What is the significance of republicanism for contemporary political theory? In the face of complex transnational orders, the republican paradigm is in a crisis. This becomes evident in French political thought: For a long time, republicanism was in a hegemonic position, but today it seems to have lost its power of interpretation. Nonetheless, the French context is also the scene of intense debates concerning its own republican tradition - debates, that have not been paid sufficient attention from political theory. On the one hand, the principle ideas of liberty, equality, and solidarity have undergone a radical deconstructive critique. One the other hand however, there has been a recent reconstruction of republicanism from the perspective of democratic theory, liberating republicanism form its entanglement with Jacobinism. The present volume analyses those discourses in an internationally comparative view and presents the conceptual potentials of a liberalized republicanism.