Filippo Sabetti – författare

People the world over aspire to self-rule, especially when living under domination, conquest, and empire. Inspired by the work of Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom, Filippo Sabetti explores how people attempt, over time, to make the longing for self-government a reality.

Struggles for Self-Rule explores key moments in Italian history through a comparative perspective – from the city republics to the challenge of self-rule in France, Spain, and Catalonia – to study the circumstances in which people are able to take control of decisions that affect their lives and to what extent. Sabetti shows the wealth of the human experience of self-rule when we shift the focus of research from the government to the governance of public affairs.

Traversing history, philosophy, comparative politics, and sociology, Struggles for Self-Rule takes the reader on a renaissance tour of the history of ideas and self-government that resonates in today’s world, when many communities struggle to shape the decisions that affect their lives.

People the world over aspire to self-rule, especially when living under domination, conquest, and empire. Inspired by the work of Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom, Filippo Sabetti explores how people attempt, over time, to make the longing for self-government a reality.

Struggles for Self-Rule explores key moments in Italian history through a comparative perspective – from the city republics to the challenge of self-rule in France, Spain, and Catalonia – to study the circumstances in which people are able to take control of decisions that affect their lives and to what extent. Sabetti shows the wealth of the human experience of self-rule when we shift the focus of research from the government to the governance of public affairs.

Traversing history, philosophy, comparative politics, and sociology, Struggles for Self-Rule takes the reader on a renaissance tour of the history of ideas and self-government that resonates in today’s world, when many communities struggle to shape the decisions that affect their lives.

At a time when social scientists are increasingly focusing on the reasons why nations fail and democracies die, Filippo Sabetti turns to the opposite issue, asking instead why institutions endure. To do so, he presents Gasparo Contarini’s sixteenth-century description of the Republic of Venice to help modern readers understand what made Venice the longest-lived self-constituted republic.

In its long history, Venice was the only city that succeeded in constructing a durable republicanism, and it was one of the earliest to depart from the hierarchical world of national monarchies and sovereignties. Sabetti suggests that students of politics will find Contarini’s The Republic of Venice just as instructive, if not more so, as Machiavelli’s The Prince. In his analysis of human nature, Contarini matches Machiavelli''s secularism and realism, but goes much further; examining the case of Venice, he shows how it is possible for fallible human beings to construct a successful and stable government. This is the first modern English-language edition of Contarini’s classic work, based directly on the original Latin.

At a time when social scientists are increasingly focusing on the reasons why nations fail and democracies die, Filippo Sabetti turns to the opposite issue, asking instead why institutions endure. To do so, he presents Gasparo Contarini’s sixteenth-century description of the Republic of Venice to help modern readers understand what made Venice the longest-lived self-constituted republic.

In its long history, Venice was the only city that succeeded in constructing a durable republicanism, and it was one of the earliest to depart from the hierarchical world of national monarchies and sovereignties. Sabetti suggests that students of politics will find Contarini’s The Republic of Venice just as instructive, if not more so, as Machiavelli’s The Prince. In his analysis of human nature, Contarini matches Machiavelli''s secularism and realism, but goes much further; examining the case of Venice, he shows how it is possible for fallible human beings to construct a successful and stable government. This is the first modern English-language edition of Contarini’s classic work, based directly on the original Latin.