Neo-Despotism as Anti-Despotism

I treat despotism as a virtual concept. Thus it is necessary to expose its actualizations even when it appears as its opposite, refusing to recognize itself as despotism. I define despotism initially as arbitrary rule, in terms of a monstrous transgression of the law. But since the monster is grounded in its very formlessness, it cannot be demonstrated. However, one can always try to de-monstrate it through disagreements. In doing this, I deal with despotism not as a solipsistic undertaking but as part of a constellation that always already contains two other elements: economy and voluntary servitude. I give three different – ancient, early modern and late modern – accounts of this nexus, demonstrating how despotism continuously takes on new appearances. I conclude, in a counter-classical prism, how the classical nexus has evolved in modernity while the focus gradually shifted towards another triangulation: neo-despotism, use and dissent.

Hesse-Cassel: Alledged Sedition and Law-Suits (1640s–1650s)

In this chapter I discuss another German case, that of the Landgraviate of Hesse-Cassel. The Thirty Year’s War led to a governmental crisis and Landgrave William V went into exile where he died. The minor William VI inherited the occupied principality, which his regent-mother Amelie Elisabeth set out to reconquer. In 1646 Amelie required 4000 Malter of corn for her armed forces, and she convened an assembly requesting the nobility for their consent. The nobility, however, needed more time to debate the matter but was confronted with the illegal requisition of the resources. They saw this as a violation of their noble privileges led to an assembly of the nobility, which was consequently banned by the landgravine. The situation triggered a fierce reaction by the nobility, suggesting that the landgravine was attempting to establish an arbitrary rule. Since communication became strained, the nobility brought the situation under the attention of the Imperial Chamber Court in 1651. The lawsuit that followed showed that fatherland terminology was accepted in the formal, legal language by lawyers of both parties. In the argumentation sedition, privileges, traditions and the fear of the establishment of an arbitrary government are all used.

Dessalines’s Empire of Liberty

This chapter traces the print culture of the immediate post-independence period leading up to Dessalines’s assassination on October 17, 1806, recasting Haiti’s earliest post-independence writing within the context of political and ideological divisions that shaped the period. Under Dessalineanism, individual rights and liberties had to be sacrificed to the greater cause of sovereign statehood. The republicans disagreed: they sought to found a state according to liberal Enlightenment ideals, embracing the revolutionary language of individual liberties and radical democracy that characterized France’s short-lived First Republic. They wanted to talk about virtue, talents, the rights of man, laws and a constitution, citizens and sharing of power, but were outnumbered and overpowered by the Dessalinean faction—until 1806, when they would revolt against the “tyrannie” of Dessalines’s arbitrary rule and found the Republic of Haiti. It begins by focusing on how Dessalineans consolidated and codified Haitian anticolonial independence through writing, which asserted itself externally as an anticolonial weapon and internally as a force of unity against the enemy within. Next, it considers the republican opposition’s mobilization of the language, ideals, and symbolism of French republicanism to overthrow Dessalines’s empire and their subsequent disavowal of this foundational act of parricide-regicide.

Bonaparte’s Burka

This chapter explores Napoleone di Buonaparte's fascination with Islam. It argues that the impulsion that eventually took him to Egypt was formed in the context of his early experience of Corsican nationalism, radical disappointment, and revolutionary commitment to the new France that emerged after 1789. The belief that this invasion would be welcomed by Muslims—indeed, that they would somehow greet the French as fellow believers—was the product of a revolutionary politicization of Islam that was further overheated under the Directory. Indeed, the era of the Directory was the scene of a curious religious experimentation. The chapter shows how the catastrophic decision to invade Egypt effectively brought the Revolution to an end: Buonaparte brought back the taste for arbitrary rule he had established in Egypt to his rule over France and much of Europe.

