This book discussion featured Citizen Marx, a groundbreaking book by Bruno Leipold that reinterprets Karl Marx’s political thought through the lens of republicanism.
About the Book: Citizen Marx
In Citizen Marx, Bruno Leipold challenges conventional interpretations of Karl Marx, presenting a compelling case that Marx’s thought was deeply shaped by republican ideals. Far from being anti-political, Marx envisioned democratic institutions as essential to overcoming the domination inherent in capitalist societies. Tracing Marx’s evolving relationship with republicanism—from early democratic activism, through critical rethinking during his communist transition, to his embrace of popular control after the Paris Commune—Leipold positions Marx as a theorist who placed democratic politics at the core of socialism.
About the Author:
Bruno Leipold is a political theorist and historian of political thought specialising in Karl Marx, the republican tradition, and theories of popular democracy. Currently a Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science, he will take up the role of Assistant Professor in Political Theory there from September 2025. He is the author of Citizen Marx: Republicanism and the Formation of Karl Marx’s Social and Political Thought (Princeton University Press, 2024).
Discussants:
Geneviève Rousselière is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Duke University. Her research explores freedom in contexts of inequality, drawing on republican, feminist, and democratic theory. She was the co-editor of Republicanism and the Future of Democracy and author of Sharing Freedom: Republicanism and Exclusion in Revolutionary France (CUP, 2024).
Nicholas Vrousalis is Associate Professor in Practical Philosophy at Erasmus University Rotterdam. With degrees from Cambridge and Oxford, his work spans political philosophy, economic ethics, and exploitation theory. His latest book, Exploitation as Domination, was published by Oxford University Press in 2023.
Moderator:
Alexandra Medzibrodszky is the Editor for the “History of Ideas” section at the Review of Democracy. She received her PhD in Comparative History from the Central European University in 2020. Her main research interests include European and global intellectual history, religion and politics, and political thought and literature. During her doctoral studies, she held visiting fellowships at Cornell University, the Leibniz Institute for European History, and Kazan Federal University. She has also been a guest lecturer at the London School of Economics, Corvinus University, and Eötvös Loránd University, where she taught courses on Russian and Soviet history.
