Abstract

Given the renewed interest in republicanism in political theory and the role Machiavelli plays in the republican tradition, this essay seeks to explore Machiavelli’s republicanism. As an interpretive startingpoint it claims Machiavelli to be a „classical republican“, a „Sattelzeitdenker“ between ancient republicanism and modern republicanism. While Machiavelli heavily relies on greek and roman republicanism, he at the same time transforms them, thereby developing some central thoughts of modern republicanism, without becoming a modern republican in the full sense. I argue that by doing so he anticipates avant la lettre a central problem of liberalism. He conceptualizes the republican order as an institutionalised persistent conflict between social factions, but is also aware, that the Republic rests on a republican culture of freedom, that creates the citizens virtue in the first place.