The Strange Case of the Hobbesian Man

Jacobson, Norman

doi:10.2307/2902915

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 3 publications

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“…The conventional story is based on giving the state an ontological and a moral character equivalent to that of the individual person in classical liberalism (N. Jacobson 1998;Agnew 1999;Skinner 1999). The state is thus treated as a ''given.''…”

Section: Sovereignty At Bay?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Sovereignty Regimes: Territoriality and State Authority in Contemporary World Politics

Agnew

2005

Annals of the Association of American Geographers

468

212

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I propose a concept of effective sovereignty to argue that states participate in sovereignty regimes that exhibit distinctive combinations of central state authority and political territoriality. Two basic conclusions, drawing from recent research in political geography and other fields, are that sovereignty is neither inherently territorial nor is it exclusively organized on a state-by-state basis. This matters because so much political energy has been invested in organizing politics in general and democracy in particular in relation to states. Typically, writing about sovereignty regards sovereignty as providing a norm that legitimizes central state authority. Unfortunately, little or no attention is given as to why this should always entail a territorial definition of political authority and to why states are thereby its sole proprietors. The dominant approach continues to privilege the state as the singular font of authority even when a state's sovereignty may be decried as hypocrisy and seen as divisible or issue-specific rather than ''real'' or absolute. I put forward a model of sovereignty alternative to the dominant one by identifying four ''sovereignty regimes'' that result from distinctive combinations of central state authority (legitimate despotic power) on the one hand, and degree of political territoriality (the administration of infrastructural power) on the other. By ''regime'' I mean a system of rule, not merely some sort of international protocol or agreement between putatively equal states. I then examine the general trajectory of the combination of sovereignty regimes from the early nineteenth century to the present. The contemporary geography of currencies (specifically exchange-rate arrangements) serves to empirically illustrate the general argument about sovereignty regimes. Finally, a brief conclusion suggests that the dominant Westphalian model of state sovereignty in political geography and international relations theory, deficient as it has long been for understanding the realities of world politics, is even more inadequate today, not only for its ignoring the hierarchy of states and sources of authority other than states, but also because of its mistaken emphasis on the geographical expression of authority (particularly under the ambiguous sign of ''sovereignty'') as invariably and inevitably territorial.

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Section: Sovereignty At Bay?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Sovereignty Regimes: Territoriality and State Authority in Contemporary World Politics

Agnew

2005

Annals of the Association of American Geographers

468

212

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Hobbes and the Wolf-Man: Melancholy and Animality in Modern Sovereignty

Rossello¹

2012

nlh

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Homo homini lupus, man is a wolf to man, remains one of the most well-known and often quoted dicta in the tradition of political theory. Political theorists take this phrase by Thomas Hobbes in the Epistle Dedicatory of De Cive to illustrate the brutish, anarchical, and violent condition of man in the state of nature, prior to the establishment of a civil state. Contrary to conventional wisdom, I suggest that this brief passage directs our attention to lycanthropy: an acute, melancholic syndrome which seventeenth-century scholars thought could turn humans into animals. I suggest that Hobbes's political theory stands for a therapeutic intervention to curb the lycanthropic tendencies of his time. Hobbes's shock therapy implies leaving animality behind, as nonpolitical, and securing humanity in an artificial commonwealth. However, Hobbes's intervention will be insufficient, as the animality left behind, excluded from the realm of politics, will return reinstating symptoms of lycanthropy.

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La cuestión del animal en el concepto de lo político de Carl Schmitt Entre teología política y zoología política

Rossello

2021

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¿Es el animal un tema de interés para Carl Schmitt? El sentido común académico presupone que la cuestión del animal es ajena tanto a los intereses intelectuales de Schmitt como a su concepción de lo político, de lo teológico y de la relación que ambos mantienen entre sí. En este trabajo sugerimos que esta impresión debe ser revisada a la luz de evidencia textual que revela el interés de Schmitt por la cuestión del animal y de intérpretes de su obra que, aunque de manera tangencial, discuten dicha cuestión.

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The Strange Case of the Hobbesian Man

Cited by 5 publications

References 3 publications

Sovereignty Regimes: Territoriality and State Authority in Contemporary World Politics

Sovereignty Regimes: Territoriality and State Authority in Contemporary World Politics

Hobbes and the Wolf-Man: Melancholy and Animality in Modern Sovereignty

La cuestión del animal en el concepto de lo político de Carl Schmitt Entre teología política y zoología política

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