As-If-Republican Interpretation

I agree with Cass Sunstein that the time has come to develop the implications of republicanism, or neo-republicanism, for American public law. After all, if being a republican means having a commitment to some version of democratic self-governance, combined with an aspiration for collective decisionmaking that goes beyond the mere aggregation of individual preference into some vector of public decisions, most of us can easily view ourselves as republicans. The crucial question has to do with the concrete meaning of republicanism for American public law and public institutions