Just speaking from my experience, I don’t know of any such book or article (aside from the aforementioned Capmag articles, which aren’t really that clear) that specifically contrasts democracy and republicanism. Indeed, the differences between the two aren’t all that hard and fast.
Of course “democracy” has come to represent things such as a vague “self-determination” or “civil liberties,” so if we are going to denote a specific, narrow meaning, then as you indicate, it actually denotes a type of polity whereby certain rules are made by majority vote. But your posts also seem to indicate that you want to contrast democracy on the one hand with collectivism and mob rule, and republicanism with individualism and proper defense of rights on the other hand. But I don’t know that such a distinction is warranted.
If we understand democracy to mean a type of polity whereby certain rules are made by majority vote, then this means that a republic is not per se undemocratic. “Republic” tells us that the power or legitimacy of the political unit rests in the people themselves, as manifest through organized assemblies and so forth. Usually this means republicanism includes representative democracy, but there’s nothing conceptually wrong with a republic being a direct democracy, or being characterized by “rule by numbers.” There is nothing that prevents a republican majority from voting for whatever sort of tyrant or tyrannical laws that they like. There is no guarantee, or even likelihood, that laws enacted by a majority or by their elected representatives will tend to have any of those things which characterize individualism (liberalism, private property, freedom of contract, appeals to natural law, and justice) just from being a republic as opposed to direct democracy. In reality, there have been a number of republics, each which are individualist or collectivist in varying degrees. There have also been non-republican governments that are individualist or collectivist to varying degrees. So this can’t really be such an essential distinction.
If we’re trying to “make a case” against rule by numbers, then the case will be focused primarily on moral principles, and then the question will be asked only afterwards about what kind of political structure or framework provides the best incentives to conform to or uphold those principles and make distinctions from there.
Perhaps not contrasting them directly, but a case for a republic, such as that made in The Federalist Papers would be more than welcome.
I agree with your subsequent two paragraphs, however I do not intend to present them as in a dichotomy from where you have to “choose”. And specifically the democratic discourse incorporating liberal concepts as well as others I wish to analyze, in contrast to the underlying democratic paradigm. That no matter how free you are, once you allow fundamentals to be ruled by the whim of the many, it all starts going bad pretty soon.
Of course, there can be direct democracies which are republics and nevertheless protect individual rights, despite their democratic methods, better than other republics which lean more towards democratic populism, so to say. The methods for various concretes of course, will always have to be made by democratic means, in a free society (I would argue Switzerland functions better as a protector of rights than France, despite its more democratic paradigm). But as Ayn Rand said (paraphrasing here), you cannot hold the right to life of the individual to a vote (or any other fundamental rights that she made specifically clear in Capitalism: The Unknown ideal). My point is not to be made against the methods, but against the rhetoric and what it underlines specifically, that by popular pressure, “democratic ideals” can be achieved without paying attention to the upholding of rights, yet still bring about disaster. Case in point, Hungary that is on a very authoritarian path specifically because those in power, bolstered by the democratic popular support of over 66% thought they could just rearrange the Constitution to their whim and make the rights of the individual subject to arbitrary change (not even debate, in this case).