A Critique of Sovereignty

279 Pages·2018·1.372 MB·English

by  Daniel Loick, Markus Hardtmann, Axel Honneth

A Critique of Sovereignty
Reinventing Critical Theory
SeriesEditors:GabrielRockhill,AssociateProfessorofPhilosophy,VillanovaUniversity
YannikThiem,AssociateProfessorofPhilosophy,VillanovaUniversity
TheReinventingCriticalTheoryseriespublishescuttingedgeworkthatseekstoreinvent
criticalsocialtheoryforthetwenty-firstcentury.Itservesasaplatformfornewresearch
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TitlesintheSeries
Commercium:CriticalTheoryfromaCosmopolitanPointofView,byBrianMilstein
ResistanceandDecolonization,byAmílcarCabral,translatedbyDanWood
CriticalTheoriesofCrisisinEurope:FromWeimartotheEuro,editedbyPoulF.Kjaer
andNiklasOlsen
PoliticsofDivination:NeoliberalEndgameandtheReligionofContingency,byJoshua
Ramey
ComparativeMetaphysics:OntologyAfterAnthropology,editedbyPierreCharbonnier,
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TheInventionoftheVisible:TheImageinLightoftheArts,byPatrickVauday,translated
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MetaphorsofInventionandDissension:AestheticsandPoliticsinthePostcolonialAlger-
ianNovel,byRajeshwariS.Vallury
Technology,ModernityandDemocracy,editedbyEduardoBeiraandAndrewFeenberg
ACritiqueofSovereignty,byDanielLoick,translatedbyAmandaDeMarco
A Critique of Sovereignty
Daniel Loick
Translated by Amanda DeMarco
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LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Loick,Daniel,author/DeMarco,Amanda,translator.
Acritiqueofsovereignty/DanielLoick;translatedbyAmandaDeMarco
Description:London;NewYork:Rowman&LittlefieldInternational,Ltd.,[2018]|Series:Rein-
ventingcriticaltheory|Translationof:KritikderSouveränität.|Includesbibliographicalrefer-
encesandindex.
Identifiers:LCCN2018031642(print)|LCCN2018039722(ebook)|ISBN9781786600400(elec-
tronic)|ISBN9781786600387|ISBN9781786600387(cloth:alk.paper)|ISBN
9781786600394(paper:alk.paper)
Subjects:LCSH:Sovereignty.|Criticaltheory.
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Contents
Foreword vii
Introduction xv
Notes xxii
TraditionalTheoriesofSovereignty 1
1.OrderandOrientation:PrimitiveUsurpation(JeanBodin) 4
1.1WhatIsSovereignty? 5
1.2Competence-CompetenceandLimitation-Limitations 11
1.3PeacethroughViolence 16
2.BindingandBlinding:TheRhetoricsofObligation
(ThomasHobbes) 17
2.1MightIsRight 18
2.2TheStateandItsLimits 27
2.3TheIronicJustificationofPower 33
3.DivideandConquer:AutonomyasHeteronomy(Jean-
JacquesRousseau) 37
3.1TheProblèmeFondamentalandItsSolution 38
3.2WhatIsPopularSovereignty? 42
3.3ForcedFreedom 50
4.InternaliseandInternationalise:Subordinate
Sovereignty(ImmanuelKant) 53
4.1TheHumanRighttotheState 53
4.2TheRuleofReason 59
4.3CoercionandtheEndofReason 69
5.InterimConclusion:IroniesofthePolitical 71
Notes 73
CriticalTheoriesofSovereignty 89
1.TheCritiqueofLaw-PositingViolence(KarlMarxand
HannahArendt) 95
1.1TheDawnofCriticalSovereigntyTheory:KarlMarx 95
1.2SovereigntyastheLossofPolitics:HannahArendt 104
1.3MarxandArendt:ANewVirtuosityofthePolitical 111
2.TheCritiqueofLaw-PreservingViolence(Walter
BenjaminandMichelFoucault) 113
2.1CriticalTheoryofthePolice:WalterBenjamin 113
2.2TheLawofSovereignty,theMechanicsof
Discipline:MichelFoucault 123
v
vi Contents
2.3BenjaminandFoucault:PoliticsbeyondtheState 133
3.TheCritiqueofLaw-WithholdingViolence(Giorgio
Agamben) 134
3.1ExceptionandExclusion 135
3.2ExceptionandtheExternal 140
3.3SovereigntyandLatency 144
4.TheCritiqueofLaw-InterpretingViolence(Robert
CoverandJacquesDerrida) 146
4.1TheNon-OppositionofLawandViolenceinthe
WorkofRobertCover 147
4.2AporiasofDecisionintheWorkofJacquesDerrida 151
4.3The(Im)possibilityoftheNonLiquet 154
5.TheCritiqueofLaw-SplittingViolence(Feminist
CritiqueofSovereignty) 159
5.1TheFourDimensionsoftheState’sMasculinism 159
5.2FeministCritiqueofSovereignty:Abortion,Bio-
PoliticsandOmnicompetence 163
5.3Post-MasculinePoliticsintheWorldofSovereignty 166
Excursus:Law-ReplacingViolence(ProblemsofPassage) 167
Notes 174
CriticalTheorywithoutSovereignty 191
1.LawwithoutCoercion(HermannCohen) 196
2.CommandmentwithouttheState(FranzRosenzweig) 202
3.ParticipationandDissidence:Consequencesofa
CriticalTheoryof/withoutSovereignty 210
Notes 217
Literature 225
1.Abbreviations 225
2.FurtherLiterature 228
Index 243
Foreword
Since its beginnings, it has been a central feature of critical theory to
question whether the social relations of modernity, which are based on
rationalityandtermedfreeofdomination,stillcontaintracesofviolence
thatpersistintheminahardlyperceptibleway:thereciprocityofroman-
tic love, more humane working conditions in modern businesses, egali-
tarian law in democratic states—under the wary gaze of Adorno and
Horkheimer (oneneedonlythinkof DialecticofEnlightenment orMinima
Moralia), all of these purported improvements could be quickly un-
masked as the mere facades of a history of physical subjugation and
