The article elaborates a critique of the anti-institutionalist interpretation of Machiavelli’s democratic republicanism. In opposition to those who attribute to the Florentine the commitment with an institutional form destined to channel and vent the conflicts arising from the incorporation of the people into the political community, the anti-institutionalist interpretation suggests that political freedom in Machiavelli’s democratic republic identifies itself with events that are antecedent, external and antagonistic to the legal-political order. By examining the recent contributions of three exemplary authors of this interpretative strand, the article demonstrates that the common mistake among them consists in neglecting Machiavelli’s central concern with the maintenance of orders and laws that are appropriate to a democratic republic. It is argued that the obstacles to the validation of the anti-institutionalist interpretation in the field of historical understanding are insurmountable based on both textualist and contextualist methodological criteria.
Machiavelli; Republic; Democracy; Institutions; Constituent power; Over-interpretation; Anachronism