Republicanism and Structural Domination

As neo-republicanism develops into a mature political theory it stands at a crossroads between re-describing the concerns of twentieth century social liberalism and embracing the concerns of critical and radical political thought. Central to the consideration of the latter has been the concept of structural domination. In this paper we seek to establish how structural domination is a coherent and necessary concept for republicans. We argue that it makes conceptual sense to speak of structures – for instance, systematically defined economic imperatives or particular social and cultural expectations – as dominating. In contrast to accounts which argue structures only facilitate the interpersonal domination of agents, we argue it is possible to speak of two types of domination: interpersonal and structural. In this paper we also seek to argue that it is necessary for republicans to embrace structural domination to critique some of the most intractable forms of unfreedom characteristic of contemporary societies, such as the unfreedom experienced as a result of racism, sexism or the conditions of the market. We argue without structural domination republicans only have the conceptual resources to insulate agents from arbitrary power, but lack the means to critique, and hopefully in turn eradicate, the source of agents’ unfreedom. We argue that strategies of insulation are insufficient, as they fail to capture all of the arbitrary power to which agents can be subject. However, beyond this matter of interest for republicans, in this paper we also seek to illustrate the comparative advantages and disadvantages of diagnosing structural unfreedom using the concept of structural domination. We contend that structural domination only maintains its conceptual coherence if structural unfreedom is externally imposed and is something agents are typically aware of as an alien imposition. Therefore, structural domination’s conceptual utility is limited when dealing with the unfreedom associated with the self-internalisation of deleterious norms. However, we seek also to demonstrate the conceptual advantage in structural domination over positive liberty-only accounts of structural unfreedom. We argue structural domination provides an account which is more discriminating between different structures and their implications, but is also one that is better placed to resist the adoption of paternalistic and potentially patronising attitudes in the political advocacy of structural freedom.