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.

Filippo Sabetti is professor emeritus of political science at McGill University and the author of several books, including The Search for Good Government: Understanding the Paradox of Italian Democracy.

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“Struggles for Self-Rule is of utmost relevance to the present day, when we are facing an urgent need to rethink democracy. I have read no other books that use the kind of comparative analysis Sabetti employs so well.” – Vera Zamagni, co-founder of the European Review of Economic History

“An ambitious and important book. Sabetti contributes significantly to our collective conceptual toolkit on self-rule.” – Jennifer Fitzgerald, author of Close to Home: Local Ties and Voting Radical Right in Europe