Banishing dominance in Europe: The case for regional cosmopolitanism

How is arbitrary rule – dominance – to be avoided when political differentiation is on the rise in the multilevel constellation that makes up the European Union? The EU is a power-wielding entity, that, due to its democratic deficits, is an instance of arbitrary rule, which differentiation only serves to exacerbate. This article discusses which political framework prevents dominance under conditions of asymmetric and complex interdependence, and economic integration in Europe. Under these conditions, the framework of international law is deficient, as the agreements with the associated non-members – the European Economic Area Agreement (EEA) and Switzerland – document. Here dominance appears to be self-incurred but nevertheless in breach with political freedom. Another is the framework suggested by Jürgen Habermas, of a pouvoir constituant mixte. Also, this framework raises the danger of arbitrary rule, as there is a risk that the autonomy of citizens would be pre-empted by the sovereignty of their states. The article holds the framework of a regional cosmopolitan federation – a rights-based polity with a distinct territorial reach – as more promising.

The Contemporary Issues and Supreme Court

While the Constitution of United States had brought a popular democracy and Constitution-based structure of government, the Ancien Regime had been overhauled in new land. The “nobility” as a basis of government was dispelled, and people arose as a main class or pillar of nation. As we take a precept of chaotic years from the Articles of Confederation thorough the Constitution, the earlier ambition was mixed between the diplomatic unity and one strong national government. This context implicates much over the centuries and can also be illustrated with a residue of classic and present practice of international politics. The kind of Kantian ambition for the universal justice on liberty and equality, hence, should wait for more prosperous time afterwards that people tend to be conscious of their basic rights or public good from the arbitrary rule of majority, given our concocted recognition from the kind of public policy ideals from Bentham, “the greatest happiness of greatest number,” and “revolutionary spirit on people.” Given the judicial activism, the Supreme Court justices might be clairvoyant, who would be equipped with goodwill, wisdom and almighty intelligence to assuage an untreatable scope of interests and state specificities. Foreign lawyers would find such ample source of laws in surprise, who might envy a wide coverage of judicial interests. They perhaps would take the US context as the kind of insightful classroom and learn the lessons from their case laws.

L. D. Trotsky’s “The Lessons of October” and the Struggles at the Highest Level: Viewpoint of the Population in 1920s

The article analyses the aftermath of the publication of Trotsky's “The Lessons of October” in autumn of 1924, which produced much controversy in the camp of his opponents. Kamenev, Stalin, and his others smote Trotsky and posed the question “Leninism or Trotskyism?” to antithesize Lenin and Trotsky. The controversy was in the focus of attention of Soviet citizens, who showed “great interest” in this “literary discussion.” The issue remained center-stage in late 1924 - early 1925. The analysis of information materials demonstrates controversial attitudes of the population to the struggle. Many championed Trotsky. Having no way to find out more about Trotsky's views and mistrusting official publications, people often gave preference to rumors, which reflected not facts, but their wishes. Many saw in Trotsky their defender from the arbitrary rule, who acted in the interest of the people and suffered for his views. Many, party members also, demanded to allow Trotsky to express his opinions outside the framework of propaganda. At the same time, the “The Lessons of October” fed the negative image of Trotsky, already in formation. Quite noticeable role was played by the official propaganda trying to paint Trotsky as a traitor to the interests of the Soviet state. Not understanding the mechanism of the internal conflicts which after Lenin's death were tearing the RCP(B) apart, the population was swept by the Central Committee propaganda. Party propagandists cast Trotsky as a detractor of the party and Lenin himself. The campaign launched against Trotsky and his “The Lessons of October” bore its fruit. The authorities presented Trotsky as a Menshevik and unscrupulous enemy of the Soviet power. Information materials of early 1925 show not only a slump in Trotsky’s popularity, but also a growing bias against him.

Constitutionalism

Constitutionalism comprises a set of ideas, principles and rules, all of which deal with the question of how to develop a political system which excludes as far as possible the chance of arbitrary rule. While according to one of the classic sources of constitutionalism, article sixteen of the 1789 French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, ‘any society in which rights are not guaranteed, or in which the separation of powers is not defined, has no constitution’, the scope of constitutional principles is in fact broader. In addition to these two defining principles, the following are essential: popular sovereignty; the rule of law; rules about the selection of powerholders and about their accountability to the ruled; and principles about the making, unmaking, revision, interpretation and enforcement of a constitution. Despite close affiliations, constitutionalism and democracy are not the same. Whereas democracy is an institutional device which realizes the right of the people to govern themselves, constitutionalism aims to establish institutional restraints on the power of the rulers, even if they are popularly elected and legitimized. Constitutionalism embodies the self-rationalizing and self-restraining principles of popular government.