菲利普•佩迪特（Philip Noel Pettit），1945年齣生於愛爾蘭，曾長期任教於澳大利亞國立大學，擁有愛爾蘭和澳大利亞雙重國籍；當代著名社會理論傢，享有多種學術榮譽並擔任多種學術職務，現為美國普林斯頓大學威廉•尼爾森•剋倫威爾政治學教授（William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics）；其主要著作包括：《判斷正義》（Judging Justice，1980）、《不僅僅是懲罰》（Not Just Deserts，閤著，1990）、《羅爾斯》（Rawls，閤著，1990）、《大眾的心智》（The Common Mind，1993）、《共和主義》（Republicanism，1997/平裝本，1999）、《倫理學的三種方法》（Three Methods of Ethics，閤著，1997）、《一種自由理論》（A Theory of Freedom，2001）以及論文集《規則、理性與規範》（Rules, Reasons, and Norms，2002）等，其中《共和主義》一書已經擁有多種語言的譯本。譯者劉訓練，1977年生於江蘇省射陽縣，現為天津師範大學政治與行政學院教師，天津師範大學政治文化研究中心研究人員。主要研究方嚮為西方政治思想史和當代西方政治哲學，目前主要從事如下專題的譯介和研究工作：西方政治思想中的共和主義傳統及其當代復興、西方政治哲學中的自由問題。有譯著多種。

This is the first full-length presentation of a republican alternative to the liberal and communitarian theories that have dominated political philosophy in recent years. The author's eloquent, compelling account opens with an examination of the traditional republican conception of freedom as non-domination, contrasting this with established negative and positive views of liberalism. The book examines what the implementation of the ideal would imply for substantive policy-making, constitutional and democratic design, regulatory control and the relation between state and civil society. Professor Pettit's powerful and insightful new work offers not only a unified, theoretical overview of the many strands of republican ideas, it also provides a new and sophisticated perspective on studies in related fields including the history of ideas, jurisprudence, and criminology. The author had included a new postscript to this paperback edition, which offers a sketch of the crucial republican ideas, and to reinforce the argument that the republican tradition deserves more attention than it has generally received among contemporary political theorists.