THE
OXFORD
HANDBOOKS
THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF
OF
POLITICAL
SCIENCE
GENERAL EDlTOR: ROBERT
E.
GOODIN
The Oxford Handbooks of Political Science is a ten-volume set of reference books
offering authoritative and engaging critical overviews of all the main branches of
political science.
The series as a whole is under the General Editorship of Robert E. Goodin, with
each volume being edited by a distinguished international group of specialists in their
respective fields:
POLITICAL THEORY
POLITICAL
THEORY
Edited by
John S. Dryzek, Bonnie Honig & Anne Phillips
POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS
R. A. W. Rhodes, Sarah A. Binder & Bert A. Rockman
POLITICAL BEHAVIOR
Russell f. Dalton & Hans-Dieter Klingemann
COMPARATIVE POLITICS
Caries Boix &- Susan C. Stokes
JOHN S. DRYZEK
BONNIE HONIG
and
ANNE PHILLIPS
LAW & POLITICS
Keith E. Whittington, R. Daniel Kelemen & Gregory A. Caldeira
PUBLIC POLICY
Michael Moran, Martin Rein & Robert E. Goodin
POLITICAL ECONOMY
Barry R. Weingast & Donald A. Wittman
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Christian Reus-$mit & DlIncan Snidal
CONTEXTUAL POLITICAL ANALYSIS
Robert E. Goodin & Charles Tilly
POLITICAL METHODOLOGY
/anet M. Box-Steffensmeier, Henry E. Brady & David Collier
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
This series aspires to shape the discipline, not just to report on it. Like the GoodinKlingemann New Handbook of political Science upon which the series builds, each of
these volumes will combine critical commentaries on where the field has been
together with positive suggestions as to where it ought to be heading.
CONTENTS
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About the Contributors
xi
It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, s..:holarship,
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PART I INTRODUCTION
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Introduction
JOHN
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DRYZEK)
BONNIE HONIG & ANNE PHlLLIPS
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PART 11 CONTEMPORARY CURRENTS
Published in the United States by Oxford University Press inc .. New York
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British library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Justice After Rawls
RICHARD J. ARNESON
45
3· Power After Foucault
WENDY BROWN
65
4· Critical Theory Beyond Habermas
85
2.
WrLLIAM E. SCHEUERMAN
5· Feminist Theory and the Canon of Political Thought
LlNDA ZERILLl
106
library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, fndia
Printed in Great Britain
On
acid-free paper by BiddIes Ltd., King's Lynn, Nortolk
ISBN 0-19-927003-1
6. After the Linguistic Turn: Post -structuralist and Liberal
Pragmatist Political Theory
PAUL PATTON
125
978-0-19-927003-3
[3579108642
7· The Pluralist Imagination
DAVID SCHLOSBERG
142
vi
CONTENTS
CONTENTS
PART III
PART V STATE AND PEOPLE
THE LEGACY OF THE PAST
8. Theory in History: Problems of Context and Narrative
163
17· Constitutionalism and the Rule of Law
J. G. A. POCOCK
175
18. Emergency Powers
JOHN FEREJOHN & P ASQUALE P ASQUINO
333
Republican Visions
ERIC NELSON
193
19· The People
349
Modernity and Its Critics
JANE BENNETT
211
20.
Civil Society and the State
SIMONE CHAMBERS & JEFFREY KOPSTEIN
363
225
21.
Democracy and the State
MARK E. WARREN
382
JILL FRANK
11.
317
SHANNON C. STIMSON
9· The Political Theory of Classical Greece
10.
vii
MARGARET CANOVAN
12. The History of Political Thought as Disciplinary Genre
JAMES FARR
22. Democracy and Citizenship: Expanding Domains
PART IV POLITICAL THEORY IN
THE WORLD
13· The Challenge of European Union
245
RICHARD BELLAMY
PART VI JUSTICE, EQUALITY,
AND FREEDOM
23· Impartiality
14· East Asia and the West: The Impact of Confucianism on Anglo-
American Political Theory
DANIEL A. BELL
262
423
SUSAN MENDUS
24· Justice, Luck) and Desert
15· In the Beginning, All the World was America: American Exceptionalism
in New Contexts
RONALD J. SCHMIDT,
400
MrcHAEL SAW ARD
436
SERENA OLSARETTI
281
JR.
25· Recognition and Redistribution
45 0
PATCBEN MARKELL
16. Changing Interpretations of Modern and Contemporary Islamic
Political Theory
ROXANNE L. EUBEN
297
26. Equality and Difference
470
JUDlTH SQUIRES
27· Liberty, Equality, and Property
ANDREW WILLIAMS
488
viii
CONTENTS
CONTENTS
ix
38. New Ways of Thinking about Privacy
BEATE ROESSLER
28. Historical Injustice
DUNCAN IVISON
PART VII PLURALISM, MULTICULTURALISM,
AND NATIONALISM
39. New Technologies, Justice, and the Body
CEcILE FAB RE
713
40. Paranoia and Political Philosophy
JAMES M. GLASS
29· Nationalism
529
DAVID MILLER
PART X TESTING THE BOUNDARIES
30. Multiculturalism and its Critics
546
JEPF SPINNER-HALEV
31- Identity, Difference, Toleration
564
ANNA ELIsABETTA GALEOTTl
32. Moral Universalism and Cultural Difference
581
CHANDRAN KUKATHAS
PART VIII CLAIMS IN A GLOBAL CONTEXT
33· Human Rights
41. Political Theory and Cultural Studies
JODl DEAN
751
42. Political Theory and the Environment
JOHN M. MEYER
773
43. Political Theory and Political Economy
STEPHEN L. ELKIN
792
44. Political Theory and Social Theory
CHRISTINE HELLlWELL & BARRY HINDESS
810
601
JACK DONNELLY
34· From International to Global Justice?
PART XI OLD AND NEW
621
CHRIS BROWN
35· Political Secularism
636
RAJEEV BHARGAVA
36. Multiculturalism and Post-colonial Theory
656
45. Then and Now: Participant-Observation in Political Theory
WILLIAM E. CONNOLLY
46. Exile and Re-entry: Political Theory Yesterday and Tomorrow
ARLENE W. SAXONHOUSE
PAUL GILROY
Index
PART IX THE BODY POLITIC
37· Politicizing the Body: Property, Contract, and Rights
MOIRA GATENS
677
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
Richard J. Arneson is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, San
Diego.
Daniel A. Bell is Professor of Philosophy at Tsinghua University, Beijing.
Richard Bellamy is Professor of Political Science at University College London.
Jane Bennett is Professor of Political Science at Iohns Hopkins University.
Rajeev Bhargava is Senior Fellow and Director of the Programme of Social and
Political Theory, Centre for the Studies of Developing Societies, Delhi.
Chris Brown is Professor of International Relations at the London School of
Economics.
Wendy Brown is Professor of Political Science at the University of California,
Berkeley.
Margaret Canovan is Emeritus Professor of Political Thought at Keele University.
Simone Chambers is Associate Professor of Political Theory at the University of
Toronto.
William E. ConnoUy is Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Political Science at Tohns
Hopkins University.
Jodi Dean is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Hobart
and William Smith Colleges.
Jack Donnelly is Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver.
John S. Dryzek is Professor of Social and Political Theory, Political Science
Program, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University.
Stephen L. Elkin is Professor of Government and Politics at the University of
Maryland, and a Principal of the Democracy Collaborative.
Roxanne L. Euben is Associate Professor of Political Science at Wellesley College.
xii
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
xiii
Cecile Fabre is Senior Lecturer in Political Theory at the London School of
Economics.
Eric Nelson is Assistant Professor of Government at Harvard University, and a
junior fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows.
Tames Farr is Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota.
Serena Olsaretti is University Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Philosophy, and
Teaching Fellow at St. John's College, Cambridge.
Tohn Ferejohn is Carolyn S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science at Stanford
University.
Jill Frank is Associate pイセヲ・Uウッ@
of Political Science at the University of South
Pas quale Pasquino is Directeur de Recherche [Senior Fellow] at the CNRS-Centre
de Theorie et Analyse du Droit, Paris, and Professor in Politics at New York
University.
Carolina, Columbia.
Paul Patton is Professor of Philosophy at the University of New South Wales.
Anna Elisabetta Galeotti is Professor of Political Theory in the Department of
Humanities at the Universita del Piemonte Orientale.
Anne Phillips is Professor of Gender Theory and holds a joint appointment in the
Department of Government and the Gender Institute, London School of Economics.
Moira Gatens is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sydney.
Beate Roessler is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam.
Paul Gilroy is Anthony Giddens Professor of Social Theory at the London School
of Economics.
Michael Saward is Professor of Political Science at The Open University.
James M. Glass is a Professor in the Department of Government and Politics at the
University of Maryland, College Park.
Arlene W. Saxonhouse is the Caroline Robbins Collegiate Professor of Political
Science and Women's Studies at the University of Michigan.
Christine Helliwell is Reader in Anthropology, Faculty of Arts, Australian National
University.
William E. Scheuerrnan is Professor of Political Science at Indiana University,
Bloomington.
Barry Hindess is Professor of Political Science, Research School of Social Sciences,
Australian National University.
David Schlosberg is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Political
Science at Northern Arizona University.
Bonnie Honig is Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University and
Senior Research Fellow, American Bar Foundation.
Ronald J. Schmidt, Jr., is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of
Southern Maine.
Duncan Ivison is Associate Professor of PoLitical Science at the University of
Toronto and a member of the Department of Philosophy at the University of
Ieff Spinner-Halev is the Kenan Eminent Professor of Political Ethics at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Sydney.
Judith Squires is Professor of Political Theory at the University of Bristol.
Jeffrey Kopstein is Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto.
Shannon C. Stimson is Professor of Political Thought at the University of California, Berkeley.
Chandran Kukathas is the Neal A. MaxweU Professor of Political Theory, Public
Policy and Public Service, in the Department of PoLitical Science, University of
Utah.
Patchen MarkeU is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of
Chicago.
Susan Mendus is Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of York.
John M. Meyer is Associate Professor in the Department of Government and
Politics at Humboldt State University.
David Miller is Professor of Political Theory at the University of Oxford.
Mark Warren holds the Harold and Dorrie Merilees Chair for the Study of
Democracy in the Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia.
Andrew Williams is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Reading.
Linda Zerilli is Professor of Political Science at Northwestern UniversitY.
PART I
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
JOHN S. DRYZEK
BONNIE HONIG
ANNE PHILLIPS
"What's your Line of business, then?"
''I'm a scholar of the Enlightenment," said Nicholas.
"Oh Lord!" the young man said. ''Another producer of useless
graduates!"
Nicholas felt despondent.
(Lukes 1995: 199)
IN The Curious Enlighten.ment of Professor Caritat-Steven Lukes' fictionalized round-up of contemporary political theory-the hapless professor has
been kidnapped by the resistance movement and sent off to search for
grounds for optimism. In Utilitaria, he is asked to give a lecture on "Breaking
Free from the Past;" in Communitaria, on "Why the Enlightenment Project
Had to Fail." Neither topic is much to his taste, but it is only when he reaches
Libertaria (not, as one of its gloomy inhabitants tells him, a good place to be
unlucky, unemployed, or employed by the state) that he is made to recognize
the limited purchase of his academic expertise. At the end of the book, the
professor still has not found the mythical land of Egalitaria. But he has
4
JOHN S. DRYZEK, BONNIE HONIG & ANNE PHILLIPS
derived one important lesson from his adventures: in the pursuit of anyone
ideal, it is disastrous to lose sight of all the others.
This Handbook is not organized around categories such as utilitarianism,
communitarianism, or libertarianism, and though it also notes the continuing
elusiveness of egalitarianism, it does not promote any single ideal. The Handbook seeks, instead, to reflect the pluralism of contemporary political theory,
a pluralism we regard as a key feature and major strength of the field. In this
introduction, we clarify what we understand by political theory, identify major
themes and developments over recent decades, and take stock of the contemporary condition of the field. We end with an explanation of the categories
through which we have organized the contributions to the Handbook.
1 WHAT IS POLITICAL THEORY?
Political Theory is an interdisciplinary endeavor whose center of gravity lies
at the humanities end of the happily still undisciplined discipline of political
science. Its traditions, approaches, and styles vary, but the field is united by a
commitment to theorize, critique, and diagnose the norms, practices, and
organization of political action in the past and present, in our own places and
elsewhere. Across what sometimes seem chasms of difference, political theorists share a concern with the demands of justice and how to fulfill them, the
presuppositions and promise of democracy, the divide between secular and
religious ways of life, and the nature and identity of public goods, among
many other topics.
Political theorists also share a commitment to the humanistic study of
politics (although with considerable disagreement over what that means),
and a skepticism towards the hegemony sometimes sought by our more selfconsciously «scientific" colleagues. In recent years, and especially in the USA,
the study of politics has become increasingly formal and quantitative. Indeed,
there are those for whom political theory, properly understood, would be
formal theory geared solely towards the explanation of political phenomena,
where explanation is modeled on the natural sciences and takes the form
of seeking patterns and offering causal explanations for events in the
human world. Such approaches have been challenged-most recently by
INTRODUCTION
the Perestroika movement (Monroe 2oos)-on behalf of more qualitative and
interpretive approaches. Political theory is located at one remove from this
quantitative vs. qualitative debate, sitting somewhere between the distanced
universals of normative philosophy and the empirical world of politics.
