Abstract

This dissertation investigates the relationship between the size of the political community and the scope of politics. Contemporary political theorists have overlooked the influence of size on the character of and possibilities for contemporary politics. In the first chapter of the dissertation I discuss the hope for a revitalized republican politics as articulated by Hannah Arendt, J.G.A. Pocock and Michael Sandel, which, I argue, share the weakness of having ignored, or obscured, the bearing that the issue of size has on their arguments. ;The question of the size of the political community is not, however, ignored by earlier thinkers in the tradition of political philosophy. In the dissertation I examine the arguments of Aristotle, Machiavelli and the Federalist on this question. Aristotle argues that an optimal location and a small, homogeneous population are the necessary prerequisites for the best regime that "one can hope for." Machiavelli challenges the assumptions underlying Aristotle's defense of the small republic. He argues that the best political order must be "prepared to expand." He assumes that the desire to acquire is immutable in human beings. The exigencies of foreign policy dominate politics rather than the care for the domestic realm. The authors of the Federalist moderate the Machiavellian view of politics. They agree that the large, diverse republic is the best political order, but they find within the extended "orbit" advantages for the individual citizen which Machiavelli perhaps failed to see. ;"The Orbit of Politics" concludes that an understanding of the link between the size of the political community and the scope of politics is vital for serious practical and theoretical reflections on our contemporary political possibilities