Is a European republic possible?

This chapter claims that republican theorists have failed to historicize the problem of corporate power, and that doing so helps to show why contemporary republican critiques fall flat. It traces the history of oligarchic republicanism from the ancients, through the early moderns, to the emergence of the corporation in the US and as it travels back to Europe. The chapter shows that unlike in the ancient and early modern periods when oligarchy repressed democracy, modern corporations appeared in the 19th century as an expression of democratic republicanism. It argues that contemporary republican critiques of corporate domination fail because Philip Pettit and John McCormick misunderstand the nature of corporate domination. The chapter concludes with some forward-looking remarks regarding what the history of the corporation could lend to republican thinking going forward.