For a long time, the challenge for the identity of political theory has been
how to position itself productively in three sorts of location: in relation to the
academic disciplines of political science, history, and philosophy; between the
world of politics and the more abstract, ruminative register of theory; between canonical political theory and the newer resources (such as feminist
and critical theory, discourse analysis, film and film theory, popular and
political culture, mass media studies) neuroscience, environmental studies,
behavioral science, and economics) on which political theorists increasingly
draw. Political theorists engage with empirical work in politics, economics,
sociology, and law to inform their reflections, and there have been plenty of
productive associations between those who call themselves political scientists
and those who call themselves political theorists. The connection to law is
strongest when it comes to constitutional law and its normative foundations
(for example, Sunstein 1993; Tully 1995, 2002; this connection is covered in our
chapters by Stimson and by Ferejohn and Pasquino).
Most of political theory has an irreducibly normative component-regardless of whether the theory is systematic or diagnostic in its approach, textual
or cultural in its focus, analytic, critical, genealogical, or deconstructive·in its
method, ideal or piecemeal in its procedures) socialist, liberal, or conservative
in its politics. The field welcomes all these approaches. It has a core canon,
often referred to as Plato to NATO, although the canon is itself unstable, with
the rediscovery of figures such as Sophocles, Thucydides, Baruch Spinoza,
and Mary Wollstonecraft, previously treated as marginal, and the addition of
new icons such as Hannah Arendt, John Rawls, Michel Foucault, and Jiirgen
Habermas. Moreover, the subject matter of political theory has always
extended beyond this canon and its interpretations, as theorists bring their
analytic tools to bear on novels, film, and other cultural artifacts, and on
developments in other social sciences and even in natural science.
Political theory is an unapologetically mongrel sub-discipline, with no
dominant methodology or approach. When asked to describe themselves,
theorists will sometimes employ the shorthand of a key formative influenceas in ''I'm a Deleuzean," or Rawlsian, or Habermasian, or Arendtian-although
it is probably more common to be labeled in this way by others than to claim the
description oneself. In contrast, however, to some neighboring producers
6
JOHN S. DRYZEK, BONNIE HONIG & ANNE PHILLIPS
ofknowledge, political theorists do not readily position themselves by reference
to three or four dominant schools that define their field. There is, for example,
no parallel to the division between realists, liberals, and constructivists, recently
joined by neoconservatives, that defines international relations theory. And
there is certain Iy nothing like the old Marx-Weber-Durkheim triad that was the
staple of courses in sociological theory up to the 1970S.
Because of this, political theory can sometimes seem to lack a core identity.
Some practitioners seek to rectify the perceived lack, either by putting
political theory back into what is said to be its proper role as arbiter of
universal questions and explorer of timeless texts, or by returning the focus of
political theory to history. The majority, however, have a strong sense of their
vocation. Many see the internally riven and uncertain character of the field as
reflective of the internally riven and uncertain character of the political world
in which we live, bringing with it all the challenges and promises of that
condition. In the last two decades of the twentieth century, liberal, critical,
and post-structuralist theorists have (in their very different ways) responded
to the breakdown of old assumptions about the unitary nature of nation-state
identities. They have rethought the presuppositions and meanings of identity,
often rejecting unitary conceptions and moving towards more pluralistic,
diverse, or agonistic conceptions in their place. These reflections have had an
impact on the field's own self-perception and understanding. Happily for
political theory, the process has coincided with a movement within the
academy to reconceive knowledge as more fundamentally interdisciplinary.
This reconsideration of the function and role of the boundaries of the
academic disciplines may help others, as well as political theorists, to see
the field's pluralism as a virtue and a strength, rather than a weakness in need
of rectification.
1.1 Relationship with Political Science
Political theory's relationship to the discipline of political science has not
always been a happy one. Since the founding of the discipline in the late
nineteenth century, there have been periodic proclamations of its newly scientific character. The "soft" other for the new science has sometimes been
journalism, sometimes historical narrative, sometimes case-study methods. It
has also, very often, been political theory. Beginning in the 1950S, behavioral
INTRODUCTION
7
revolutionaries tried to purge the ranks of theorists-and had some success at
this in one or two large Midwestern departments of political science in the USA.
The later impact of rational choice theory encouraged others, like William Riker
(1982a: 753), to reject "belles letters, criticism, and philosophic speculation"
along with ((phenomenology and hermeneutics!' For those driven by their
scientific aspirations, it has always been important to distinguish the "true"
scientific study of politics from more humanistic approaches-and political
theory has sometimes borne the brunt of this.
Political theorists have noted, in response, that science and objectivity are
steeped in a normativity that the self-proclaimed scientists wrongly disavow;
and theorists have not been inclined to take the description of political
"science" at face value. They have challenged the idea that their own work in
normative theory lacks rigor, pointing to criteria within political theory that
differentiate more from less rigorous work. While resisting the epistemic
assumptions of empiricism, many also point out that much of what passes
for political theory is profoundly engaged with empirical politics: what, after
all, could be more ((real", vital, and important than the symbols and categories
that organize our lives and the frameworks of our understanding? The French
have a word to describe what results when those elected as president and prime
minister are representatives of two different political parties: cohabitation. The
word connotes, variously, cooperation, toleration, sufferance, antagonism,
and a sense of common enterprise. Cohabitation, in this sense, is a good
way to cast the relationship between political theory and political science.
1.2 Relationship .with History
History as a point of reference has also proven contentious, with recurrent
debates about the extent to which theory is contained by its historical context
(see Pocock and Farr in this volume), and whether one can legitimately
employ political principles from one era as a basis for criticizing political
practice in another. When Quentin Skinner, famous for his commitment to
historical contextualism, suggested that early principles of republican freedom might offer a telling alternative to the conceptions of liberty around
today, he took care to distance himself from any suggestion that "intellectual
historians should turn themselves into moralists" (Skinner 1998: 118). He still
drew criticism for abandoning the historian's traditional caution.
8
INTRODUCTION
JOHN S. DRYZEK, BONNIE HONIG & ANNE PHILLIPS
In an essay published in 1989, Richard Ashcraft called upon political
theorists to acknowledge the fundamentally historical character of their
enterprise. While contemporary theorists recognize the "basic social/historical conditions which structure" their practice, "this recognition does not
serve as a conscious guideline for their teaching and writing of political
theory:' Ashcraft continued: "On the contrary, political theory is taught
and written about as if it were great philosophy rather than ideology" (Ashcraft 1989: 700). For Ashcraft, acknowledging the ideological character of
political theory meant embracing its political character. The main objects of
his critique were Leo Strauss and his followers, whom Ashcraft saw as seeking
evidence of universally valid standards in canonical political theorists and
calling on those standards to judge their works. For Straussians, the wisdom
of the ancients and greats is outside history.
Ashcraft also criticized Sheldon Wolin, who shared Ashcraft's displeasure
with Straussians, on the grounds of their inadequate attention to politics
(see Saxonhouse's contribution to this volume). Although Wolin acknowledged the historicity of the texts he had examined in his seminal Politics and
Vision (1960), Ashcraft claimed that Wolin resisted the ('wholesale transformation" that would result, in both his view and Ashcraft's, from putting
that historicity at the center of his interpretative practice. Wolin is famous
for championing what, in the style of Hannah .Arendt, he termed
«the political:" politics understood, not in its instrumental capacity (Harold
Lasswell's (1961) "'Who gets what, when, and how' "), but rather in its
orientation toward the public good coupled with a commitment to the
"public happiness" of political participation. Contra Ashcraft, one might
see Wolin's move to the political as a way of splitting the difference between
a Straussian universalism and the thick contextualism of Ashcraft's preferred
historicist approach.
"The political" is a conceptual category, itself outside of history, that rejects
the idea that politics is about universal truths, while also rejecting the
reduction of politics to interests. "The political" tends to connote, minimally,
some form of individual or collective action that disrupts ordinary states of
affairs, normal life, or routine patterns of behavior or governance. There are
diverse conceptions of this notion. To take three as exemplary: the political
takes its meaning from its figuration in Wolin's work by contrast primarily
with statism, constitutionalism, and political apathy; in Arendfs work by
contrast with private or natural spheres of human behavior; and in Ranciere's
(1999) work by contrast with the "police."
9
1.3 Relationship with Philosophy
The most un-historical influence on political theory in recent decades has
been John Rawls, whose work represents a close alliance with analytic philosophy. On one popular account, Rawls arrived from outside as political
theory's foreign savior and rescued political theory from the doldrums with
the publication in 1971 of A Theory of Justice (see Arneson in this volume).
Rawls' book was an ambitious, normative, and systematic investigation of
what political, economic, and social justice should look like in contemporary
democracies. With the distancing mechanisms of a veil of ignorance and
hypothetical social contract, Rawls followed Kant in looking to reason to
adjudicate what he saw as the fundamental question of politics: the conflict
between liberty and equality. Writing from within the discipline of philosophy, he returned political theory to one of its grand styles (Tocqueville's twovolume Democracy in America, also written by an outsider, would represent
another). Much subsequent work on questions of justice and equality has
continued in this vein, and while those who have followed Rawls have not
necessarily shared his conclusions, they have often employed similar mind
experiments to arrive at the appropriate relationship between equality and
choice. The clamshell auction imagined by Ronald Dworkin (1981), where all
the society's resources are up for sale and the participants employ their
clamshells to bid for what best suits their own projects in life, is another
classic illustration. Starting with what seems the remotest of scenarios,
Dworkin claims to arrive at very specific recommendations for the contemporary welfare state.
As the contributions to this volume demonstrate, one strand of current
debates in political theory revolves around the relationship between the more
abstracted or hypothetical register of analytic philosophy and approaches that
stress the specificities of historical or contemporary contexts. Those working
in dose association with the traditions' of analytic philosophy-and often
preferring to call themselves political philosophers-have generated some of
the most interesting and innovative work in recent decades. But they have
also been repeatedly challenged. Co mm unitarians and post -structuralists
claim that the unencumbered individual of Rawlsian liberalism is not neutral
but an ideological premise with significant, unacknowledged political effects
on its theoretical conclusions (SandeI1982; Honig 1993). Feminists criticize
the analytic abstraction from bodily difference as a move that reinforces
heteronormative assumptions and gender inequalities (Okin 1989; Pateman
10
INTRODUCTION
JOHN S. DRYZEK, BONNIE HONIG &- ANNE PHILLIPS
1988; Zerilli and Gatens in this volume). As we indicate later in the introduc-
tion, analytic liberalism has made some considerable concessions in this
regard. rn Political Liberalism, for example, Rawls no longer represents his
theory of justice as addressing what is right for all societies at all times, but is
careful to present his arguments as reflecting the intuitions of contemporary
liberal and pluralistic societies.
lA Relationship with "Real World" Politics
The way political theory positions itself in relation to political science,
history, and philosophy can be read in part as reflections on the meaning of
the political. It can also be read as reflections on the nature of theory, and
what can-or cannot-be brought into existence through theoretical work.
The possibilities are bounded on one side by utopianism. Political theorists
have seemed at their most vulnerable to criticism by political scientists or
economists when their normative explorations generate conclusions that
cannot plausibly be implemented: principles of living, perhaps, that invoke
the practices of small-scale face-to-face societies; the or principles of distribution that ignore the implosion of communism or the seemingly irresistible
global spread of consumerist ideas (see Dunn 2000, for one such warning).
There is an important strand in political theory that relishes the utopian label,
regarding this as evidence of the capacity to think beyond current confines,
the political theorises version of blue-sky science. Ever since Aristotle, however, this has been challenged by an insistence on working within the parameters of the possible, an insistence often called "sober" by those who favor it.
At issue here is not the status of political theory in relation to political science,
but how theory engages with developments in the political world.
Some see it as failing to do so. John GunnelI (1986) has represented political
theory as alienated from politics, while Jeffrey Isaac (1995) argues that a reader
of political theory journals in the mid 1990S would have had no idea that the
Berlin Wall had fallen. Against this, one could cite a flurry of studies employing empirical results to shed light on the real-world prospects for the kind of
deliberative democracy currently advocated by democratic theorists (see for
example the 2005 double issue of Acta Politica); or testing out theories of
justice by reference to empirical studies of social mobility (Marshall, Swift,
and Roberts 1997). Or one might take note of the rather large number of
11
political theorists whose interest in contemporary political events such as the
formation of a European identity, the new international human-rights regime
and the politics of immigration, the eschewal of the Geneva Convention at
the turn of the twentieth century, or the appropriate political response to
natural disasters leads them to think about how to theorize these events.
Concepts or figures of thought invoked here include Giorgio Agamben's
(1998) "bare life" of the human being to whom anything can be done by
the state, Michel Foucault's (1979) "disciplinary power" that conditions what
people can think, Carl Schmitt's (1985) "state of exception" wherein the
sovereign suspends the rule of law, Ronald Dworkin's (1977) superhuman
judge "Hercules," Jacques Derrida's (2000) "unconditional hospitality" to the
other, or Etienne Balibar's (2004) "marks of sovereignty" which signal the
arrogation to themselves by political actors in civil society of rights and
privileges of action historically assumed by states.