tyrannyrepeatingitselfbeneaththesurface.Toseekoutthetracesofsuch
unfoundedcoercionwherevernon-dominationispresentednormatively
remains a fundamental concern for anyone attempting to carry on the
projectofcriticaltheorytoday.ThisthemeguidesDanielLoickthrough-
outthisbook.Ashepursueshisideas,hedoesnotfocusonanyparticu-
lar one of the many minor episodes in the modern promise of nonvio-
lenceandnon-coercion,butratherdirectshisattentionstowardsitsheart,
at the claim of democratic states to have conclusively overcome all un-
founded domination that is not justified by reason. Nothing less is at
stakeherethanthequestionofwhetherthecompleteelimination ofille-
gitimate coercion through the monopolising of all violence by the sove-
reignconstitutionalstateisnormativelyjustified.
Inpursuingthislineofquestioning,theauthormakesdeftuseofthe
political conditions of our time, in which the centuries-old principle of
statesovereigntyhasbeguntocollapseduetotheaccelerationofinterna-
tionallinkages;forthefirsttime,accordingtohisargument,theinvento-
ryofrecentpoliticaltheoryhascometolight,andtoacertaindegreeno
longer possesses any self-evident validity, so that its soundness can be
questionedwithoutobstructionandwithoutdemandingahistoricalleap
of faith. We might say, in agreement with Daniel Loick, that it is the
nation-state’sowntendencytowardsgrowththatprovokesustoexamine
the idea of a civilising, violence-curbing sovereignty that underlies it, if
onlyforthesakeofshapingourpoliticalfuture;afterall,nothingwould
be more detrimental to a creative use of newly opened spaces than to
allow ourselves to be led on by a few traditional elements that have
limited our perspective to the past. Assured of the situation, the author
nowsetstowork,completelyinkeepingwithAdornoandHorkheimer’s
ethos, investigating whether the modern principle of state sovereignty
vii
viii Foreword
might merely perpetuate inconspicuous elements of non-legitimate vio-
lence and domination, contrary to any well-intentioned promises; but
without a doubt, the remarkable part of his undertaking consists in the
fact that in doing so, he doesn’t present a mere survey of the history of
theory,butrathersystematicallyenumeratesthepointsofviewthrough-
outhisargumentationthatseemtoconfirmhisoriginalsuspicion.These
twotasks—theoverviewofthehistoryoftheoryandthesystematicsub-
stantiation of his critique—are accomplished in two successive steps:
whilethefirstpartofthebook—whichowesmuchtoDialecticofEnlight-
enmentinitsdramaturgyofthehistoryofideas—demonstrateshowclas-
sictheoriesofstatesovereigntyinadvertentlytakerecoursetounfounded
coercion, the second part orients itself on Benjamin’s ‘Critique of Vio-
lence’,categoricallydefiningthoseconcealedelementsofviolencewithin
the state and systematically delineating them. Benjamin’s famous essay
also paves the way to a third, more speculative part, which opens per-
spectives onto legal conditions ‘without sovereignty’; that is, freed from
thestatemonopolyonviolence.Takentogether,itcanbejustifiablysaid
that last two parts of this book are a highly ambitious attempt to once
againmakeBenjamin’scritiquefruitfulforourpoliticalera.
Inordertoconstructthefirstportionofthebookcentredonthehisto-
ry of ideas, Daniel Loick adopts a famous concept from Dialectic of En-
lightenment, according to which the civilising process up to now has al-
ways taken the form of an ‘ironic’ reversal of emancipatory aspirations
intotheiroriginalconditions,whichhadbeenconsideredovercome.Ap-
pliedtothehistoryoftheideaofstatesovereignty,thispatternofdevel-
opment implies that every new, intellectually refined justification of the
advantages of the concentration of all violence in the state ultimately
must amount to introducing unwanted elements of unjustified coercive
domination—asifitwereimpossibleforthemtodootherwise,inDaniel
Loick’s telling, the great pioneers of the principle of sovereignty were
forcedagainandagaintoprovidetheirtransformationoflawless,violent
domination into state-secured order with an element of sheer coercion
unsupported by rationality. The history of ideas underpinned by this
enthralling thesis begins with Jean Bodin’s political theory, continues
onto an examination of Hobbes’s contractual construction, then turns to
Rousseau’s republican outline of the state, ending with an inspection of
Kant’s model of the republic based on the law of reason. None of these
fourconceptionsofthesovereignstateevadesthepainstakingproofthat
atacentralpointintheirestablishment,theymustabruptlymakeuseof
an element of direct coercion unsupported by rationality. Daniel Loick
makes relatively easy work of Bodin and Hobbes’s approaches, which
emergedbeforetheRousseaueanbreakthroughofthelinkbetweenstate
powerandthewillofthepeople;forboththinkers,theironicreversalof
their state systems (both of which are constructed for the purpose of
reducingviolence)intophilosophicallicencetoviolentdominationisob-