My doctoral thesis examines the intellectual and political relationship between England and the general councils of the Church from the Council of Pisa until the Council of Trent. It illuminates the hitherto unexplored features of the revolution that was the end of universal papal authority. With the transfer of spiritual authority to Henry VIII, the heads of England’s Protestant regimes inherited the papacy’s distrust of the general council, which had the potential to interfere with the course of the reformation in England. At the same time, the thesis examines the changing nature of public commitment to universal decision-making in the Church in the face of resistance by hierarchs (papal or royal). It finds a widespread support for the general council over the period, but also a plurality of views about how conciliar government could be reconciled with monarchical rule in the Church. In the fifteenth century, conciliarism had to contend with the suspicions of those who wished to shore up the Church hierarchy against Wycliffite attacks. In the sixteenth century, there was still competition between the establishment’s defence of an hierarchical Church, directed by the monarchy, and theories which stressed the importance of conciliar government. These arguments took different shapes when used by popular rebels in favour of traditional religion grounded on conciliar consent, or by Protestants in favour of synodal government by the godly. But they were both outcomes of enduring instabilities in the ideology of Church government, which had their roots in the fifteenth century.

James Madison wrote four accounts of faction, the most public and famous of which was Federalist 10. By examining all four accounts, I undertake to develop a more capacious understanding of the design and purpose of Madison’s vision for American constitutional politics than can be extracted from an examination of Federalist 10 alone. I attempt to collate the unique insights of each account of faction into a coherent unity, with special attention to Madison’s rhetoric. I conclude that the three least famous accounts of faction, correctly read, perfect and extend the account in Federalist 10 by offering a more candid window into Madison’s thought on human beings and the political life for which he thought them fit. / text

This study of the term politique during the French Wars of Religion (c. 1562-98) argues that it is a keyword in the sense that it is is active and actively used in French explorations of the political, in the forming and undermining of collective identities in a period of civil crisis, and in the self-fashioning gestures of a shifting political class. I sample and analyse a range of texts - from treatises that form part of the canon of early modern French political writing (such as Bodin's Six livres de la Republique [1576] and the Satyre ménippée [c. 1593]) to anonymous polemical pamphlets - all of which feature prominent uses of the term politique. Certain of these sources gave rise to a longstanding historiographical impression that politique referred, in the period, to a coherent third party in the religious wars as well as to a related kind of expertise and its practitioner. This thesis builds on and extends recent work showing that there was no such party and no one in the period who directly identified as politique. Rather than seeking to identify the 'real' politiques or to establish a corrected definition of the term as used in sixteenth-century French, I argue that the term is strikingly and increasingly mobile across the period, coming at times to refer to mobility itself in conceptions of politics and political action. Dialogue emerges in the thesis as a key conceptual arena and discursive mode for writers attempting to work out what they and others mean by the term politique. I use philological and word-historical methods to examine writers of the period who seek to determine what makes a good or bad politique, to present themselves as politique, or to condemn politiques as morally bankrupt, and - in some cases - to do all of the above in the same text. Almost every text I analyse in the thesis offers its own definition of politique, and attempts to be definitive, but I show that all these attempts to make the reader recognise the 'true' meaning of politique are extending the drama rather than concluding it.

Karl Marx's relationship to republicanism proceeds in three stages: he began his political career as a republican, he subsequently transitioned to communism, and then he finally reconciled his republicanism and communism. Marx's early political writings reveal his commitment to central republican ideas, including popular sovereignty, widespread political participation and universal suffrage. These commitments led him to reject absolute and constitutional monarchy. But they also led to a critique of the modern republic, which Marx argued gave insufficient space for citizens to participate publicly for the common good. He thus gives a republican critique of the republic. Marx's disillusionment with the ability of a modern republic to deliver human emancipation eventually led him to transition to communism. He now argued that the republic would be a bourgeois republic, which would subject the proletariat to the capitalist. He attacked republicans for neglecting social depredation in favour of political reform. However, his transition to communism also carried with it several republican commitments. Unlike the many apolitical versions of communism at the time, Marx insisted that the workers had to establish the republic before communism could emerge. He also extended key republican political ideas, including the objection to arbitrary power, to the social sphere. But what was absent was an account of a more participatory and accountable political alternative to the modern republic. However, the experience of ordinary workers carrying out the legislative and public administration of Paris during the Commune, led Marx to return to many of those early republican themes. He celebrated ordinary citizens' capacity for self-government and advocated popular control over the state and transforming representative democracy into popular delegacy. He came to realise that these political structures were essential to achieving the social goals of communism. He thus came to a synthesis of his early republicanism and later communism.

