ABSTRACT
Republicanism is, first and foremost, a theory of political liberty. According to the republican theory, an agent is free if and only if he has a status equal to that of any other citizen; furthermore, this status must effectively protect him from domination by other citizens or by the State, i.e. from arbitrary interference with his choices. The greatest obstacle to liberty, according to the republican view, is not interference but, rather, domination, for the latter implies the individual’s being in an unacceptable state of vulnerability vis-à-vis another individual, a group of individuals, or a political organization (Pettit and Braithwaite 1990; Pettit 1997a, b, c). The fundamental difference between domination and interference stems from their logical independence: interference can occur without involving the domination of an individual by another agent; conversely, domination can occur even in the absence of interference, as an individual is considered to be dominated just to the extent that he is compelled, for structural reasons, to obey someone else (Lazzeri 2001).
