What constitutes a Republic?

This article aims at returning to the historical archive of modern constitutionalism in order to reflect on the relations between republic, violence and emotions. The French revolutionary moment is revisited, based on a theoretical research of a genealogical nature, as it locates at the center of republican life the need for an affective economy. The hypothesis tested here is that the fate of every republic, understood as the common project to overcome social relations typical of the ancien régime, depends not only on fundamental rights and limitation of powers, but also on what the revolutionaries knew as the institutionalization of reciprocal affections.

Keywords:
Republic; Violence; Affects