"Non-Domination" in Civic Republican Political Theory and the Role of the Contract of Employment

Abstract

This chapter probes the extent to which the employment contract is the most fitting, and sufficiently flexible, institution to act as the central organising concept for labour law. This analysis is undertaken within the context of the concept of ‘non-domination’ in the contemporary civic republican strand of political philosophy. There is arguably a tension between the normative framework of ‘non-domination’ - which is based on a ‘relationship’ - and the backbone of the employment relationship, which is inherently consensual. In this chapter, the authors attempt to explore this tension between the relational character of non-domination on the one hand, and the contractual nature of the employment relationship on the other hand, by demonstrating how the former can indeed function as a justification for employment law without it being rejected as an alien normative framework for the discipline. As part of that process, the chapter makes the claim that neo-republicanism justifies a form of legal regulation of the contract of employment that is at once relational and autonomous from contract law, and one that positively enables a frictionless freedom to quit employment relationships that are subject to domination.

Keywords: Labour Law, Employment Law, Contract of Employment, Civic Republicanism, Domination, New-Republicanism, Contract Law