Philip Pettit's Freedom As Anti-Power

In his essay Freedom as Anti-Power, Philip Pettit presents a unique, republican vision of liberty. Diverging from liberal or “negative” notions of freedom—freedom from interference—Pettit assumes the notion of antipower. Fundamentally, antipower results from the reduction of arbitrary dominion and subordination (Pettit 588). By protecting against the powerful, regulating oppressor’s resources, and empowering those in subordination, antipower “itself represents a distinctive sort of power” (Pettit 589, 590). Freedom, Pettit argues, manifests as unequal power structures are eliminated. Interestingly, Pettit’s interpretation of freedom infers a distinctly extrinsical consequence. Noting its source, antipower increases as dominion, or power