The neglected tradition of democratic thinking

The distinction between republicanism and liberalism or the conceivable fusion of both schools of thought, as discussed in the current debate on democracy, are not sufficient to define the modern concept of democracy; indeed, they even oversimplify it, because they deny the innate line of tradition underlying the modern discourse on democracy. This is illustrated based on the debates in the 1630s and 1640s, when the first modern democratic political approaches unfolded both in England and New England, and were fiercely opposed by the republicans and liberal thinkers of the time.