Rethinking Sovereignty, Rethinking Revolution

Smith, Matthew Noah

doi:10.1111/j.1088-4963.2008.00147.x

Cited by 16 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Revolutions are extremely complex historical and political phenomena whose philosophical evaluation may be approached from a number of different angles (Smith 2008;Buchanan 2013Buchanan , 2016Parry 2018). Here I focus on a particular type of revolution which raises specific moral challenges, i.e.…”

Section: Revolution As Defence Against Oppressionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Revolution Against Non-violent Oppression

Kapelner¹

2019

Res Publica

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Oppressive governments that use violence against citizens, e.g. murder and torture, are usually thought of as liable to armed revolutionary attack by the oppressed population. But oppression may be non-violent. A government may greatly restrict political rights and personal autonomy by using surveillance, propaganda, manipulation, strategic detention and similar techniques without ever resorting to overt violence. Can such regimes be liable to revolutionary attack? A widespread view is that the answer is 'no'. On this view, unless a government is or is likely to turn violent, revolution against it is disproportional. After all, revolution would involve launching potentially lethal attacks against oppressors who do not threaten the lives and bodily integrity of their subjects but pose only lesser threats. I argue that this claim of disproportionality is false. Armed revolution against Stably Non-violent Oppressive Regimes (which are neither violent, nor are likely to become violent) can be proportional under some circumstances, thus they may be liable to revolutionary attack. My argument relies on the Responsibility-Sensitive Account of Proportionality. This account holds that responsibility for posing threats renders agents liable to greater defensive harms than the harms with which they threaten. Even if non-violent oppressive regimes do not threaten citizens with murder, serious physical injury, or enslavement, their responsibility for creating an environment in which citizens' political rights and personal autonomy are extremely restricted may loosen the proportionality requirement of inflicting defensive harm and render them liable to revolutionary attack. Oppression comes in many shapes and sizes. States that subject their citizens to violent oppression, e.g. torture, murder and enslavement, commit an especially grave moral wrong, and are usually regarded as liable to armed revolutionary attack by the oppressed citizens. But what if a state uses non-violent, yet still oppressive means to restrict citizens' ability to exercise their rights and lead autonomous lives-e.g.

show abstract

Section: Revolution As Defence Against Oppressionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Revolution Against Non-violent Oppression

Kapelner¹

2019

Res Publica

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…A CLO is a legal system in which fundamental rights are enforced by a 'decentralized sovereign' a concept that I adapt from Smith ( 2008 ). The regime is not hierarchically constructed with one jurisdiction positioned to render a 'fi nal word' on questions of legal validity at each level of governance.…”

Section: Conceptsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…What makes the system ‘constitutional’ is an overarching normative structure: the code of rights that officials are under a legal duty to enforce; and a set of shared techniques that judges, in particular, have developed to adjudicate rights. In the decentralized model, as Smith (2008: 43) puts it, ‘there is no single hierarchy that encompasses the entire political order, but instead a series of related hierarchies.’ In Europe, states have pooled and then distributed sovereignty in such a way as to create a layered set of ‘nodes’ of judicial authority to protect rights. Each of these nodes is autonomous; yet the cosmopolitan order exists only in so far as national judges credit their roles in a common project.…”

Section: Kantian Analogsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A cosmopolitan legal order: Constitutional pluralism and rights adjudication in Europe

Sweet

2012

Glob. Con.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

AbstractThe European Convention on Human Rights is rapidly evolving into a cosmopolitan legal order: a transnational legal system in which all public officials bear the obligation to fulfill the fundamental rights of every person within their jurisdiction. The emergence of the system depended on certain deep, structural transformations of law and politics in Europe, including the consolidation of a zone of peace and economic interdependence, of constitutional pluralism at the national level, and of rights cosmopolitanism at the transnational level. Framed by Kantian ideas, the paper develops a theoretical account of a cosmopolitan legal system, provides an overview of how the ECHR system operates, and establishes criteria for its normative assessment.

show abstract

“…A policy regime is defined as governing arrangements among a political coalition or group [9,10]. In a political revolution, which may be violent or non-violent, a policy regime is overthrown resulting in the enactment of a radically new set of permanent state institutions and policies [11,12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Paradox of Explosive and Gradual Policy Change in Political Revolutionary Times

Givel¹

2015

: Interdiscip. Descr. Complex Syst.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Many political revolutionary theorists have argued that political revolutionary activity occurs in a dramatic fashion resulting in explosive change in the orientation of established policy regimes resulting in radically new public policy outputs and governmental organizational structures. This research, quantitatively analyzing political revolutions that culminated in the 20 th century, confirms that short-term political revolutionary activity and the establishment of new policy regimes were few in number. Most successful political revolutionary activities along with new policy regimes were long-term while some political revolutions were not successful. The process of political revolutionary activity to overthrow established policy regimes is a complex phenomenon with political and policy change occurring across widely varying time frames.

show abstract

Rethinking Sovereignty, Rethinking Revolution

Cited by 16 publications

References 0 publications

Revolution Against Non-violent Oppression

Revolution Against Non-violent Oppression

A cosmopolitan legal order: Constitutional pluralism and rights adjudication in Europe

The Paradox of Explosive and Gradual Policy Change in Political Revolutionary Times

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About