Hobbes and the Personality of the State

2020 ◽  
pp. 46-71
Author(s):  
Sean Fleming
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Responsibility ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
The State ◽  
State Responsibility ◽  
The Core ◽  
Corporate Agency ◽  
Intrinsic Capacity

This chapter lays the groundwork for the Hobbesian theory of state responsibility. It first sets out to determine what exactly Thomas Hobbes means when he says that the state is a person. Scholars of state and corporate responsibility, and even many Hobbes scholars, have failed to appreciate the novelty of Hobbes' idea of state personality because they have projected the idea of corporate agency — the core of the agential theory — back onto Hobbes. The chapter shows that it is possible to recover a novel understanding of state personality from Hobbes if one resists the urge to read him through the contemporary literature on corporate agency. What makes Hobbes' idea of personhood unique and valuable is that it decouples personhood from metaphysical conceptions of agency; it explains how states and other entities can be persons even though they do not have any intrinsic capacity for rationality, intentionality, or action.

Leviathan on a Leash

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Fleming
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Sovereign Debt ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The State ◽  
State Responsibility ◽  
Modern Politics ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The World

States are commonly blamed for wars, called on to apologize, held liable for debts and reparations, bound by treaties, and punished with sanctions. But what does it mean to hold a state responsible as opposed to a government, a nation, or an individual leader? Under what circumstances should we assign responsibility to states rather than individuals? This book demystifies the phenomenon of state responsibility and explains why it is a challenging yet indispensable part of modern politics. Taking Thomas Hobbes' theory of the state as a starting point, the book presents a theory of state responsibility that sheds new light on sovereign debt, historical reparations, treaty obligations, and economic sanctions. Along the way, it overturns longstanding interpretations of Hobbes' political thought, explores how new technologies will alter the practice of state responsibility as we know it, and develops new accounts of political authority, representation, and legitimacy. The book argues that Hobbes' idea of the state offers a far richer and more realistic conception of state responsibility than the theories prevalent today and demonstrates that Hobbes' Leviathan is much more than an anthropomorphic “artificial man.” The book is essential reading for political theorists, scholars of international relations, international lawyers, and philosophers. It recovers a forgotten understanding of state personality in Hobbes' thought and shows how to apply it to the world of imperfect states in which we live.

Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 175-186
Author(s):  
Sean Fleming
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The State ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
State Responsibility ◽  
The Future ◽  
International Responsibility

This concluding chapter summarizes the implications of the Hobbesian theory of state responsibility and then looks to the future. There are three ongoing trends that are likely to alter both the nature and the scope of state responsibility: the development of international criminal law, the proliferation of treaties, and the replacement of human representatives with machines and algorithms. Although the practice of holding individuals responsible for acts of state might seem to render state responsibility redundant, the rise of international criminal law will not lead to the decline of state responsibility. The two forms of international responsibility are complementary rather than competitive. If anything, the domain of state responsibility will continue to expand in the coming decades because of the proliferation of treaties. New technologies pose the greatest challenge to current understandings of state responsibility. Thomas Hobbes' theory of the state, which is mechanistic to begin with, is well suited to the emerging world of mechanized states.

Untimely Development, Ugly History:A Drama in Muslinand the Rejection of National-Historical Time

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-183
Author(s):  
Mary L. Mullen
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Historical Time ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
The Core

This article considers the politics and aesthetics of the colonial Bildungsroman by reading George Moore's often-overlooked novel A Drama in Muslin (1886). It argues that the colonial Bildungsroman does not simply register difference from the metropolitan novel of development or express tension between the core and periphery, as Jed Esty suggests, but rather can imagine a heterogeneous historical time that does not find its end in the nation-state. A Drama in Muslin combines naturalist and realist modes, and moves between Ireland and England to construct a form of untimely development that emphasises political processes (dissent, negotiation) rather than political forms (the state, the nation). Ultimately, the messy, discordant history represented in the novel shows the political potential of anachronism as it celebrates the untimeliness of everyday life.