As is clear from the contributions in this Handbook, political theorists take
their cue from events around them, turning their attention to the challenges
presented by ecological crisis; emergency or security politics; the impact of
new technologies on the ways we think about privacy, justice, or the category
of the human; the impact of new migrations on ideas of race, tolerance, and
multiculturalism; the implications of growing global inequalities on the way
we theorize liberty, equality, democracy, sovereignty, or hegemony. In identifying the topics for this collection, we have been struck by the strong sense
of political engagement in contemporary political theory, and the way this
shapes the field.
1.5 Institutional Landscape
Institutionally, political theory is located in several 'disciplines, starting of
course with political science, but continuing through philosophy and law,
and including some representation in departments of history, sociology, and
economics. This means that the professional associations and journals of
these disciplines are hospitable (if to varying degrees) to work in political
theory. Among the general political science journals, it is quite common to
find political theory published in Polity and Political Studies, somewhat less so
in the American Journal of Political Science, British Journal of Political Science,
and Journal of Politics. On the face of it, the American Political Science Review
12
TOHN S. DRYZEK, BON'NIE HONIG
&;
publishes a substantial number of political theory articles, but the majority of
these have been in the history of political thought, with Straussian authors
especially well represented. In philosophy, Ethics and Philosophy and Public
Affairs are the two high-profile journals most likely to publish political
theory. Some of the more theoretically inclined law journals publish political
theory, and so do some of the more politically inclined sociology journals.
Political theory's best-established journal of its own is Political Theory,
founded in 1972. Prior to its establishment, the closest we had to a general
political-theory academic periodical were two book series. The first was the
sporadic Philosophy, Politics and Society series published by Basil Blackwell
and always co-edited by Peter Laslett, beginning in 1956 and reaching its
seventh volume in 2003. Far more regularly published have been the NOMOS
yearbooks of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy, which
began in 1958 and continue to this day. Recent years have seen an explosion in
political theory journal titles: History of Political Thought; Journal of Political
Philosophy; The Good Society; Philosophy, Politics and Economics; Critical
Review of International Social and Political Philosophy; European Journal of
Political Theory; Contemporary Political Theory; Constellations; and Theory
and Event (an online journal). The Review ofPolitics has been publishing since
1939, although its coverage has been selective, with a Straussian emphasis for
much of its history. Political theorists can often be found publishing in
related areas such as feminism, law, international relations, or cultural studies. Journals that feature their work from these various interdisciplinary
locations include differences; Politics, Culture, and Society; Daedalus; Social
Text; Logos; Strategies; Signs; and Millennium. However, political theory is a
field very much oriented to book publication (a fact which artificially depresses the standing of political theory journals when computed from citation indexes, for even journal articles in the field tend to cite books rather
than other articles). All the major English-language academic presses publish
political theory. Oxford University Press's Oxford Political Theory series is
especially noteworthy. While the world of the Internet changes rapidly, at the
time of writing the Political Theory Daily Review is an excellent resource that
opens many doors. L
Political theory is much in evidence at meetings of disciplinary associations. The Foundations of Political Theory section of the American Political
Science Association is especially important, not just in organizing panels and
I
INTRODUCTION
ANNE PH[LLlPS
http://www.politicaltheory.info/
13
lectures and sponsoring awards but also in hosting what is for a couple of
hours every year probably the largest number of political theorists in one
room talking at once (the Foundations reception). The field also has associations of its own that sponsor conferences: the Conference for the Study of
Political Thought International, and the Association for Political Theory
(both based in North America). In the UK, there is an annual Political
Theory conference in Oxford; and though the European Consortium for
political Research has tended to focus more on comparative studies, it also
provides an important context for workshops on political theory.
2
CONTEMPORARY THEMES AND
DEVELOPMENTS
As befits a relentlessly critical field, political theory is prone to selfexamination. We have already noted controversies over its relationship to
various disciplinary and interdisciplinary landscapes. Occasionally the selfexamination takes a morbid turn, with demise or death at issue: the most
notorious example being when Laslett (1956) claimed in his introduction to
the 1956 Philosophy, Politics and Society book series that the tradition of
political theory was broken, and the practice dead. Even the field's defenders
have at times detected only a faint pulse.
Concerns about the fate of theory peaked in the 1950S and 1960s with the
ascendancy of behavioralism in US political science. Such worries were
circumvented, but not finally ended, by the flurry of political and philosophical activity in the USA around the Berkeley Free Speech movement (with
which Sheldon Wolin 1969, and John Schaar 1970, were associated), the Civil
Rights movement (Arendt 1959), and protests against the Vietnam war and
the US military draft (Walzer 1967, 1970). At that moment, the legitimacy of
the state, the limits of obligation, the nature of justice, and the claims of
conscience in politics were more than theoretical concerns. Civil disobedience was high on political theory'S agenda. 2 Members of activist networks
2 See notably Marcuse's "Repressive Tolerance" contribution in Wolff, Moore, and Marcuse (1965),
Pitkin (1966), Dworkin (1968), the essay on "Civil Disobedience" in Arendt (1969), and Rawls (1969).
14
JOHN S. DRYZEK, BONNIE HONIG & ANNE PHILLIPS
read and quoted Hannah Arendt, Herbert Marcuse, and others in support of
their actions and visions of politics.
Throughout the 19605, the struggle over the fate of theory was entwined
with questions about what counted as politics and how to find a politicaltheoretical space between or outside liberalism and Marxism. It was against
this political and theoretical background that John Rawls was developing the
ideas gathered together in systematic form in A Theory ofJustice (1971), a book
devoted to the examination of themes that the turbulent 1960s had made so
prominent: redistributive policies, conscientious objection, and the legitimacy of state power. Later in that decade Quentin Skinner and a new school of
con textualist history of political thought (known as the Cambridge school)
rose to prominence in the English-speaking world. Still other works of
political theory from this period give the lie to the idea that political theory
was in need of rescue or revivification. The following stand out, and in some
cases remain influential: Leo Strauss's Natural Right and History (1953), Louis
Hartz's The Liberal Tradition in America (1955), Kad Popper's The Poverty of
Historicism (1957), Hannah Arendt's The Human Condition (1958) and On
Revolution (1963), Sheldon Wolin's Politics and Vision (1960), Friedrich A. von
Hayek's The Constitution of Liberty (1960), Michae1 Oakeshott's Rationalism
in Politics (1962), James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock's The Calculus of
Consent (1962), Judith Shklar's Legalism (1964), Herbert Marcuse's OneDimensional Man (1964), Brian Barry's Political Argument (1964), and Isaiah
Berlin's Four Essays on Liberty (1969).
2.1 Liberalism and its Critics
Looking at the field from the vantage point of the first years of the twentyfirst century, there is certainly no indication of political theory failing in its
vitality: this is a time of energetic and expansive debate, with new topics
crowding into an already busy field. For many in political theory, including
many critics of liberal theory, this pluralistic activity obscures a more important point: the dominance that has been achieved by liberalism, at least in
the Anglo-American world. In its classic guise, liberalism assumes that
individuals are for the most part motivated by self-interest, and regards
them as the best judges of what this interest requires. In its most confident
variants, it sees the material aspects of interest as best realized through
INTRODUCTION
15
exchange in a market economy, to the benefit of all. Politics enters when
interests cannot be so met to mutual benefit. Politics is therefore largely about
how to reconcile and aggregate individual interests, and takes place under a
supposedly neutral set of constitutional rules. Given that powerful individuals organized politically into minorities or majorities can turn public power
to their private benefit, checks across different centers of power are necessary,
and constitutional rights are required to protect individuals against government and against one another. These rights are accompanied by obligations
on the part of their holders to respect rights held by others, and duties to the
government that establishes and protects rights. Liberalism so defined leaves
plenty of scope for dispute concerning the boundaries of politics, political
intervention in markets, political preference aggregation and conflict resolution mechanisms, and the content of rights, constitutions, obligations, and
duties. There is, for example, substantial distance between the egalitarian
disposition of Rawls and the ultra-individualistic libertarianism of Robert
Nozick (1974).3 Liberalism's conception of politics clearly differs, however,
from the various conceptions of the political deployed by Arendt, Wolin,
Ranciere, and others, as well as from republican conceptions of freedom
explored by Quentin Skinner (1998) or Philip Pettit (1997).
In earlier decades, liberalism had a clear comprehensive competitor in the
form of Marxism, not just in the form of real-world governments claiming to
be Marxist, but also in political theory. Marxism scorned liberalism's individualist ontology, pointing instead to the centrality of social classes in
political conflict. The market was seen not as a mechanism for meeting
individual interests, but as a generator of oppression and inequality (as well
as undeniable material progress). Marxism also rejected liberalism's static and
ahistorical account of politics in favor of an analysis of history driven by
material forces that determined what individuals were and could be in
different historical epochs. Different versions of this were hotly debated in
the 19705, as theorists positioned themselves behind the "humanist" Marx,
revealed in his earlier writings on alienation (McLellan 1970),4 or the ''Althusserian" Marx, dealing in social relations and forces of production (Althusser
1969; Althusser and Balibar 1970). Disagreements between these schools were
intense, although both proclaimed the superiority of Marxist over liberal
3 Other important works in the vast liberal justice literature include Gauthier (1986), Barry (1995),
and Scanlon (1998).
4 See also the work of the US-Yugoslav Praxis group. and their now-defunct journal Praxis
International.
16
JOHN S. DRYZEK, BONNIE HONIG & ANNE PHlLLIPS
thought. In the period that followed, however, the influence of academic
Marxism in the English-speaking world waned. The fortunes of Marxist
theory were not helped by the demise of the Soviet bloc in 1989-91, and the
determined pursuit of capitalism in China under the leadership of a nominaUy Marxist regime.
Questions remain about liberalism's success in defeating or replacing this
rival. One way to think of subsequent developments is to see a strand from
both liberalism and Marxism as being successfully appropriated by practitioners of analytic philosophy, such as Rawls and G. A. Cohen (1978).
Focusing strictly on Marxism vs. liberalism, however, threatens to obscure
the presence of other vigorous alternatives, from alternative liberalisms
critical (sometimes implicitly) of Rawlsianism, such as those developed by
Richard Flathman (1992), George Kateb (1992), ]eremy Waldron (1993), and
William Galston (1991), to alternative Marxisms such as those explored by
Jacques Ranciere (1989) and Etienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein
(1991), and Nancy Hartsock (1983). Michael Rogin combined the insights of
Marxism and Freudian psychoanalysis to generate work now considered
canonical to American studies and cultural studies (though he himself was
critical of that set of approaches; see Dean's essay in this Handbook). Rogin
(1987) pressed for the centrality of race, class, property, and the unconscious
to the study of American politics (on race, see also Mills 1997).
Liberal theory's assumptions about power and individualism were criticized or bypassed from still other perspectives through the 1970S, 1980s, and
1990S, a fecund period during which political theorists had a wide range of
approaches and languages from which to choose in pursuit of their work. In
France, social theorists writing in the 1970S (in the aftermath of May 1968)
included, most famously, Michel Foucault, whose re-theorization of power
had a powerful influence on generations of American theorists. In Germany,
a discursive account of politics developed by Jiirgen Habermas (for example,
1989, first published in German 1962) captured the imaginations of a generation of critical theorists committed to developing normative standards
through which to assess the claims of liberal democratic states to legitimacy.
The 19705 Italian Autonomia movement inspired new Gramscian and
Foucaultian reflections on equality, politics, violence, and state power
(Virno 2004). For much of this period, feminism defined itself almost as an
opposite ofliberalism, drawing inspiration initially from Marxism, later from
psychoanalytic theories of difference, and developing its own critique of the
abstract individual. In Canada and at Oxford, Charles Taylor (1975) was
INTRODUCTION
17
thinking about politics through a rereading of Hegel that stressed the importance of community to political autonomy, influencing Michael Sandel
(1982) and many subsequent theorists of multiculturalism. Deleuze and
Guattari combined post-structuralism and psychoanalyisis into a series of
difficult ruminations on the spatial metaphors that organize our thinking at
the ontological level about politics, nature, and life (1977; see also Patton in this
volume). Ranging from Freudian to Lacanian approaches, psychoanalysis has
provided political theorists with a perspective from which to examine the
politics of mass society, race and gender inequalities, and personal and political
identity (Butler 1993; Laclau 2006; Zizek 2001; Irigara 1985; Zerilli 1994; Glass in
this volume).
2.2 Liberal Egalitarianism
As the above suggests, alternatives to liberalism continue to proliferate, and yet,
in many areas ofpolitical theory, liberalism has become the dominant position.
Marxism has continued to inform debates on exploitation and equality, but in a
shift that has been widely replayed through the last twenty-five years, reinvented itself to give more normative and analytic weight to the individual
1986; Cohen 1995, 2000). There has been a particularly sign(Roemer QYXセ@
ificant convergence, therefore, in the debates around equality, with socialists
unexpectedly preoccupied with questions of individual responsibility and
desert, liberals representing equality rather than liberty as the «(sovereign
virtue" (Dworkin 2000), and the two combining to make liberal egalitarianism
almost the only remaining tradition of egalitarianism. One intriguing outcome
is the literature on basic income or basic endowment, which all individuals
would receive from government to facilitate their participation in an otherwise
liberal society (van Parijs 1995; Ackerman and Alstott 1999).
