Major Works

• Considerations on Representative Government (1861)

  - Mill, J. S. Considerations on Representative Government. In The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, edited by John M. Robson. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1963–.
  Excerpt: It seems to me, however, from various indications, and from none more than the recent debates on Reform of Parliament, that both Conservatives and Liberals (if I may continue to call them what they still call themselves) have lost confidence in the… More

Commentary

• John Stuart Mill and Representative Government

  - Thompson, Dennis. John Stuart Mill and Representative Government. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976.
  Although Mill regarded Considerations on Representative Government as a mature statement of his theory of democracy, critics have tended to treat it less seriously than most of his other major works. Dennis Thompson argues that this neglect has led to… More

• Democracy and Liberty in Mill’s Theory of Government

  - Arneson, Richard J. “Democracy and Liberty in Mill's Theory of Government.” In Journal of the History of Philosophy, 20 (1982): 43-64.
  Excerpt: John Stuart Mill’s theory of government is of a piece with the rest of his philosophy: intelligent, eclectic, carefully modulated, somewhat recalcitrant to systematization. Seizing on this last feature, critics of Mill allege that his… More

• Mill on Democracy: From the Athenian Polis to Representative Government

  - Urbinati, Nadia. Mill On Democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002.
  From the publisher: Despite John Stuart Mill’s widely respected contributions to philosophy and political economy, his work on political philosophy has received a much more mixed response. Some critics have even charged that Mill’s liberalism was… More