A community is a close-knit group living in certain locations such as a village, and having a strong collective identity rooted in language, religion, culture, and way of life. However, the communitarianism has been propounded by the western scholars in wake of ‘decline of the community’, and the virtual social breakdown in the western society based on rather crass individualism.
The increasing isolation in men in the western society and the urban areas, in other countries, from 1960 onwards, and the resultant problem were attributed to the lack of community life or the group feelings in general terms. If one takes an objective view San any value judgement on the causes of the mindless violence, radicalism, dogmatism, soaring rate of crime graphs, terrorism, religious fanaticism (incidentally the communal riots in India are an urban phenomena), the root cause to these may be attributed to the lack of community life.
Historically speaking, the community in political theory has its earlier manifestation in the anarchist wing of socialism, which emphasizes a community-like social structure based on decentralization, cooperation and the self-management. Proudhon and Kropotkin are the two main anarchists who support the primacy of the community life in solving all problems. Gandhi also espoused the community, and his ‘village republics’ are the answer to the modern problems.
However, the realm of political philosophy, the communitarianism in the works of Charles Taylor, Michael Sandel, and Alasdair Macintyre, among the host of other prominent names. They underline the virtual failure of the liberal individualism, and its shortcomings and inability to provide the solution to the problems of the modern life. They argue that liberal individualism has institutionalized the narrow concerns, selfish and egoistic behaviour of individuals by posting a theory that regards the individual as before society.
Civil Republicanism – An Introduction
Its tradition is associated with thinkers such as Aristotle, Cicero, Guicciardini, Machiavelli, James Harrington and Rousseau. In modern times, Republican tradition has been developed by Hannah Ardent, John Pollock, Skinner and others. The ideas of republicanism have developed from the collective desire to replace ‘the empire of men with empire of law’.
Republicanism has its origin Greek culture and Plato and Aristotle first initiated this idea. It is related with the ends of the political community as Aristotle said, “political community is the good life and good in the political is the community”. The freedom and good life of the civil republican government based on the free choice underlines the civil republican idea of freedom and the government.
Thus, both communitarianism and civil republicanism became well-known phenomena in political theory.