For generations, liberalism had been taken to task for what was said to be its
«formar' understanding of equality: its tendency to think that there were no
particular resource implications attached to human equality. In the wa).<e of
Rawls's "difference principle" (see Arneson in this volume) or Dworkin's
"equality of resources" (see Williams in this volume), this now seems a
singularly inappropriate complaint. At the beginning of the 19805, Amartya
Sen posed a question that was to frame much of the literature on distributive
justice through the next decade: equality of what? This generated a multiplicity
18
JOHN S. DRYZEK, BONNIE HONIG
&;
INTRODUCTION
ANNE PHILLIPS
of answers, ranging through welfare, resources, capabilities (Sen's preferred
candidate), to the more cumbersome "equality of opportunity for welfare,"
and "equality of access to advantage."5 None of the answers could be dismissed
as representing a merely formal understanding of equality, but all engaged with
key liberal themes of individuality and responsibility. The subsequent explosion of liberal egalitarianism can be read as a radicalization of the liberal
tradition. But the convergence between what were once distinctively liberal
and socialist takes on equality can also be seen as demonstrating the new
dominance ofliberal theory. Much of the literature on equality is nowresolute1y
individualist in form, running its arguments through thought experiments
designed to tease out our intuitions of equality, and illustrating with stories of
differently endowed individuals, exhibiting different degrees of aspiration and
effort, whose entitlements we are then asked to assess. It is not always clear what
purchase this discourse of individual variation (with a cast of characters
including opera singers, wine buffs, surfers, and fishermen) has on the larger
inequalities of the contemporary world. "What," as Elizabeth Anderson has
asked, "has happened to the concerns of the politically oppressed? What about
inequalities of race, gender, class, and caste?" (Anderson 1999,288).
In the course of the 1990S, a number of theorists voiced concern about the
way issues of redistribution were being displaced by issues of recognition,
casting matters of economic inequality into the shade (Fraser 1997; also
Markell and Squires in this volume). There is considerable truth to this
observation, but it would 'be misleading to say that no one now writes
about economic inequality. There is, on the contrary, a large literature (and
a useful web site. The Equality Exchange 6 ) dealing with these issues. The
more telling point is that the egalitarian literature has become increasingly
focused around questions of individual responsibility, opportunity, and
endowment, thus less engaged with social structures of inequality, and less
easily distinguishable from liberalism.
2.3 Communitarianism
One central axis of contention in the 1980S was what came to be known as the
liberal-communitarian debate (for an overview, see Mulhall and Swift 1996).
, Keycontributions to this debate include Sen (1980, 1992); Dworkin (1981, 2000); Arneson (1989);
and G. A. Cohen (1989).
6 http: flaran.univ·pau.fr/eefindex.html
19
Communitarians like Michael Sandel (1982), influenced by both Arendt and
Taylor, argued that in stressing abstract individuals and their rights as the
building blocks for political theory, liberalism missed the importance of the
community that creates individuals as they actually exist. For communitarians, individuals are always embedded in a network of social relationships,
never the social isolates that liberalism assumes, and they have obligations to
the community, not just to the political arrangements that facilitate their own
interests. This opposition between the liberal's stripped-down, rights-bearing
individual and the communitarian's socially-embedded bearer of obligations
seemed, for a period, the debate in political philosophy. But voices soon made
themselves heard arguing that this was a storm in a teacup, a debate within
liberalism rather than between liberalism and its critics, the main question
being the degree to which holistic notions of community are instrumental to
the rights and freedoms that both sides in the debate prized (Taylor 1989;
Waizer 1990; Galston 1991). Liberalism, it is said, was misrepresented. Its
conception of the individual was never as atomistic, abstracted, or selfinterested, as its critics tried to suggest.
2.4 Feminism
In the 1980s, feminists had mostly positioned themselves as critics of both
schools. They shared much of the communitarian skepticism about disembedded individuals, and brought to this an even more compelling point
about the abstract individual being disembodied, as if it made no difference
whether "he" were female or male (Pateman 1988; also Gatens in this volume). But they also warned against the authoritarian potential in holistic
notions of community, and the way these could be wielded against women
(e.g. Frazer and Lacey 1993). Growing numbers challenged impartialist conceptions of justice, arguing for a contextual ethics that recognizes the responsibilities individuals have for one another andlor the differences in our social
location (Gilligan 1982; Young 1990; Mendus in this volume). Still others
warned against treating the language of justice and rights as irredeemably
masculine, and failing, as a result, to defend the rights of women (0 kin 1989).
As the above suggests, feminism remained a highly diverse body of thought
through the 1980s and 1990S; but to the extent that there was a consensus, it
was largely critical of the liberal tradition, which was represented as overly
20
INTRODUCTION
JOHN S. DRYZEK, BONN lE HONIG & ANNE PHILLIPS
individualistic, wedded to a strong public/private divide, and insufficiently
alert to gender issues. There has since been a discernible softening in this
critique, and this seems to reflect a growing conviction that liberalism is not
as dependent on the socially isolated self as had been suggested. Nussbaum
(1999: 62) argues that liberal individualism "does not entail either egoism or
normative self-sufficiency;" and while feminists writing on autonomy have
developed their own distinctive understanding of {(relational autonomy:'
many now explicitly repudiate the picture of mainstream liberal theory as
ignoring the social nature of the self (see essays in MacKenzie and Stoljar
2000). Some of the earlier feminist critiques overstated the points of difference with liberalism, misrepresenting the individual at the heart of the
tradition as more self-contained, self-interested, and self-centered than was
necessarily the case. But it also seems that liberalism made some important
adjustments and in the process met at least part of the feminist critique. It
would be churlish to complain of this (when you criticize a tradition, you
presumably hope it will mend its ways), but one is left, once again, with a
sense of a tradition mopping up its erstwhile opponents. Some forms of
feminism are committed to a radical politics of sexual difference that it is
hard to imagine liberalism ever wanting or claiming (see Zerilli in this
volume). But many brands of feminism that were once critical of liberalism
have made peace with the liberal tradition.
2.5 Democracy and Critical Theory
In the literature on citizenship and democracy, liberalism has faced a number
of critical challenges, but here, too, some of the vigor of that challenge seems
to have dispersed. Republicanism predates liberalism by two thousand years
(see Nelson in this volume), and emphasises active citizenship, civic virtue,
and the pursuit of public values, not the private interests associated more
with the liberal tradition. Republicanism enjoyed a significant revival through
the 1980s and 1990S as one of the main alternatives to liberal democracy
(Sunstein 1990 ; Petth 1997); indeed, it looked, for a time, as if it might
substitute for socialism as the alternative to the liberal tradition. Nowadays,
・カセ@
the republican Richard Dagger (2004: 175) allows that "a republican
pohty must be able to count on a commitment to principles generally
associated with liberalism, such as tolerance, fair play, and respect for the
21
rights of others;" this is not, in other words, a total alternative. Deliberative
democracy also emerged in the early 1990S as a challenge to established liberal
models that regarded politics as the aggregation of preferences defined mostly
in a private realm 0. Cohen 1989). For deliberative democrats, reflection
upon preferences in a public forum was central; and again, it looked as
though this would require innovative thinking about alternative institutional
arrangements that would take democracies beyond the standard liberal repertoire (Dryzek 1990). By the late 1990S, however, the very institutions that
deliberative democrats had once criticized became widely seen as the natural
home for deliberation, with an emphasis on courts and legislatures. Prominent liberals such as Rawls (1997, 771-2) proclaimed themselves deliberative
democrats, and while Bohman (1998) celebrates this transformation as "the
coming of age of deliberative democracy," it also seems like another swallowing up of critical alternatives.
The recent history of critical theory-and more specifically, the work of
Jiirgen Habermas-is exemplary in this respect. Critical theory's ancestry
extends back via the Frankfurt School to Marx:. In the hands of Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno (1972; first published 1947) in particular,
critique was directed at dominant forms of instrumental rationality that
defined modern society. Habermas rescued this critique from a potential
dead end by showing that a communicative conception of rationality could
underwrite a more congenial political order and associated emancipatory
projects. Habermas's theory of the state was originally that of a monolith
under sway of instrumental reason in the service of capitalism, which had to
be resisted. Yet come the 1990S, Habermas (1996) had redefined himself as a
constitutionalist stressing the role of rights in establishing the conditions for
open discourse in the public sphere, whose democratic task was to influence
political institutions that could come straight from a liberal democratic
textbook (see Scheuerman in this volume).
2.6 Green Political Theory
Green political theory began in the 19705, generating creative proposals for
ecologically defensible alternatives to liberal capitalism. The center of gravity
was left-libertarianism verging on eco-anarchism (Bookchin 1982), although
(at least in the 1970S) some more Hobbesian and authoritarian voices were
22
TOHN S. DRYZEK, BONNIE HONIG &: ANNE PHILUPS
raised (Ophuls 1977). All could agree that liberal individualism and capitalist
economic growth were antithetical to any sustainable political ecology. In his
chapter, Meyer charts the progress of "post-exuberant" ecological political
theory, characterized by engagement with liberalism. Not all green theory has
moved in this direction. For example, Bennett and Chaloupka (1993) work
more in the traditions of Thoreau and Foucault, while Plumwood (2002)
draws on radical ecology and feminism to criticize the dualisms and anthropocentric rationalism of liberalism.
2.7 Post-structuralism
Post-structuralism is often seen as merely critical rather than constructive.
This mistaken impression comes from a focus on the intersections between
post-structuralist theory and liberal theory. Some post-structuralist theorists
seek to supplement rather than supplant liberalism, to correct its excesses, or
even to give it a conscience that, in the opinion of many, it too often seems to
lack. Hence Patton's suggestion (in this volume) that the distance between
post -structuralist and liberal political theory may not be as unbridgcable as is
commonly conceived. And some versions ofliberal theory are more likely to be
embraced or explored by post-structuralists than others: Isaiah Berlin, Richard
Flathman, Jeremy Waldron, and Stuart Hampshire are all liberals whose work
has been attended to in some detail by post-structuralist thinkers.
But post -structuralists have also developed alternative models of politics
and ethics not directly addressed to liberal theory. One way to canvas those is
with reference to the varying grand narratives on offer from this side of the
field. Post-structuralism is often defined as intrinsically hostile to any sort of
grand narrative, a claim attributed to Tean-Francois Lyotard (1984). This claim
is belied by a great deal of work in the field that does not so much reject grand
narrative as reimagine and reiterate it (Bennett 2002). Post-structuralists do
reject foundational meta-narratives: those that present themselves as transcendentally true, for which nature or history has an intrinsic purpose, or that
entail a two-world metaphysic. Those post-structuralists who do use metanarratives tend to see themselves as writing in the tradition of social contract
theorists like Hobbes, whose political arguments are animated by imaginary
or speculative claims about the origins and trajectories of social life.
Post-structuralists, however, are careful to represent their post-metaphysical
INTRODUCTION
23
views as an "onto-story whose persuasiveness is always at issue and can never
be fully disentangled from an interpretation of present historical circumstances" (White 2000,10-11; see also Ueleuze and Guattari 1977).
What post -structuralists try to do without is not the origin story by means of
which political theory has always motivated its readers, nor the wagers by way
ofwhich it offers hope. Rather, post-structuralists seek to do without the ends or
guarantees (such as faith, or progress, or virtue) which have enabled some
enviable achievements (such as the broadening of human rights), but in the
name of which cruelties have also been committed (in the so-called ('developing" world, or in the West against non-believers and non-conformistS)J These'
ends or guarantees have sometimes enabled political theorists to evade full
responsibility for the conclusions they seek, by claiming the goals or values in
question are called for by some extra-human source, like god or nature.
3 POLITICAL THEORY AND THE GLOBAL
TURN
Liberalism has demonstrated an almost unprecedented capacity for absorbing its competitors, aided by the collapse of its rival, Marxism, but also by its
own virtuosity in reinventing itself and incorporating key elements from
opposing traditions. Yet this is not a triumphalist liberalism, of the kind
proclaimed in Fukuyama's (1989) "end of history," which celebrated the
victory of liberal capitalism in the real-world competition of politicaleconomic models. The paradox is that liberalism's absorption of some of its
competitors has been accompanied by increasing anxiety about the way
Western liberalism illegitimately centers itself. The much discussed shift in
the work of Rawls is one classic illustration of this, for while the Rawls of
A Theory of Justice (1971) seemed to be setting out "the» principles of justice
that would be acceptable to any rational individual in any social context, the
Rawls of Political Liberalism (1993) stressed the reasonableness of a variety of
"'comprehensive doctrines," including those that could be non-liberal, and
the Rawls of The Law of Peoples (1999) encouraged us to recognize the
7 On the role of progress in India, see Mehta (L999). On the fate of non-conformists in Rawls, for
example, see Honig (1993).
24
JOHN S. DRYZEK, BONNIE HONlG & ANNE PHILLlPS
"decency" of hierarchical, non-liberal societies that are nonetheless wellordered and respect a certain minimum of human rights.
