Struggles for Self-Rule

How do institutions shape, direct, and determine human activity and collective action?

Drawing on case studies in Italian history, Struggles for Self-Rule asks, do the centralizing tendencies of modern politics sap the self-organizing powers of individuals and communities, and what, if anything, can be done about it?

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.