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and the decision makers. The French and American revolutions reshaped republicanism by removing its monarchical and aristocratic tendencies and applying it to whole nations rather than just small states or communities, as well as attaching modern democratic principles, such as freedom, interdependence and civic virtue to collectively provide the foundations of liberty, equality and fraternity, which are discussed further below. Principles and aspirations Republican political thought goes far deeper than a form of government in which sovereignty rests with the people
considering the evolution of republican political thought and its application within the Northern Irish context. Such an exploration of the roots of the tradition is necessary to determine how the many shapes and forms of Irish republicanism today deviate from the supposed principles, yet claim attachment to the same tradition. The chapter questions whether it is possible to define Irish republicanism through set principles. The intent of chapter 3 is to build upon the existing academic analysis examining the extent of ideological and political evolution within Sinn Féin
claim, then, is that an essential dimension of republican political thought is the difficult but necessary task of developing a theory of collective agency that is consistent with individual self-rule. Thus for Spinoza some form of political association was an inescapable consequence of our need for mutual protection and our desire for friendship or amicitia – an ‘affective’ interdependence that we cannot break but which, by means of our rational powers, we can at least comprehend and so master. In 1670 he wrote that ‘in a state or kingdom where the weal of the whole