Having won over many erstwhile critics in the metropolitan centres,
liberals now more readily acknowledge that there are significant traditions
of thought beyond those that helped form Western liberalism. They acknowledge, moreover, that the grounds for rejecting these other traditions are
more slippery than previously conceived. The critique of "foundationalism"
(for example, Rorty 1989) used to arouse heated debate among political
theorists. Many were incensed at the suggestion that their claims about
universal justice, equality, or human rights had no independent grounding,
and accused the skeptics of abandoning normative political theory (see,
for example, Benhabib et al. 1995). In the course of the 19905, however, antifoundationalism moved from being a contested minority position to something more like the consensus. Post-structuralist critiques of foundationalism
led to liberalism's late twentieth-century announcement that it is "postfoundational" (Rawls 1993; Habermas 1996)-although with no fundamental
rethinking of the key commitments of liberal theory. In the wake, however, of
Rawls and Habermas disavowing metaphysical support for their (clearly
normative) projects, Western political theorists have increasingly acknowledged the historical contingency of their own schools of thought; and this is .
generating some small increase in interest in alternative traditions. The awareness of these traditions does not, of itself, signal a crisis of confidence in liberal
principles (arch anti-foundationalist, Richard Rorty, certainly has no trouble
declaring himself a liberal), but it does mean that political theory now grapples
more extensively with questions of moral universalism and cultural or religious difference (e.g. Euben 1999; Parekh 2000; Honig 2001).
The explosion of writing on multiculturalism-largely from the 1990s-is
particularly telling here. Multiculturalism is, by definition, concerned with the
multiplicity of cultures: it deals with what may be radical differences in values,
belief-systems, and practices, and has been especially preoccupied with the
rights, if any, of non-liberal groups in liberal societies. The "problem" arises
because liberalism is not the only doctrine on offer, and yet the way the
problem is ヲイ。ュ・、セウ@
a question of toleration, or the rights of minorities,
or whether groups as well as individuals can hold rights-remains quintessentially liberal. Will Kymlicka (1995) famously defended group rights for
threatened cultural communities on the grounds that a secure cultural context
is necessary to individual autonomy, such that the very importance liberals
attach to individual autonomy requires them to support multicultural
INTRODUCTION
25
policies. His version of liberal multiculturalism has been widely criticized (see
Spinner-Halev and Kukathas in this volume); and many continue to see
liberalism as at odds with multiculturalism (for example, Okin 1998, 2002;
Barry 2001). But in analyzing the "problem" of multiculturalism through the
paradigm of liberalism, Kymlicka very much exemplifies the field of debate.
Liberalism simultaneously makes itself the defining tradition and notices the
awkwardness in this. Its very dominance then seems to spawn an increasing
awareness of traditions other than itself.
It is not entirely clear why this has happened now (liberalism, after ali, has
been around for many years) but that useful shorthand, globalization, must
provide at least part of the explanation. It is difficult to sustain a belief in
liberalism as the only tradition, or in secularism as the norm, when the
majority of the world's population is patently unconvinced by either (Gray
1995,1998). And although political theorists have drawn heavily on the liberal
tradition in their explorations of human rights or global justice, the very
topics they address require them to think about the specificity of Western
political thought. Political theory now roams more widely than in the past,
pondering accusations of ethno-centricity, questioning the significance of
national borders, engaging in what one might almost term a denationalization of political theory. That description is an overstatement, for even in
addressing explicitly global issues, political theory draws on concepts that are
national in origin, and the assumptions written into them often linger into
their more global phase. Terms like nation or state are not going to disappear
from the vocabulary of political theory-but the kinds of shift Chris Brown
(in this volume) discerns from international to global conceptions of justice
are being played out in many corners of contemporary political thought.
It is hard to predict how this will develop, although the combination of a
dominant liberalism with a concern that Western liberalism may have illegitimately centered itself looks unstable, and it seems probable that pockets of
resistance and new alternatives to liberalism will therefore gain strength in
future years. It seems certain that moves to re frame political theory in a more
self-consciously global context will gather pace. This is already evident in the
literature on equality, democracy, and social justice, where there is increasing
attention to both international and global dimensions. It is also becoming
evident in new ways of theorizing religion. Religion has been discussed so far
in political theory mainly in the context of the "problem" of religious toleration, with little attention to the internal structure of religious beliefs. But
other dimensions are now emerging, including new ways of understanding
26
JOHN S. DRYZEK. BONNIE HONIG & ANNE PH[LLIPS
the politics of secularism, and closer examination of the normative arguments
developed within different religions. It seems likely that new developments in
science (particularly those associated with bio-genetics) will provide political
theorists with difficult challenges in the coming decade, especially as regards
our understanding of the boundaries between public and private, and the
prospects for equality. And while the prospect of a more participatory or
deliberative democracy remains elusive, we can perhaps anticipate an increasing focus on the role of pleasure and passion in political activism.
It is harder to predict what will happen in the continuing battle to
incorporate issues of gender and race into mainstream political theory. The
contributors to this Handbook include people who have played significant
roles in the development of feminist political theory, but it is notable that few
have chosen to make feminism andlor gender central to their essays. The
optimistic take on this is that gender is no longer a distinct and separate
topic. but now a central component in political thought. The more pessimistic take is suggested in the final comment of Linda Zerilli's chapter: that the
attempt to think politics outside an exclusively gender-centered frame may
end up reproducing the blind spots associated with the earlier canon of
political thought. The likely developments as regards race are also unclear.
We can anticipate that racial inequality will continue to figure in important
ways in discussions of affirmative action or political representation. but the
explosion of work on multiculturalism has focused more on culture or
ethnicity, and political theory has not engaged in a thoroughgoing way
with the legacies of colonialism or slavery. The essays in this Handbook
suggest, however, that important new developments are under way.
4
POLITICAL THEORY AND POLITICAL
SCIENCE: CURRENT TRAJECTORIES
We noted earlier the sometimes difficult relationship between political theory
and the rest of political science. We return to this here, but more with a view
to areas of cooperation. In addition to its interdisciplinary locations, political
theory has a place in the standard contemporary line-up of sub-fields
in political science, alongside comparative politics, international relations.
INTRODUCTION
27
public policy, and the politics of one's own country. Here and there, methodology, public administration, political psychology, and public law might be
added; and truly adventurous departments may stretch to political economy
and environmental politics. All these sub-fields have a theoretical edge that
potentially connects with the preoccupations of political theory. These connections confirm the importance of political theory to the rest of political
science.
International relations has a well-defined sub-sub-field of international
relations (IR) theory, and we have noted that this is defined largely in terms of
the three grand positions of realism, constructivism, and liberalism. Confusingly, liberalism in IR is not quite the same as liberalism in political theory. In
IR theory, liberalism refers to the idea that actors can co-operate and build
international institutions for the sake of mutual gains; it is therefore linked to
a relatively hopeful view of the international system. Realism, in contrast,
assumes that states maximize security in an anarchy where violent conflict is
an ever-present possibility. Constructivism points to the degree to which
actors. interests, norms, and systems are social constructions that can change
over time and place. Each of these provides plenty of scope for engagement
with political theory-even if these possibilities are not always realized.
Despite its differences, IR liberalism connects with the liberalism of political
theory in their shared Lockean view of how governing arrangements can be
established, and when it comes to specifying principles for the construction
of just and legitimate international institutions. Realism is explicitly
grounded in the political theory of Thomas Hobbes, interpreting the international system in Hobbesian "state of nature" terms. Thucydides has also
been an important if contestable resource for realism (Monoson and Loriaux
1998). Constructivism has been represented (for example, by Price and ReusSmit 1998) as consistent with Habermasian critical theory. As Scheuerman
(this volume) points out, critical theory has reciprocated, in that it now sees
the international system as the crucial testing ground for its democratic
prescriptions. Normative theory is currently flourishing in international
relations, and many of the resources for this are provided by political theory
(Cochran 1999), with postmodernists, Rawlsian liberals, feminists, and critical theorists making particularly important contributions. 8
8 See, for example, Pogge (2.002.), Lynch (1999). Connolly (1991). der Derian (ZOO1), Elshtain (z003).
Walker (1993), Rawls (1999), and Habermas (ZOOla, 2001b).
28
INTRODUCTION
JOHN S. DRYZElC, BONNIE HONlG 8t ANNE PHILLlPS
The connections between comparative politics and political theory are
harder to summarize because many of the practitioners of the former are
area specialists with only a limited interest in theory. Those comparativists
who use either large-n quantitative studies or small-n comparative case
studies are often more interested in simple explanatory theory, one source
of which is rational choice theory. But there are also points of engagement
with political theory as understood in this Handbook. The comparative study
of social movements and their relationships with the state has drawn upon
the idea of the public sphere in democratic political theory, and vice versa.
Accounts of the role of the state in political development have drawn upon
liberal constitutionalist political theory. More critical accounts of the state in
developing societies have drawn upon Marxist theory. In the last two decades
democratization has been an important theme in comparative politics, and
this work ought to have benefited from a dialogue with democratic theory.
Unfortunately this has not happened. Studies of democratization generally
work with a minimalist account of democracy in terms of competitive
elections, developed in the 1940S by Joseph Schumpeter (1942), ignoring the
subsequent sixty years of democratic theory. Recent work on race and diaspara studies in a comparative context is perhaps a more promising site of
connection, invoking Tocqueville (see also Bourdieu and Wacquant 1999;
Hanchard 2003). And theorists working on multiculturalism and race have
been especially attentive to comparative politics questions about the variety
of governmental forms and their interaction with cultural difference (Carens
2000; Kymlicka 2001; Taylor 1994; Gilroy 2000).
Methodology might seem the sub-field least likely to engage with political
theory, and if methodology is thought of in terms of quantitative techniques
alone, that might well be true. However, methodology is also home to
reflection on what particular sorts of methods can do. Here, political theorists
are in an especially good position to mediate between the philosophy of social
science on the one hand, and particular methods on the other. Taylor (1979)
and Ball (1987) point to the inevitable moment of interpretation in the
application of all social science methods, questioning the positivist selfimage of many of those who deploy quantitative methods. The interdisciplinarity that characterizes so much political theory provides especially fruitful
material for methodological reflection.
Public policy is at the "applied" end of political science, but its focus
on the relationship between disciplinary knowledge and political practice
invites contribution from political theory; and many political theorists see
29
themselves as clarifying the normative principles that underpin policy proposals. From Rawls and Dworkin onwards, work on principles of justice and
equality has carried definite policy implications regarding taxation, public
expenditure on health, the treatment of those with disabilities, and so on.
While it has rarely been possible to translate the theories into specific
recommendations (Dworkin's hypothetical insurance market and Amartya
Sen's theory of capabilities are often said to be especially disappointing in this
respect), they are undoubtedly directed at public policy. Normative reasoning
applied to public policy largely defines the content of Philosophy and Public
Affairs, though this reasoning involves moral philosophy as much as or more
than political theory.9 Political theorists working on questions of democracy
and representation have also drawn direct policy conclusions regarding the
nature of electoral systems or the use of gender quotas to modify patterns of
representation (Phillips 1995).
Policy evaluation and design are important parts of the public policy subfield, and both require normative criteria to provide standards by which to
evaluate actual or potential policies. Again, political theory is well placed to
illuminate such criteria and how one might think about handling conflicts
between them (for example, when efficiency and justice appear to point in
different directions). It is also well placed to explore the discourse aspects of
public policy, an aspect that has been an especial interest of the Theory,
Policy, and Society group of the American Political Science Association.
Among the linkages this group develops are those between deliberative
democratic theory and policy analysis, between the logic of political argument and interventions by analysts and advocates in policy processes, and
between interpretive philosophy of social science and policy evaluation
(Hajer and Wagenaar 2003).
Cutting across all the sub-fields of political science in recent decades has
been rational choice theory, grounded in microeconomic assumptions about
the wellsprings of individual behavior. Indeed, to some of its practitioners,
rational choice is what should truly be described as political theory. For these
practitioners, rational choice theory is "positive" political theory, value free,
and geared toward explanation, not prescription. This claim does "not hold
up: as explanatory theory, rational choice theory is increasingly regarded as a
failure (Green and Shapiro 1994). But many believe that it is very useful
nevertheless. Game theory, for example, can clarify what rationality is in
9
See the compilations of Co hen, Nagel, and Scanion (1974a, 1974b, 1977); also Goodin (1982).
30
JOHN S. DRYZEK, BONNIE HONlG Se ANNE PHILLIPS
particular situations (Johnson 1991), thereby illuminating one of the perennial questions in political theory. And despite the frequent description of
rational choice theory as value free, it has provided for plenty of normative
theorizing among its practitioners. Arch-positivist Riker (1982b) deploys
Arrow's social choice theory to argue that democracy is inherently unstable
and meaningless in the outcomes it produces, and uses this to back a
normative argument on behalf of a minimal liberal democracy that allows
corrupt or incompetent rules to be voted out-but nothing more. The
conclusions of rational choice theory are often bad news for democracy
(Barry and Hardin 1982); but it is possible to reinterpret this edifice in
terms of critical theory, as showing what would happen if everyone behaved
according to microeconomic assumptions. The political challenge then becomes one of how to curb this destructive behavioral proclivity (Dryzek
1992). There are many other connections between rational choice theory
and political theory, exploratory as well as critical; we only touch on them
in this Handbook because they will be more extensively reviewed in The
Oxford Handbook of Political Economy, also in this series.