Corporate culture as a driver of the corporate security of foreign military-industrial enterprises

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (12) ◽  
pp. 2363-2380
Author(s):  
S.B. Zainullin ◽  
O.A. Zainullina
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Culture ◽  
Economic Security ◽  
The State ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Corporate Security ◽  
Industrial Enterprises ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Military

Subject. The military-industrial complex is one of the core industries in any economy. It ensures both the economic and global security of the State. However, the economic security of MIC enterprises strongly depends on the State and other stakeholders. Objectives. We examine key factors of corporate culture in terms of theoretical and practical aspects. The article identifies the best implementation of corporate culture that has a positive effect on the corporate security in the MIC of the USA, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Japan ans China. Methods. The study employs dialectical method of research, combines the historical and logic unity, structural analysis, traditional techniques of economic analysis and synthesis. Results. We performed the comparative analysis of corporate culture models and examined how they are used by the MIC corporations with respect to international distinctions. Conclusions and Relevance. The State is the main stakeholder of the MIC corporations, since it acts as the core customer represented by the military department. It regulates and controls operations. The State is often a major shareholder of such corporations. Employees are also important stakeholders. Hence, trying to satisfy stakeholders' needs by developing the corporate culture, corporations mitigate their key risks and enhance their corporate security.

The Slovene literature in Austria (the national and the polycultural)

2020 ◽  
pp. 446-460
Author(s):  
Nadezhda N. Starikova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Research Methodology ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
The State ◽  
National Minority ◽  
Official Language ◽  
Linguistic Terms ◽  
Protective Function ◽  
Slovenian Population ◽  
New Research

In 1920, the native Slovenian lands of southern Carinthia were included into the Austrian Republic, and the Slovenian population fell under the jurisdiction of the state, the official language of which was German. Under these conditions, literature in the native language became an important factor in the resistance against assimilation for the Carinthian Slovenes. However, decades later, the national protective function of the artistic word gradually came to naught. The contemporary literature of the Slovenian minority in Austria is a special phenomenon combining national and polycultural components and having two cultural and historical contexts, two identities - Slovenian and Austro-German. In aesthetic, thematic, linguistic terms, this literature is so diverse that it no longer fits into a literature of a national minority, and can no longer be automatically assigned to only one of the two literatures - Slovenian or Austrian. A variety of works, including proper Slovenian texts, hybrid bilingual forms, and compositions in German, of course, requires a new research methodology that would expand existing approaches and could cover the literary practice of those who create a panorama of Carinthian reality, which is in demand both in Slovenia and in Austria.

In a word, I’ve been there

2019 ◽  
pp. 246-256
Author(s):  
A. K. Zholkovsky
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Core Problem ◽  
Typical Solution

In his article, A. Zholkovsky discusses the contemporary detective mini-series Otlichnitsa [A Straight-A Student], which mentions O. Mandelstam’s poem for children A Galosh [Kalosha]: more than a fleeting mention, this poem prompts the characters and viewers alike to solve the mystery of its authorship. According to the show’s plot, the fact that Mandelstam penned the poem surfaces when one of the female characters confesses her involvement in his arrest. Examining this episode, Zholkovsky seeks structural parallels with the show in V. Aksyonov’s Overstocked Packaging Barrels [Zatovarennaya bochkotara] and even in B. Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago [Doktor Zhivago]: in each of those, a member of the Soviet intelligentsia who has developed a real fascination with some unique but unattainable object is shocked to realize that the establishment have long enjoyed this exotic object without restrictions. We observe, therefore, a typical solution to the core problem of the Soviet, and more broadly, Russian cultural-political situation: the relationship between the intelligentsia and the state, and the resolution is not a confrontation, but reconciliation.

What Is New about ‘Network Governance’ and Why Does It Matter?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. A. W. Rhodes
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
Policy Networks ◽  
Network Governance ◽  
The State ◽  
Accurate Description ◽  
British Government ◽  
The Core ◽  
Core Executive ◽  
Court Politics

This chapter replies to key criticisms about policy networks, the core executive, and governance. On networks, the chapter discusses the context of networks, and the ability of the theory to explain change. On the core executive, it discusses a shift away from a focus on the prime minister to court politics. On governance, the chapter returns to redefining the state, steering networks, metagovernance, and storytelling. It restates the case for the idea of the differentiated polity. This is edifying because it provides a vocabulary for a more accurate description of British government. Finally, the chapter provides a link to Volume II by summarizing the decentred approach to the differentiated polity.

