scholarly journals Hobbesian Sovereignty and the Rights of Subjects

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-230
Author(s):  
Eleanor Curran
Keyword(s):  
Carl Schmitt ◽  
Absolute Power ◽  
The People ◽  
Political Writing ◽  
Inalienable Rights ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
Power And Authority

Hobbes, in his political writing, is generally understood to be arguing for absolutism. I argue that despite apparently supporting absolutism, Hobbes, in Leviathan, also undermines that absolutism in at least two and possibly three ways. First, he makes sovereignty conditional upon the sovereign’s ability to ensure the safety of the people. Second and crucially, he argues that subjects have inalienable rights, rights that are held even against the sovereign. When the subjects’ preservation is threatened they are no longer obliged to obey the sovereign. Third, there is also a possible limitation on the absolute power of the sovereign in the form of restrictions Hobbes puts in place on what laws he may legitimately make. Finally, Hobbesian absolutism is compared to the absolutism of Carl Schmitt. This exercise demonstrates the limitations that Hobbes places on the power and authority of the sovereign.

The Ideal Local Party Secretary and the “Model” Man

1964 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 229-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. S. Chen
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Direct Observation ◽  
Absolute Power ◽  
Party Secretary ◽  
The People ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
Local Party ◽  
The Ideal

In what light does the Communist Party wish to project itself to the people? Is the local party secretary presented as the remote symbol of authoritarian efficiency, a reflection of the absolute power above? Or is he supposed to be a model of the nutrient “helper,” responsive to the people's needs and governed by humanitarian considerations? The actual quality of these relationships is of course inaccessible for direct observation, but we can examine some of the Communist presentations of the image and expectations in officially approved literary publications.

scholarly journals VOC dan Dampaknya Terhadap Indonesia

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-159
Author(s):  
Tarmizy Idris
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Property Right ◽  
Cultural System ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Absolute Power ◽  
The People ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
Capitalistic System

Before the European invaded Indonesia, the capitalistic trade system in Indonesia had grown up. But such kind of system strongly related to political issues which caused the birth of bureaucratic capitalism. The situation didn't enable the free capitalistic trade system to grow up rapidly. The arrival of VOC had made seious change in Indonesia capitalistic system that time. The predominance of VOC's bureaucracy and military had blessed it the power to uphold monopoly system in Indonesia trade and destroy its capitalistic system. Basically, the downfall of Indonesian capitalistic system was caused by its weak cultural system which didn't have a strong foundation for capitalism. The Indonesian cultural values didn't protect the property right of people. Moreover, the absolute power of Kings didn't give conducive opportunities to the people to accumulate their capital and develop thier business. ----------- AbstrakSebelum kedatangan bangsa-bangsa Eropa ke Nusantara. Di Indonesia telah berkembang perdagangan dengan kapitalisme yang kuat. Tetapi perdagangan itu selalu terkait erat dengan permasalahan politik, sehingga memunculkan kapitalisme birokrat. Situasi ini tidak memungkinkan berkembangnya kapitalisme yang memiliki etos perdagangan bebas. Kedatangan VOC telah membawa dampak sangat serius terhadap kapitalisme Indonesia. Keunggulan VOC dalam bidang birokrasi dan militer memberikan kekuatan kepadanya untuk menegakkan sistem monopoli dalam perdagangan di Indonesia, yang menghancurkan kapitalisme Indonesia. Kehancuran kapitalisme Indonesia pada dasarnya lebih disebabkan sebagai akibat kerapuhan sistem budaya Indonesia yang tidak memberikan pijakan kuat terhadap perkembangan kapitalisme. Nilai-nilai budaya Indonesia tidak memiliki perlindungan yang kuat terhadap hak milik pribadi rakyat. Disamping itu, kekuasaan absolut para raja dengan tindakannya yang sewenang-wenang tidak memberikan peluang kondusif untuk perkembangan perdagangan dan akumulasi modal pada rakyat.

scholarly journals Kilka uwag o warunkach pokoju. Myśl o człowieczeństwie

2016 ◽  
pp. 127-152
Author(s):  
Jerzy Oniszczuk
Keyword(s):  
World Peace ◽  
Main Function ◽  
Absolute Power ◽  
Terror Attacks ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
Global Terrorism ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
War Experience

Although the terrorist-war experience of the years since 2001 lead to conclusions that the last years negatively affected world peace, the Paris terror attacks of 2015 transformed peace into bad peace. Global terrorism is a form of expression of some form of evil, but not its explanation. The first victim of terror, as of war, is truth. The absolute power is in the hand of all justifying lie which is also influencing the absurd "shame of condemnation" of war in itself. That lie also permits the democracies to ignore the reflections on war. What is the role of the people who try to approach the world of violence with reflection? Intellectuals are expected to provide answers; the main function of thinking is bringing up the stories with the aim, according to the writer Terziani, of sharing wisdom and re-establishing the conscious.