Leading comparativist Ba Rothstein (2005) has expressed the worry that
the empirical arm of the discipline has lost its moral compass. To use his
running example, its «technically competent barbarians" would have no
defense against lining up in support of a political force like Nazism, should
that be expedient. Rothstein himself sees the remedy in political theory: (The
good news is that, unlike other disciplines, I think we have the solution within
our own field of research. This, I believe, lies in reconnecting the normative
side of the discipline-that is, political philosophy-with the positive/empirical side" (2005, 10). Despite the likelihood of some resistance to this from
both sides of the divide, the examples discussed above suggest that such
connection (or reconnection) is indeed possible.
5 ORGANIZATION OF THE HANDBOOK
We turn now to the way we have organized this Handbook. Part Il, "Contemporary Currents," assesses the impact, and considers the likely future trajectory, ofliterature that proved especially influential in framing debate through
lNTRODUCTION
31
the last decades of the twentieth century and opening years of the twenty-first.
The selection is not, of course, meant to sum up what political theory has been
about over that period: if it did that, there would be little need for the remaining
essays in the Handbook. We have included three figures-Rawls, Habermas, and
Foucault-whose work has so shaped the field that it became possible for a time
to label (although somewhat misleadingly) other political theorists by their
adherence to one of the three. We have also included three thematic styles of
theory-feminism, pluralism, and linguistic approaches-that have
sought (successfully or not) to refocus debate in a different direction. The
theorists and themes addressed in this section are ones that have particularly
marked out this moment in political theory, and the chapters assess their
continuing influence.
Part Ill, ((The Legacy of the Past:' focuses on historical work in political
thought. As James Farr notes in his chapter, the history of political thought
has been a staple of university instruction since the end of the nineteenth
century, long recognized as a branch of political theory. But the role and
object of historical inquiry has been much debated in recent decades, and the
idea that one should search the classical texts for answers to the perennial
problems of political life has been subjected to especially searching critique.
Some theorists have been happy to jettison any study of historical traditions,
regarding it as a merely antiquarian exercise. But the greater attention now
given to context-to what can and cannot be thought at any given period in
history-has also enabled radically new readings of political thought. The
essays in this section can give only a taste of the wealth of scholarship in this
field, and have been selected with an eye to that continuing discussion about
the legacy of the past and its relationship with the present. They include a
met a-level discussion of the relationship between political theory and the
discipline of history; a disciplinary history of the history of political thought;
and essays on a number of historical traditions that have been subject to
significant re-evaluation and reinterpretation in the recent literature.
Questions of context are spatial as well as temporal, for even the most
abstract of political theories cannot transcend its location, and the issues
with which theorists become preoccupied reflect the histories and concerns
of the worlds in which they live. The chapters in Part IV, «Political Theory in
the World," make matters of location more explicit. They explore differences,
misconceptions, and mutual influences between Western and non-Western
political traditions, with the latter represented here by Confucianism and
Islam, and look at how ideas of America on the one hand and Europe on the
32
JOHN S. DRYZEK, BONNIE HONIG & ANNE PHILLIPS
other enter into and shape ideas of democracy, representation, and nation.
This section should be understood as a gesture, but just that, towards decentering what has come to be known as Anglo-American theory. This Handbook
of political theory is published in Oxford and written in the English language,
but one modest objective, nonetheless, is to highlight the specificity of all work
in political theory, and the way the questions addressed reflect particular
histories and locations.
The chapters in Part V, "State and People," combine historical analysis of
the shifting understandings of state and people with normative explorations
of democracy, constitutionalism, and representation. As the essays indicate,
the last decades have been a time of very considerable innovation. For
much of the twentieth century, democracy was conceptualized as a matter
of universal suffrage (sometimes quaintly equated with one man one vote),
competitive party elections, and the rule of law. The outstanding problems
were not thought to be theoretical, but centered on how to spread this
conception more widely; and much of the work on democracy (often comparative, or dealing with the conditions for democratization) was carried out
by political scientists rather than theorists. This picture has since
changed radically, with a complex of concerns about the nature and limits
of constitutionalism, the exclusions practised under the name of democracy,
and the possibilities of wider and deeper practices of popular controL As
reflects the breadth of these debates, this is one of the largest sections in
the Handbook.
Part Vl, "Justice, Equality, and Freedom," evokes the combination of
concerns that runs through the work of John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin, and
the liberal egalitarian tradition: the idea, for example, that justice is a
matter of treating people as equals rather than treating them equally; or
that egalitarians must recognize individuals as responsible agents, accountable for their own choices. The chapters in this section reflect that legacy,
but also problematize it by reference to arguments drawn from the
feminist literature and work on recognition. They include essays on the
relationship between equality and impartiality, and the relationship between treating people as equals and recognizing them as different; and
address the questions about individual responsibility that became central
to the literature on justice and equality through the last decades. The
literature on historical injustice goes back further, but has drawn new
sustenance from debates on reparations for slavery and the treatment of
indigenous peoples.
INTRODUCTION
33
Part VII, "Pluralism, Multiculturalism, and Nationalism," reflects areas of
debate that have proved particularly fruitful over the last thirty years. As
noted earlier in our introduction, it also reflects explorations of the implications and/or limits of the liberal tradition. The literature on multiculturalism
has its precursor in a sociological literature on cultural pluralism, but as
normative political theory dates from the 19805. Theoretical work on toleration or the right of nations to self-determination is not, of course, new. But
the recent synthesis of liberalism with nationalism is more unexpected, as is
the reframing of long-established liberal principles of toleration to take
account of issues of identity as well as belief. This last point is part of what
unites the chapters in this section. All engage with arguments that have been
central to the liberal tradition, but in relation to the new questions that arise
when people make claims on the basis of identity. The authors reach very
different conclusions-including, at its most heretical, that the pursuit of
justice may not be such a compelling concern.
Part VIII, "Claims in a Global Context;' takes this from the national to the
global level. It explores the debates that have developed between seemingly
universal discourses of secularism or human rights and more relativist emphases on cultural difference; examines the connection between multicultural
and post-colonial theory; and considers the challenges globalization presents
to current conceptions of justice. Although justice has been at the heart of
recent debates in normative political theory, the dominant conceptions have
been very state-centered-and often very Western state-centered. The chapters in this section consider what happens in the move from national to
global-and what theoretical possibilities become available if the center of
gravity shifts from the Western to non-Western world.
Part IX, "The Body Politic," takes what has long been employed as a metaphor
for the political community at its face (or bodily) value, and uses it to engage
with new areas of theoretical debate. These include the way the body itselfhas
been politicized in the theoretical literature, including in the literature on selfownership; and the way the social "body" has been politicized, as in the
discussion of crises and paranoia. A number of the chapters in this ウセ」エゥッョ@
begin with changes in the social world: the impact of global migration, for
example, and the way this alters our understanding of the individual subject; the
development of new medical technologies, and the dilemmas these
present about organ transplants or genetic engineering; the developments
in surveillance technology combined with radical changes in the relation
between the sexes, and the challenge this poses to our understanding of the
34
INTRODUCTION
JOHN S. DRYZEK, BONNIE HONlG & ANNE PHILLIPS
relationship between public and private space. This reconceptualizing of
the political space owes much to the influence of feminism, as do a number of
the essays themselves.
We have argued in our introduction that political theory is something of a
mongrel sub-discipline, made up of many traditions, approaches, and styles of
thought, and increasingly characterized by its borrowing from feminist and
critical theory, film theory, popular culture, mass media, behavioral science, and
economics. These tendencies will be evident throughout the chapters in the
Handbook, but are most directly addressed in Part X, "Testing the Boundaries."
Here, we include essays that set political theory in dialogue with work in cultural
studies, political economy, social theory, and the envirorunent. The current
academy confronts two opposing trends. One draws the boundaries of each
discipline ever more tightly, sometimes as part of a bid for higher status,
sometimes in the (not totaUy implausible) belief that this is the route to deeper
and more systematic knowledge. Another looks to the serendipitous inspirations that can come through cross-disciplinary and interdisciplinary work; or
more simply and modestly, realizes that there may be much to learn from other
areas of study. It is hard to predict which of these will win out-and most likely,
both will continue in uneasy combination for many years to come. The essays in
this section reflect the importance we attach to the second trend.
All the Handbooks in this series end with what is perhaps unhappily termed
the "Old and New" section. In this case, it provides the opportunity for two
highly influential but very different political theorists-Arlene Saxonhouse and
William ConnoUy-to reflect on their experiences and perceptions of theory as
it has changed, developed, improved, and/or worsened in the course of their
careers. Where other contributors were asked to weave their own distinctive
take on a topic into essays that would also work as overviews ofthe sub-field, our
last contributors were encouraged to write from a more personal angle.
6
CONCLUSION
Ours is not the first or only handbook of political theory. We believe this
Oxford Handbook is distinctive in its exploration of political theory's edges as
well as its several cores, its global emphasis, and its contemplation of the
35
challenges that contemporary social and technological change present to the
field. Political theory is a lively, pluralistic. and contested field. and we invite
readers to construct their own summary interpretations and embark on their
own imaginative theorizing by sampling the wide variety of options on the
palette that follows.
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CHAPTER
37
POLITICIZING
THE BODY:
PROPERTY,
CONTRACT, AND
RIGHTS
MOIRA GATENS
1 BODY AS METAPHOR
The human body has long been used as a source of metaphor for political
theorists. The very notion of a "body politic" leans on the image of a unified
and discrete entity that has commanding parts and obeying parts, that may
be robust or ailing, strong or weak. One of the better known depictions of
"the body political" in early modern political thought appears in Hobbes'
Leviathan (1991), where he describes the sovereign in terms of a gargantuan
"artificial man" whose body parts correspond to the various functions
of government (see Leviathan, Introduction). Foucault drew attention to
the central but problematic role of the body as metaphor in modern and
678
MOIRA GATENS
contemporary political thought when he asserted that political theorists have
yet to cut off the king's head (Foucault QYWXセ@
88-9)· Foucault's point is that
theory lags behind history insofar as law and right continue to be caught up
in the image of the power of a sovereign will commanding the body politic.
Rather, the operation of contemporary relations of power "is not ensured by
right but by technique, not by law but by normalization, not by punishment
but by control" (Foucault 1978, 89). This view of power and politics involves a
shift in metaphor from a unified and autonomous sovereign body to one
based on complex networks of power relations characterized by decentralized, multiple, and dynamic connections. Foucault's influence on contemporary political thought may be figured in terms of a turn towards a
contextual and materialist "history of bodies," in contrast to a shifting
"history of ideas" about "natural bodies" and ((natural law." On his view,
human bodies as well as political bodies are themselves mutable historical
entities (Foucault 1978, 152). I will return to this notion below.
As well as having supplied political theory with a rich source of metaphor,
the human body also serves as the nexus where political conceptions of the
"universal" and the "particular" meet. When grasped as part of nature, and so
presumed to be governed by natural law, the human body is conceived as the
basis for a universal conception of humanity and for those rights that all bear
by nature. All share basic bodily needs-for water, food, shelter-and all are
vulnerable-to violence, illness, or death. As Hobbes put it, in the absence of
polity, '(the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongesf' and so all live in
fear (Hobbes 1991, ch. 13). Guaranteed, if limited, political rights are preferable to unenforceable natural rights and so reason bids us to seek protection
through enforceable covenants or contracts. Universal natural rights are thus
transformed into particular historical and political rights whose precise form
will vary from polity to polity, along with the attempts made by political
theorists to justify them. For example, Hobbes' account of covenant, and the
necessity for the absolute authority of the sovereign, do not square with
Locke's account of the social contract as a limited device to protect the
property that all should, but do not, enjoy by natural right.
At the same time that the body underpins universalism it is also the site
and support for the moral uniqueness of each particular individual, insofar as
the experience of the needs, desires, and vulnerabilities of individuals are
irreducibly "private." Cultural mores and traditions ensure that the "privacy"
of individual experience is nevertheless imbued with specific local meanings
that function to bind each individual to a particular community or polity. As
Ignatieff has argued, "it is not the naked body we share in common, but the
POLITICIZING THE BODY: PROPERTY, CONTRACT, AND RIGHTS
679
astoundingly different ways in which we decorate, adorn, perfume, and
women,
costume our bodies in order to proclaim our identities as ュ・ョセ@
members of this tribe or that community" (Ignatieff 2000, 41). In this way,
the culturally and historically specific body is figured as the ground of
difference as well as identity, of particularity as well as universality. "Humanity" is an abstraction, whereas individuals are always members of some
particular group. Throughout the modern period, at least in the West,
citizenship increasingly has become the means through which both the
abstract rights of the individual and the need (to belong" to some particular
group that recognizes such rights, are brought together. Different cultures
(along with different religions) will conceptualize and distribute social and
political burdens and entitlements to their members in a variety of ways. In
this chapter the main focus is on the way in which these issues have been
conceived in the West. (But see Sen (1997) for an account of some similarities
and differences between "East" and ((West" in relation to conceptions of
rights and responsibilities.)