What is political philosophy? Aristotle pursues that question by asking what the good is. If Nietzsche's postmodern diagnosis that modern philosophical rationalism has exhausted itself is true, it is unclear if an answer to that question is possible. Yet given the prevalence of extremist ideologies in 20th century politics, and the politically irresponsible support of philosophers for these ideologies, there is an urgent need for an answer. This thesis examines how, in these philosophical circumstances, Hannah Arendt, Leo Strauss, and Alasdair MacIntyre conclude that a key resource in the recovery of political philosophy, and in showing its contemporary relevance, lies in the recovery of Aristotle's political philosophy. This thesis contends that how and why Arendt, Strauss, and MacIntyre turn to Aristotle, and what they find in Aristotle, depends on their varying critiques of modernity. Convinced that the philosophical tradition is shattered irreversibly after the events of totalitarianism, Arendt argues for a retrieval of Aristotle and his understanding of politics from the fragments of that tradition. Strauss is impelled to turn to the political philosophy of Aristotle because of the crisis of radical historicism, to recover classical rationalism’s answer to what the good is. MacIntyre turns to Aristotle to find the moral justification for rejecting Stalinism that contemporary philosophical traditions fail to provide; he reconstructs an Aristotelian tradition that can answer the question of what the good is better than his contemporary rivals. Although these thinkers may appear disparate, this thesis argues that each addresses the question of what the good is by offering a vision of political philosophy as a way of life, which Aristotle helps form. This way of life probes the relationship between philosophy and politics as permanent problem for human existence. In recovering this tradition of thinking with Aristotle about the character of political philosophy, this thesis aims to contribute to the understanding of each of these thinkers, as well as to the practice of political philosophy in modern, post-Nietzschean times.

What kind of agent does liberal political thought presuppose? Who is the subject inhabiting modern, liberal conceptions of political order? This dissertation is a study of liberal character-formation, of the kinds of persons, subjects and citizens underlying seminal works in the liberal tradition. More specifically, it explores the forms of character and agency sustaining Immanuel Kant’s and John Stuart Mill’s moral and political philosophies, as well as problems of exclusion and marginalization faced by agents who are, either naturally or circumstantially, unable to develop a properly liberal character. The project is guided by three central aims. The first is expository: the dissertation draws to light the substantial attention that Kant and Mill both devoted to the moral psychology of progressive, liberal agency, and to the conditions, processes and mechanisms forming a liberal character. The second aim is critical, examining the ways in which these ideals of liberal character stand to constrain the inclusiveness and equality at the centre of liberal moral and political doctrines. The final aim is evaluative, reflecting on how we might situate problems of exclusion, both within the broader architectures of Kant’s and Mill’s respective philosophical systems, and in relation to the liberalisms that we inherit from them.

What kind of agent does liberal political thought presuppose? Who is the subject inhabiting modern, liberal conceptions of political order? This dissertation is a study of liberal character-formation, of the kinds of persons, subjects and citizens underlying seminal works in the liberal tradition. More specifically, it explores the forms of character and agency sustaining Immanuel Kant’s and John Stuart Mill’s moral and political philosophies, as well as problems of exclusion and marginalization faced by agents who are, either naturally or circumstantially, unable to develop a properly liberal character. The project is guided by three central aims. The first is expository: the dissertation draws to light the substantial attention that Kant and Mill both devoted to the moral psychology of progressive, liberal agency, and to the conditions, processes and mechanisms forming a liberal character. The second aim is critical, examining the ways in which these ideals of liberal character stand to constrain the inclusiveness and equality at the centre of liberal moral and political doctrines. The final aim is evaluative, reflecting on how we might situate problems of exclusion, both within the broader architectures of Kant’s and Mill’s respective philosophical systems, and in relation to the liberalisms that we inherit from them.

Thesis advisor: Mark S. Massa, S.J. / Since the publication of Harvard Law School professor Adrian Vermeule’s now-infamous 2020 essay in The Atlantic, “Beyond Originalism,” American legal scholars have developed a renewed interest in natural law jurisprudence’s position in the American legal tradition. Although many of Vermeule’s critics have framed his jurisprudential method as foreign to the American legal tradition, American legal scholars likewise engaged in important debates about natural law jurisprudence nearly a century ago. During this earlier period, scholars debated whether natural law jurisprudence's reliance on deductive reasoning could withstand the inductive and socially scientific methods that became popular at elite American law schools during the 1920s and 1930s. To understand this earlier iteration of debate over natural law jurisprudence, this thesis turns to the life and legacy of William J. Kenealy—a Jesuit priest who served as dean of the Boston College Law School between 1939 and 1956. Although Kenealy has been almost entirely ignored in the historiography, he figured prominently in an attempted revival of natural law jurisprudence that occurred during the early/mid-twentieth century. Terming this movement the “Neo-Scholastic Legal Revival” because of its reliance on Neo-Scholastic understandings of natural law philosophy, this thesis uncovers how Kenealy's religious formation at the turn of the twentieth century, legal training at the Jesuit-run Georgetown University, and wartime leadership at Boston College positioned him well to contribute to the Revival. In doing so, this thesis reveals that leaders in the Revival, including Kenealy, exerted cognizable influence on twentieth-century American legal discourse. Thus, this thesis challenges dominant historical treatments of twentieth-century American legal development that have ignored an attempted revival of natural law jurisprudence that occurred almost a century before Vermeule emerged in the national legal consciousness. / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2023. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: History.