The Contest on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18:19–40) as a Reflection of a Religious-Cultural Threat

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-100
Author(s):  
Nadav Na’aman
Keyword(s):  
Persian Period ◽  
Absolute Power ◽  
Divine Power ◽  
Single Author ◽  
Cultural Threat ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
Story Cycle ◽  
1 Kings

Abstract The article suggests that the story of the contest on Mount Carmel (1 Kgs 18:19–40) is a complete literary unit that was written by a single author in the early Persian period and inserted into the deuteronomistic story-cycle of Elijah. The story is entirely legendary and reflects the polemic of a devotee of YHWH against the contemporaneous spread of the Phoenician cult and culture. The attachment of the story to Mount Carmel may reflect the occasion of the establishment of a Tyrian/Sidonian temple on one of the mountain’s peaks, but this hypothesis cannot be verified. The story conveys a clear religious message of the absolute power of YHWH and the worthlessness of all other gods – in particular the Phoenician God Ba‘al – and of the fallacy of the belief in his divine power.

Ockham, John XXII and the Absolute Power of God

1986 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 205-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugenio Randi
Keyword(s):  
Absolute Power ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
John Xxii ◽  
Power Of God

Constituent Power and Constitutive Exceptions: Carl Schmitt, Populism and the Consummation of Secularisation

2020 ◽  
pp. 199-214
Author(s):  
Jon Wittrock
Keyword(s):  
Carl Schmitt ◽  
Logical Space ◽  
Constituent Power ◽  
The People ◽  
Cultural Markers

This chapter considers the role of the people in Carl Schmitt’s theorizing on democracy, and invokes the concept of constitutive boundaries as a way of understanding how communities are reproduced by way of territorial borders as well as criteria for membership and cultural markers, e.g. symbols, rituals, and holidays. The chapter suggests that the latter constitute instances of a larger logical space of constitutive exceptions, that, Schmitt implies, reproduce existing orders, but also threaten to replace them with new ones; thus, such exceptions may be surrounded by protective boundaries of the sacred, concretely as well as abstractly. Ultimately, we may visualize an entire topology of the exceptional, which is subject to fierce contestation, since it points to the possibility of new orders beyond existing ones, which may be interpreted in terms of different trajectories of highly ambiguous processes of secularization.

Part III Themes, Ch.17 Unity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gummow William
Keyword(s):  
State Legislatures ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
National Unity ◽  
Legislative Power ◽  
The People ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Ordinary Citizens

This chapter considers national unity in Australia. It focuses first upon the absolute freedom of intercourse among the States of which section 92 of the Constitution commands. The chapter then turns to the absence of disability or discrimination required by section 117. Next, it considers the operation of section 109 not only to adjust relations between Commonwealth and State legislatures but to meet the entitlement of ‘the ordinary citizens … to know which of two inconsistent laws he is required to observe’. Here, reference is made to the uniform quality of justice throughout the Commonwealth which these ‘ordinary citizens’ would be entitled to expect. Finally, the chapter discusses the relationship between ‘the people’, the franchise, and citizenship, and what on occasion has been identified as the implied ‘nationhood’ legislative power of the Parliament, or ‘nationhood’ as an attribute of the executive power of the Commonwealth.

Reimagining Law and the Constitution: Carl Schmitt and American Constitutional Scholarship

ICL Journal ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 403-427
Author(s):  
Xiaodong Ding
Keyword(s):  
Legal Positivism ◽  
Carl Schmitt ◽  
Liberal Theory ◽  
The People ◽  
The Will ◽  
Theory Of Law ◽  
Alternative Understanding

AbstractThis article studies the debate between Schmitt’s theory and legal positivism, which Schmitt identifies as a typical liberal theory of law. Schmitt’s theory, I argue, provides a powerful critique of legal positivism, while offering a meaningful, alternative understanding of law that begins not with norms, but with the will of a legitimate decider. To demonstrate the continuing relevance of the debate Schmitt had with legal positivism, I turn to what I describe as a similar legal positivism/Schmitt debate in American constitutional scholarship. Ultimately, I take a side in this debate, arguing for a fully Schmittian understanding of the Constitution as the will or continuous decision of the people, rather than as positive constitutional norms existing independently of politics.

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