2
BODY AND "PROPERTY-IN-PERSON"
A distinctive element in the history of early modern Western views is to
conceive of (at least certain kinds of) human beings as possessors of natural
rights, including the right to their own persons (understood by some to be
equivalent to self-ownership). It is the possession of these rights that entitle
individuals to enter a social contract in which largely ineffectual (because
unenforceable) natural rights are exchanged for, or transformed into, protected political rights. Locke's theory oe(property in the person" provides one
such influential account. Locke's commitment to a Christian world-view is
crucial to understanding his views on the moral status of human beings, along
with the inborn capacity for reason (see Waldron 2002). Without rationality,
people would be unable to discern the natural law that, ultimately, grounds
political rights and social justice. Although Locke includes under the general
term "property," an individual's "life, liberty and estate" (see Locke 19 67,
Second Treatise, ch. 9), it is the narrower notion of "property in the person"
that underpins this more general term. In chapter 5 of the same text he writes:
(Though all the earth and all inferior creatures be common to all men, yet
680
MOIRA GATENS
every man has a property in his own person; this nobody has any right to but
himself." From this natural title to one's own person flow rights to freedom, to
possessions and, with the invention of money, the right to accumulate wealth.
The admixture of an individual's labor with nature transforms what was held
in common into private property, thereby "exclud[ing] the common right of
other men." The invention of money allows the extension of legitimate proprietorship to "the grass my horse has bit" and "the turfs my servant has cut"
(Locke 1967, ch. 5, § 27, 28). Although God gave the world to all men in
common, extensive proprietorship is thus reserved for "the industrious and
rational" (Locke 1967, ch. 5). As Section 3 will show, some theorists take Locke's
account of property to have had dire consequences for those whose capacities
for "industry" or reason were deemed inferior or absent.
In contemporary political theory, various schools of thought have taken
Locke's notion of "property in the person" in quite different directions. The
otherwise opposed approaches of libertarianism and Marxism both base their
arguments about legitimate and illegitimate entitlements to property on
distinctive interpretations of Lockean self-ownership. Nozick, for example,
finds justification for his libertarian principles of justice in Locke's theory of
property (Nozick 1974). Marxist accounts of the injustice of exploitative
wage-labor derive from the idea that the worker "owns" his capacity to
transform nature through labor and so should be entitled to the products
of that labor. In Nozick's case, Locke's theory of property is used to argue
against the redistribution of social goods because this would involve the theft
of what rightly belongs to those who have produced them. In the Marxist
case, only the socialization of (non-human) property can prevent the exploitation and alienation of the wage-laborer who, in a capitalist economy,
owns nothing but the capacity to labor. More recently, G. A. Cohen has drawn
attention to the problems associated with the very idea of self-ownership, and
the role it plays in contemporary capitalist societies. He argues that, if the
values of equality and freedom are to be realized, we need to move beyond the
idea of self-ownership. Instead, we need to develop a new ethos of «mutual
service" amongst citizens in the economy as well as in political relations
(Cohen 1995). Although the details of these contemporary debates cannot be
treated adequately in this chapter, 1 the issue of property in the person will
reappear in a different context in the following section.
See Will Kymlicka (2002., chs. 4 and 5) for a very clear and comprehensive account of the complex
role of Lockean notions of property in both libertarian and Marxist accounts.
1
POLrTICIZING THE BODY: PROPERTY, CONTRACT, AND RIGHTS
681
C. B. Macpherson has pointed out that "Locke's deduction starts with the
. individual and moves out to society and the state" (Macpherson 1962, 269).
On his view, the "possessive individualism" of early modern liberal political
thought failed to take any account of the social conditions and relations
necessary in order for such conceptions to appear plausible. 2 Part of the
problem is that Locke, and his contemporaries, paid little attention to the
ways in which the rights and property of "possessive individuals" depended
on the subordination of certain others (women, the propertyless, the colonized, the enslaved). The very coherence of the notion of owning one's
"person," arguably, depended upon the existence of others who were politically constituted as the property of someone other than his or her own
"person:' Distinctions between individuals-of sex, race, class, age, ability,
and the like-pose a series of problems for the modern conception of the
freely contracting individual. Who may enter the contract? How are rights
and obligations to be distributed across the political body? Who is to count as
a person? Are all "status" identities to be abrogated in favor of the modern
"abstract individual" and "contract?"
3
BODY AS SOURCE OF "STATUS:" THE
"SOMATIC NORM"
Many feminists have argued that Western political theory is imbued with a
masculine bias insofar as the notion of the "individual" implies a norm that
favors white, propertied, Western men (see, for example, Young 1990; Phillips
1993; Benhabib 2003). But cross-cultural work shows that even in relation to
those who have been marginalized by Western political theory (for example,
Third World peoples, indigenous groups), the pattern of a privileged ュ。ウ」セᆳ
line norm that excludes women is repeated within these groups. So the
universal category, "individual," is not only particularized from culture
to culture, but intracultural designations also construct some bodies as
2 Admittedly, Macpherson's views on modern political thought have been widely disputed. See, for
example, Tully (1993). However, his general argument about "property in the person" has had a
marked influence on Pateman's conception of property in the person (see Section 3).
682
MOIRA GATENS
"naturally" subordinate or inferior: for example "women" as opposed to
"men". The category "person" suffers from related problems. For example,
English law did not recognize all human individuals as "persons." The law of
coverture meant that women did not count as "persons" at law. These
exclusions are important to the issue of property in the person because of
the pivotal role that notion has played in grounding rights claims and in the
formation of juridical and other institutions. It is only those who enjoy legally
and politically sanctioned rights over their "persons" who are entitled
to freedom. In Sir Henry Maine's famous words, the modern period inaugurated a new "movement from status to contract" (Maine 1917, 100). But did
it? For those bodies that fell outside the norm the response to this question
must be equivocal. The abstract individual, assumed by modern contractual
society, is not a posture that all may easily adopt (Gatens 1991, 34-47).
Sexual and racial distinctions-widely perceived as differences in naturaL
kinds-appear to be status identities that function to predetermine one's
place in the polity.
In The Racial Contract, Charles Mills (1997) has employed the apposite
term "somatic norm" to convey the way in which bodies may be normalized,
excluded (or included as different, but inferior), within racist, sexist, and
colonial contexts. Mills builds on Carole Pateman's work in The Sexual
Contract (1988). In this work Pateman argues that the main institutional
ties of modern civil societies, namely, citizenship, employment, and marriage,
"are constituted through contract" (Pateman 1988, 180). She reads Locke's
quarrel with Sir Robert Filmer over whether patriarchal rule is conventional
or natural in a novel and provocative way. Locke's defeat of Filmer's "natural"
(or divinely ordained) patriarchalism, she argues, should not be taken as the
definitive defeat of patriarchy itself. Rather, the "sons" defeated the "fathers,"
thereby instituting modern patriarchy, which is fraternal in form. The social
contract, which is supposed to theorize the advent of modern civil societies,
tells only part of the story. Modern contractual society, Pateman argues,
cannot be understood until the sexual contract is exposed as the necessary
underside of the fraternal social contract. The sexual contract provides one
missing part of the story and exposes the dependence of modern political and
civil society on the subordination of women as wives and mothers in the
private sphere. Her thesis puts under scrutiny terms central to modern
political theory: "property in the person," the "individual," "freedom," and
"contract" are each subjected to a rigorous analysis. The importance of
The Sexual Contract, for present purposes, lies with its proffered critique
POLITICIZING THE BODY: PROPERTY, CONTRACT, AND RIGHTS
of the notion of property in the person and its putative role in securing the
freedom of the "modern" individual.
Pateman acknowledges the important work of previous socialist and feminist political theorists, as well as the paradoxical nature of socialist and
feminist demands for rights. In the modern period such rights, unavoidably,
are based in the questionable notion of self-ownership that is, in turn, often
associated with autonomy. How are women or workers to struggle against
their subordination without arguing for the right to the "possession" and
control of their bodies and capacities (Pateman 1988, 13)? However, the
endorsement of the modern "political fiction" of property in the person is
to the ultimate detriment of women and workers. In spite of Locke's claim,
property in the person does not and cannot underpin the freedom of the
individual. Rather, this political fiction is what makes possible specifically
modern, contractual forms of subjection: "[clontract always generates political right in the form of relations of domination and subordination" (Pateman 1988,8). As she repeatedly stresses, contract in its modern form typically
is an exchange of obedience in return for protection (Pateman 1988, 61-2,1378). The worker is subjected to the capitalist through the wage contract and
women are subjected to men through the marriage contract. 3
There is a further crucial feminist dimension to Pateman's account. The
fiction of property in the person, she maintains, was never intended to be
applicable to women. Women's equivocal inclusion in civil society is not
through citizenship or labor contracts but rather through the marriage
contract which constructs her as "civilly dead:' that is, as deprived of the
legal status of "person." Although the "natural" powers of the father over
the sons historically gave way to conventional relations between brothers in
the fraternal polity, the power of men over women and the family retained its
supposed foundation in nature. Unlike men, women are incorporated into
civil society not as "persons," or individuals, but as women (Pateman 1988,
181). Women's bodies lack the necessary features of the abstract individual
and so women cannot enter civil society on the same footing as men. Thus,
the sexual contract becomes the device through which women's bodies, and
their capacities, become politicized. Ironically, this politicization is achieved
3 According to Pateman, modern contractarianism "displaces" the sexual contract onto the marriage contract. "Only the marriage contract-the contract into which women must enter. women who
lack the standing of owners-includes the explicit commitment to obey. If the promise of universal
freedom heralded by the story of an original contract is not to appear fraudulent from the start.
women must take part in contract in the new civil order" (Pateman 1988, 181).
684
MOTRA GAT ENS
through the "naturalization" of women's subjection to men. On the early
modern contractarian view, women are constructed as being ('naturally deficient in a specific political capacity, the capacity to create and maintain political
right" (Pateman 1988, 96). The politicized female body-paradoxically
politically constituted as part of nature; paradoxically included in and excluded
from civil society-is neither self-owned nor capable of providing the basis for
women's freedom to contract on equal terms with men. Although Pateman
does not conclude that sexual difference is therefore a status distinction that
contractual society is impotent to transform, the point stands that sexual
difference remains problematic from the perspective of contemporary conceptions of self-ownership that were considered in Section 2.
Why should the history ofconceptions otcrights," "persons," and "contract"
matter to contemporary political theory? Women are no longer denied the
status of persons at law, so why should past ideas and institutional arrangements be of interest apart from their value to the history of ideas? Pateman
argues that inattention to the historical contexts in which certain political
conceptions took hold can blunt the critical edge of contemporary political
theorizing. Cohen's critique of self-ownership, for example, is ineffective
against contractarianism because he fails to note the difference between
the concepts of ('property in the person" and "self-ownership." An adequate
critique of libertarianism (or contractarianism) requires attending to the
conceptual, legal, and moral distinctions between self-ownership and property in the person. Two of the major institutions of contemporary contractual
society-employment and marriage-C<developed in tandem" and crucially
depended on the "political fiction" of property in the person for their
development (Pateman 2002, 32-4). As Pateman writes: "When the individual is conceived as an owner of property in the person, rights are seen in
proprietary terms. The major mark of private property is that it is alienable,
so it is legitimate to alienate the right to self-government, at least in the
(private' sphere of economic enterprises" (Pateman 2002, 49). Contractarianism thus creates relationships where the fiction of property in the person
allows the illusion that a person's capacities and skills can be separated from
the "person." The ability to labor, in other words, is falsely conceived as able
to be "hired out" without compromise to the integrity of the individual. On
Pateman's view, contemporary debates over self-ownership have been highjacked by moral philosophy with the result that such debates fail to note the
political problem posed by contemporary marital and economic relations,
namely that the "marriage market" and the labor market are markets in
POLITICIZING THE BODY; PROPERTY, CONTRACT, AND RIGHTS
685
property in the person. These markets, which deal in the "renting of persons,"
are incompatible with a genuinely egalitarian and democratic understanding
.of the third major social institution: citizenship. The fiction of property in the
person, along with the alienability of proprietorial rights, is what allows
relationships of domination and subordination, in the "private" spheres of
family and employment, to appear legitimate. On this view, attending to the
concept of property in the person, and its historical and institutional vicissitudes, exposes why contractarian society is incompatible with democratic
citizenship.
Like Pateman, Mills insists on the continuing relevance of past political
constructions of bodies that were marked as «different:' Reworking Pateman's argument on the sexual contract, he states that the racial contract is a
contract between whites for the global subordination of non-whites. The
modern political story of freedom, contract, and consent is not a story for,
or about, those whom it racialized as inferior. It is white men who leave the
(hypothetical) state of nature and it is women and non-whites who (actually)
come to be identified with nature, thus justifying their political subordination. In a manner that resonates with much feminist political critique, Mills
argues that in the racialized polity non-whites are conceptualized as "carrying
the state of nature around with them, incarnating wildness and wilderness in
their person" (Mills 1997,87; emphasis original). Like the sexual contract, the
racial contract depends on "a politics of the body:" "[t]here are bodies
impolitic;' and such bodies "are judged incapable of forming or fully entering
into a body politic" (Mills 1997, 53; emphasis original).
Mills' account of the white male body as a "somatic norm," implicit in
modern political theory, shows the dependence of the free abstract individual
on excluded others in at least two senses. First, as Orlando Patterson's work
suggests, the Western political conception of freedom derives from the phenomenon of slavery: conceived as subhuman "the slave establishes the norm for
humans" (Mills 1997, 58; emphasis original). Second, the somatic norm allows
the positing of race as a biological or natural category through its concealment
of the sociopolitical construction of the norm. Put differently, "whiteness is
not really a color at all but a set of power relations" (Mills 1997, 127). On MillS'
account the racial contract does not subject only bodies to a norm but also space
itself (Mills 1997, 41-3). Space and sex and race are "normalized" by white
fraternal patriarchal bodies politic. The private sphere, colonized land, or
civil society, are not neutral but politicized spaces that serve to confirm the
status of the "impolitic" or "politic" bodies of those who occupy them.
