Author: David Thunder

David Thunder is a research fellow in political philosophy at the University of Navarra’s Institute for Culture and Society in Pamplona, Spain. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Notre Dame and has held visiting positions at Princeton, Villanova, Leiden, and Oxford. David’s research focuses on the moral foundations of civil order and the institutional conditions that enable human flourishing in free and diverse societies. More particularly, his scholarship examines how complex societies can organise authority in ways that respect personal agency, community self-governance, and social pluralism. His first book, Citizenship and the Pursuit of the Worthy Life (Cambridge University Press, 2014) offered a renewed account of citizenship rooted in moral responsibility and civic virtue. His latest monograph, The Polycentric Republic: A Theory of Civil Order for Free and Diverse Societies (Routledge, 2025; winner of the 2025 Open Reason Award), advances a paradigm of civil order based on dispersed authority and polycentric governance, in the service of the freedom to flourish. Alongside his academic work, Thunder frequently engages public debates on issues such as freedom of speech, civil liberties, and the future of liberal-democratic institutions.

The Polycentric Republic – theory of civil order for free and diverse societies

“The Polycentric Republic”, published this year by Routledge, shows how modern ideas of governance neglect the interests and prerogatives of non-State associations and legitimate an imposing sovereign state that jeopardizes the freedom and integrity of communities and associations. In the book, David Thunder invites us to reimagine civil order in a way that is more friendly to the diverse interests and prerogatives of non-state communities and organizations, from churches, schools, and universities to farming co-ops, businesses, villages, and towns.