Homo homini tigris: Thomas Hobbes and the global images of sovereignty

2021 ◽  
pp. 019145372110330
Author(s):  
Sandro Chignola
Keyword(s):  
Turning Point ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The State ◽  
Modern Concept ◽  
Logical Framework ◽  
Semantic Field ◽  
Sovereign Power ◽  
Global Space ◽  
Lines Of Force

This article addresses the modern concept of sovereignty as a multivocal and conflictual semantic field, arguing for the necessity to trace its genealogy based on the structural tensions that haunt its logical framework – as well as its representations – rather than on a linear historiographic reconstruction. In particular, the scrutiny I propose aims to examine a series of exchanges that have been characterizing this concept since the beginning: the global and the European, the maritime and the territorial, the colony and the state, the imperial and the proprietary. The problematic balance between ‘imperium’ and ‘dominium’ is indeed assumed here as the turning point of the rise of a sovereign power that appears to be originally rooted in the very production and governance of the global space, thus giving up all possible Eurocentric narratives of modernity. To illustrate my argument, I focus on the frontispieces to three of Thomas Hobbes’s most important books, that is, his translation of Thucydides’ Peloponnesian Wars, De Cive and Leviathan. A thorough analysis of these images enables us to understand how these lines of force traverse the very heart of modern European political concepts, along with the mirroring effects that constantly bounce their normative construction of subjectivity back and forth from the periphery to the centre and, ultimately, from the market to the state.

Deutsche Bank AG v. Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka

ICSID Reports ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 446-484
Keyword(s):  
Due Process ◽  
The State ◽  
State Responsibility ◽  
Responsibility Attribution ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Host State ◽  
Fair And Equitable Treatment ◽  
Municipal Law ◽  
Equitable Treatment ◽  
Debt Recovery

446Jurisdiction — Investment — Derivative transactions — Interpretation — Claims to money used to create an economic value — Claims to money associated with an investment — Whether a hedging agreement constituted an investment under the BITJurisdiction — Investment — Territorial requirement — Derivative transactions — Whether a hedging agreement satisfied the condition of territorial nexus to the host StateJurisdiction — Investment — ICSID Convention, Article 25 — Interpretation — Derivative transactions — Salini test — Contribution to economic development — Regularity of profit and return — Whether a hedging agreement constituted an investment — Whether all five elements of the Salini test were legal criteria for an investment under ICSID jurisdictionJurisdiction — Investment — ICSID Convention, Article 25 — Interpretation — Derivative transactions — Ordinary commercial transaction — Contingent liability — Whether a hedging agreement was an ordinary commercial transaction or a contingent liabilityJurisdiction — Contract — State-owned entity — Municipal law — Whether a hedging agreement was void because the transaction was outside a State-owned entity’s statutory authorityState responsibility — Attribution — Judicial acts — ILC Articles on State Responsibility, Article 4 — Whether a superior court was an organ of the host StateState responsibility — Attribution — Central bank — ILC Articles on State Responsibility, Article 4 — Whether a central bank was an organ of the host StateState responsibility — Attribution — State-owned entity — ILC Articles on State Responsibility, Article 4 — ILC Articles on State Responsibility, Article 5 — ILC Articles on State Responsibility, Article 8 — Whether a State-owned entity was an organ of the State — Whether actions of a State-owned entity were attributable to the State as an exercise of governmental authority — Whether a State-owned entity was acting under instructions or the direction and control of the StateFair and equitable treatment — Judicial acts — Due process — Interim order — Political motive — Whether court orders violated the standard of fair and equitable treatment — Whether public statements of a senior judge evidenced the political motive of court ordersFair and equitable treatment — Autonomous standard — Interpretation — Minimum standard of treatment — Whether the standard of fair and equitable treatment was materially different from customary international law447Fair and equitable treatment — Government investigation — Due process — Bad faith — Transparency — Whether a central bank’s investigation violated the standard of fair and equitable treatmentExpropriation — Indirect expropriation — Contract — Derivative transaction — Substantial deprivation — Debt recovery — Municipal law — Whether the subsistence of a contractual debt and the possibility to claim under the chosen law of a third State prevented a finding of expropriation — Whether the possibility of recovery in a third State was to be assessed as a prerequisite in the cause of action of expropriation or as a matter of causation and quantumExpropriation — Indirect expropriation — Contract — Substantial deprivation — Legitimate regulatory authority — Proportionality — Whether an interference with contractual rights was an exercise of the host State’s legitimate regulatory authority — Whether the regulatory measures were proportionateRemedies — Damages — Causation — Contract — Debt recovery — Whether the claimant suffered damages if it had the possibility to recover a contractual debt in the courts of a third StateCosts — Indemnity — Egregious breach — Bad faith — Whether the egregious nature of the host State’s breaches of its international obligations meant the claimant was entitled to full recovery of its costs, legal fees and expenses

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