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MOIRA GA TENS
It is significant that neither Paternan nor Mills see the abolition of sexual
to lie セゥエィ@
worn.en and racialized groups achieving
and racial 、ゥセ」イュョ。エッ@
self-ownershIp. For Paternan, thIS would mvolve the ultimate commodificati.on, alienation, and exploitation of all aspects of human life. As her critiCIsms of the prostitution and surrogacy contracts make clear, the freedom
セッ@ contract in such contexts would socially entrench, and so further legitimIze, the destructive political fiction of property in the person (Pateman
1988, ch. 7). Both theorists gesture beyond conceiving persons in terms of
property toward what they see as a more sustainable and equitable form
of individuality that values autonomy conceived in terms other than selfownership.
However, in contrast to Pateman, Mills does not see contract, as such, to be
the central problem. On this point his thesis is closer to Susan Moller Okin's
account of "gender" than to Pateman's account of sexual difference (Mills
1997,136-7, n. 9). Just as Okin envisions a future in which gender is irrelevant
to social and political status (Okin 1989), Mills aims "to eliminate race ...
altogether" (Mills 1997, 126-7). Again unlike Pateman's analysis of sexual
difference, Mills understands the racial contract to be an historically contingent organization of bodies that could have been otherwise. Furthermore, his
((demystification" of the racial contract, which he presents as a kind of
"ideologiekritik" (Mills 1997, 129), ultimately aims at the "voluntarization"
of race (Mills 1997, 126-7). I will return to this issue in the following section.
More recently, Nirmal Puwar has taken up the notion of the somatic norm
to show how the specificity of raced and sexed embodiment constrains one's
ability to occupy putatively "neutral" public space. Building on the work of
both Pateman and Mills, she presents the body as a thoroughly politicized
entity that may be both enabled and constrained through the social practices
and public spaces that help constitute it. By analysing contemporary
examples of "bodies out of place" (e.g. black bodies and women's bodies in
parliament) Puwar shows "the ways in which bodies have been coupled with
and decoupled from specific occupational spaces" (Puwar 2004, 78). Puwar's
research casts new light on the issue of the universal and the particular. The
particularity of the purportedly «(universal" body of the social contract
theorists is put under the spotlight in a way that emphasizes the constructed
privilege of the "unmarked" white male body and its ability to naturalize its
exclusive right to be master of political spaces.
POLITICIZING THE BODY: PROPERTY, CONTRACT, AND RIGHTS
4
6 87
BODY AND "AFFECT"
................................. ...................................................................................................................._.- ......................................
セ@
It may be thought that the notion that the body is constructed, normalized, or
"materialized" in different ways across history and culture introduces a kind of
contingency into political praxis. If subjects are constructed and reconstructed
acroSS space and time, what is to prevent a radical voluntarism with regard to
political identities? If identity is understood to be contingently constructed,
what is to prevent individuals from "choosing" new identities? Is it this notion
of "choice" that underpins Mills' idea of "voluntarizing" race? When Okin
advocates the abolition of gender is she suggesting that this could be achieved
through choice? Are the historically and politically constituted privileges of
"whiteness" or "maleness" able to be cast off by mere acts of will? This question
forms the focus of recent work on the body, affect, and "micropolitics." If the
Foucauldian approach to identity formation as an ongoing process that
involves innumerable micropolitical power relations is granted, then work
on and through the body, as a form of political praxis, seems viable, but such
work cannot be reduced to a simple-minded voluntarism.
Citing Nietzsche and Foucault as inspiration, William Connolly has
stressed the ethical and political importance of micro political (as well as
macropolitical) praxis through what he calls the "relational arts of the self"
(Connolly 1999, 143-53). Although this «(art" cannot be reduced to mere acts
of will, it is a political practice open to those prepared to cultivate their
critical capacities and reflect on the means through which identity is constructed and reconstructed. Recommending an "ethos of engagement" with
different others, characterized by "generosity and forbearance," Connolly
endorses "[ w] orking on yourself in relation to the cultural differences
through which you have acquired definition. Doing so to render yourself
more open to responsive engagement with alternative faiths, sensualities,
gender practices, ethnicities, and so on" (Connoliy 1999, 146). Connolly
does not limit his analysis to intersubjective relations. He also notes the
need to work on the intrasubjective, or the infrasensible self, arguing that
the "cultivation of sensibility" is necessary if we are to alter the structure of
habitual affects as well as the cognitive self (Connolly 2002, 129-37).
Whether such practices are vulnerable to accusations of self-indulgence on
the part of the politically privileged (Connolly argues they are not), or to
688
MOIRA GATENS
criticism on the grounds of presenting an implausible political voluntarism,
are live questions in the work of contemporary theorists of "body politics"
(see, for example, Rothenberg 2000). One response is to point out that the
contingency of the histories that have constructed present identities need not
imply that such identities are therefore arbitrary. Furthermore, past historical
contingencies may come to constitute present material necessities (an idea
that should be familiar to theorists of both "path dependency" and "genealogical analysis"). This view of things, however, does not amount to the
supposition that a Foucauldian approach to the materiality of power disallows human agency (Patton 1998). Rather, a Foucauldian approach may
reveal those aspects of contemporary subjectivity that are unstable or aporetic
thus providing possibilities for ethical and political experimentation and
transformation. Such experimentation cannot be reduced to political voluntarism since it involves attentiveness to and careful genealogical analysis of
the possibilities for change that are immanent to the "present."
5 BEYOND SELF-OWNERSHIP?
INTERDEPENDENCE AND AUTONOMY
In Sections 3 and 4 the notion of the historical, social, and political construction of certain kinds of body through power relations was considered. This
contemporary micropolitical approach is far removed from the assumptions
of the modern contractarian theorists where bodies, rights, and law were
conceived in ahistorical, naturalistic terms. Human history does not float
around bodies, temporarily covering them with the attire of this or that
period; rather, the capacities, form, and very materiality of the human body
are themselves historically configured. Yet, in these contemporary accounts,
the body continues to play a liminal role in the articulation of the distinctions
between particularity and universality; autonomy and dependence; and
identity and difference. Arguably, however, contemporary "body politics"
theory is better equipped to show how these distinctions need not lead to
irresolvable paradox. One is neither simply an historical construction nor an
ahistorical self-owning individual. Rather, one's autonomy, identity, and
POLITICIZING THE BODY: PROPERTY, CONTRACT, AND RIGHTS
689
particularity are always inextricably bound up with specific historical, social,
and political practices. Moreover, relations of interdependence are universal
. (in the sense of being natural to the human condition). On this approach it is
not a question of "either/or" (identity or difference) but rather of "and" (for
example, conceiving of identity through difference, or of autonomy through
interdependence). This view is particularly prevalent in much contemporary
feminist political theory.4
An example of this type of approach is Martha Nussbaum's work on
human capabilities that, while presenting a universalistic theory of human
being and entitlement, nevertheless attempts to be attentive to the particular
cultural contexts in which human beings invariably dwell. Nussbaum moves
away from the association between autonomy and self-ownership characteristic of much contemporary political theory. Although there is debate over
the ultimate success of the capabilities approach, and the claim that "certain
human abilities exert a moral claim that they should be developed" (Nussbaum 2000, 83), one element of its exposition is especially pertinent here. The
central human functional capabilities that Nussbaum lists (see Nussbaum
2000,78-9) are described as «combined capabilities:' A person's ability to labor,
for example, is not understood as a "given" property of that person. Rather,
each "internar capability (for example, to work, or to reason) of any human
being always assumes the presence of appropriate "external" conditions for
its realization (Nussbaum 2000, 84-5). And these external conditions will
necessarily affect the particular way in which any given "internal" capability
will be expressed or realized. Human capabilities are inevitably a combination
of latent human capacities and specific economic, cultural, and political
circumstances. For example, the capacity for autonomy, or self-determination,
is dependent on appropriate social contexts, certain kinds of ongoing relations with others, and so on, if it is to be actualized and maintained. But this
does not imply that each human capability will be realized in precisely the
same way in all contexts. The particular realization of a universal human
capability necessarily will be culturally specific. This is one consequence of
closely tying the realization of the internal capabilities of an individual to the
specificity of external conditions, which include that individual's cultural
context. It also highlights the way in which any human power, ability, or
capacity is necessarily relationally realized. Any given capacity of an individual
4 Many examples of this kind of feminist work in political theory come to mind. For example,
Kittay (1999) on dependence and independence; Nedelsky (1993) on conceiving rights in relational
terms; Friedman (2003) on relational autonomy; and Hirschmann (2002) on freedom.
690
MOIRA GATENS
therefore-to labor, to create-cannot be viewed in terms of that individual's
"personal property." I cannot claim "ownership" of my self or my capacities
precisely because they require a social and cultural context before they can be
developed or expressed. In spite of her preference for "capabilities talk" rather
than the more contentious "rights talk," Nussbaum concedes that "the best
way to think about rights is to see them as combined capabilities" (Nussbaum
2000,98; emphasis original). Although Nussbaum does not put it this way, her
account may be viewed as a relational, embodied, and historically contextualized account of rights. Moreover, it is an account that shows why political
theory needs to go beyond the notion of self-ownership.
6
RIGHTS AND CITIZENSHIP
It was suggested in Section 1 that notions of the universal and the particular
are increasingly brought together in contemporary political life through
practices of citizenship. Rights are neither "natural entitlements" nor alienable bits of «personal property" but rather denote specific historical and
cultural ways of regulating human interactions. Conceived in this manner,
the notion of "human right" is not at odds with the materialist, historical,
and embodied approach, outlined above. However, it does suggest that if any
individual's "human rights" are to be secure then the rights of all individuals
must also be secured. Human rights, to be effective, must be globally distributed. Some political theorists argue that the growing multidimensional
(ecological, economic, political) interdependence of all the cultures and
nations of the world, calls for a universal system of human rights to be
underwritten by cosmopolitan governance (e.g. Held 2002). However, if
this project is conceived in terms of the imposition of a fixed "list" of
"universal rights" that must be implemented uniformly in every cultural
and political context, then it will fail (Gatens 2004). Such a plan would
directly contradict the previous analysis of the materiality of the body and
the powers through which it is constituted in specific times and places. It
acknowledges the ideal of achieving universal justice but fails to attend to the
variety of contexts in which justice may be realized. Moreover, ideals of global
justice run the risk of continuing a politics of Western cultural imperialism.
POLITICIZING THE BODY: PROPERTY, CONTRACT, AND RIGHTS
691
Rather, political theory and praxis must acknowledge the ongoing and openended nature of negotiations between different historically constituted iden.tities and polities. For this reason, national or local practices of citizenship are
likely to remain the crucial mechanisms through which rights are implemented (or struggled for). To suggest this is to acknowledge cultural difference as
a deep, historical, and embodied difference rather than a superficial or merely
"ideological" difference.
There is another reason to exercise caution in relation to the idea of a fixed
list of universal human rights implemented through "cosmopolitan citizenship" and regulated by global governance. Hannah Arendt's post-Second
World War reflections on those bodies that fell outside the protection of
any particular body politic provide sombre materials for considering the
complex questions raised by the politics of "rights talk," self-ownership, and
"the body" today. Universal human lights that have been "merely proclaimed" but not "politically secured" are of no use to a hwnan being once
she has lost her polity and been reduced to a naked body (Arendt 1968,447)·
Ironically, the most intensely politicized bodies are often those that are
denied any secure specific political membership. Arendt's reflections on
"the decline of the nation-state and the end of the rights of man" (Arendt
1968,267-302) act as a sharp reminder to political theorists not to lose sight of
those actually existing human bodies that extant bodies politic treat differentially: exploiting, excluding, even destroying some, and an this, often
enough, for the purported protection of those who are deemed "proper"
citizens of "properly constituted" polities. As Benhabib reminds us: "No
human is illegal" (Benhabib 2004, 221).
To become a human being "in general" is "to belong to the human race in
much the same way as animals belong to a specific animal species:" it is to be
reduced, in other words, to a naked body (Arendt 1968,302). Such reduction
involves "the loss of the entire social texture" into which all are born and which
provides each with "a distinct place in the world" (Arendt 1968, 293; emphasis
added). Being human is not (only) about being a member of a genotype or
species; it is above all about membership in some particular culture, locatable
in place and time. "The survivors of the extermination camps, the inmates of
concentration and internment camps, and even the comparatively happy
stateless people could see ... that the abstract nakedness of being nothing
but human was their greatest danger" (Arendt 1968, 300; emphasis added).
Citizenship, the right "to belong;' and stateless persons raise urgent questions for political theory today. In the absence of robust institutional
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embodiment, rights quickly reduce to "mere proclamations" and the citizen
to "a naked human body." The critiques of the rights-bearing individual of
contractarianism considered here offer a different vision of rights and their
importance. Above all, rights create relationships between human beings.
They manage and distribute human powers and capacities for action and
for being acted upon. Understanding human being and human societies in
relational terms draws attention not only to the complex and always particular ways in which we become human, but also to what we must do in order to
preserve our humanity.
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