Esta tese aborda o tema do impacto político e intelectual da Guerra do Vietnã nos Estados Unidos a partir da história da fundação e dos primeiros anos de existência do periódico Foreign Policy (1970-1977). A intervenção no Vietnã desencadeou uma intensa contestação na sociedade norte-americana em relação às doutrinas e práticas de Guerra Fria que, até então, eram amplamente aceitas. A crise foi tão profunda que as principais organizações de política externa, o sistema político, os consagrados membros do establishment e as bases ideacionais e intelectuais que sustentavam as práticas intervencionistas se tornaram todos alvos de profundos questionamentos e, muitas vezes, violentos ataques. A história da Foreign Policy reconstrói este processo a partir de um ponto de vista privilegiado, uma vez que foi esta crise que motivou a fundação de um novo periódico com a intenção de revisar a política externa norte-americana e reformular os paradigmas analíticos em relações internacionais. Além disso, diversos membros da Foreign Policy participaram de decisões da intervenção no Vietnã, quando ainda eram mais jovens, e assumiram ao longo da década de 1970 posição de destaque na elaboração de uma política externa menos intervencionista e militarista (o que desencadeia na participação deles no governo Carter) ou na constituição de novos paradigmas intelectuais em política internacional que transcendiam o tema da Guerra Fria, abordando a crescente interdependência e as novas questões sociais globais. Esta tese retoma desde a Guerra do Vietnã até as propostas de governo do presidente Carter e os novos paradigmas analíticos em relações internacionais a partir da trajetória de membros da Foreign Policy (Samuel Huntington, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Richard Holbrooke, James C. Thomson, Joseph Nye, entre outros). A história deste periódico ajuda a compreender melhor uma conjuntura política decisiva nos Estados Unidos em que foram concebidos os germes da polarização política, da crise do establishment e de uma preocupação política com as consequências domésticas de uma economia cada vez mais interdependente e globalizada. / This dissertation focuses on the political and intellectual impact of the Vietnam War in the United States, based on the founding and first years of the existence of Foreign Policy Magazine (1970-1977). Intervention in Vietnam set off an intense dispute in American society regarding the Cold War doctrines and practices, which had been widely accepted until then. The crisis was so deep that the major foreign policy organizations, the political system, respected members of the establishment, and the ideological and intellectual bases that had sustained the interventionist practices all became targets of profound questioning and, frequently violent attacks. The history of Foreign Policy reconstructs this process based on a privileged vantage point, since it was this crisis that motivated the rise of a new periodical with the intention of reviewing American foreign policy and reformulating the analytical paradigms regarding international relations. Moreover, various members of Foreign Policy had taken part in the decisions to intervene in Vietnam, when they were younger, and during the 1970s assumed a position of importance in developing a less interventionist and militaristic foreign policy (which led to their participation in the Carter government), or in the creation of new intellectual paradigms in international politics that transcend the theme of the Cold War, focusing on increasing interdependence and the new global social issues. This dissertation reexamines the period from the Vietnam War to the Carter president proposals and the new analytical paradigms with respect to international relations based on the trajectory of the Foreign Policy associates (Samuel Huntington, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Richard Holbrooke, James C. Thomson, Joseph Nye, and others). The history of this journal helps to better understand one decisive political juncture of the United States, wherein were conceived the seeds of political polarization, the crisis of the establishment, and of a political concern with the domestic consequences of an increasingly interdependent and globalized economy.

State responsibility is central to modern politics and international relations. States are commonly blamed for wars, called on to apologize, punished with sanctions, admonished to keep their promises, bound by treaties, and held liable for debts and reparations. But why, and under which conditions, does it make sense to assign responsibilities to whole states rather than to individual leaders and officials? The purpose of this thesis is to resurrect and develop a forgotten understanding of state responsibility from the political thought of Thomas Hobbes. Chapters 1 and 2 examine the two dominant theories of state responsibility and propose a Hobbesian alternative. According to the agential theory, states can be held responsible because they are moral agents like human beings, with analogous capacities for deliberation and intentional action. According to the functional theory, states can be held responsible because they act vicariously through their organs, much as principals act vicariously through agents. What makes Hobbes unique is that he considers states to be 'persons'-entities to which actions, rights, and responsibilities can be attributed-even though they are neither agents nor principals. Hobbes' idea of state personality relies on the concepts of authorization and representation, not of agency and intentionality, nor of functions and organs. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 develop the Hobbesian theory of state responsibility and apply it to three sets of problems. Chapter 3 addresses problems of attribution, such as whether the actions of dictators count as acts of state and whether states can commit crimes. Chapter 4 addresses problems of identity, such as whether revolutions and annexations negate the state's identity and hence its responsibilities. Chapter 5 addresses problems of distribution, such as whether the subjects of the state ought to bear the costs of debts and reparations that their state incurred before they were born. I argue that the Hobbesian theory provides better answers to each set of problems than the agential and functional alternatives.