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As I have already shown, Pettit frames the entire question of political theory in terms of
the state: political theory is “…the theory of what the state ought to be and do?” (
ibid
. 152). As
such, the state is taken as a given from the start. Moreover, Pettit ends up recommending
broadly liberal mechanisms to limit the state’s power and protect individual liberty: rule of law,
separation
of powers, deliberative democracy, bicameral legislatures, depoliticized decision-
making, independent accountability and freedom of information (
ibid
. 168 – 69). Indeed, he
explicitly suggests that his theory points toward a “liberal…form of republican theory” (
ibid
.
152). I, of course, do not mean to suggest that such procedural constraints on the state are
without merit, but merely to argue that Pettit’s republicanism begins from the unquestioned
assumption of a state and ends up endorsing political recommendations that, like liberalism,
merely seek to constrain the worst aspects of state sovereignty. The radical concept
of freedom
as non-domination is, in this way, turned into an essentially liberal call for a limited and
representative government. The reason that the republican theory advanced by Pettit becomes, in
essence, a justification for a limited and representative government is because both liberals and
republicans operate on the basis of Hobbesian arguments. Both liberals, committed to the
Hobbesian concept of individual freedom as non-interference, and
republicans committed to
individual freedom as
non-domination, ultimately embrace sovereignty. In short, both assume,
and then seek to constrain, the Leviathan.
Usually those who see Hobbes as a ‘proto’ liberal are acknowledging by that
mediating term (‘proto’) that Hobbes sets a necessary foundation for liberalism
but that liberalism itself does not become ‘liberalism,’ as we know it, until
Hobbes’s sovereign is somehow tamed (chiefly by Locke). Hobbes, as read by
liberals, does [liberalism’s] dirty work; a ‘good cop/bad cop’
situation is produced
in which Hobbes (‘bad cop’) gives a rationale for sovereignty so that ‘good cop’
liberal authors…don’t have to. They can safely ‘ameliorate’ liberalism because its
rationale – and absolute authority – is safely in place (Martel 2007, 230 – 31).
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On this reading, then, Hobbes is a central figure for both liberals and for republicans. Though
there are important differences between these schools of thought (not least in their definition of
freedom, as discussed above), they agree on one central point: The state is unavoidable; an evil
perhaps, but a necessary one. The crucial task of both liberal and republican theory is to
constrain this beast. “The key to enduring sovereignty [which they see as inevitable] is to soften
its
hard edges, to make it accountable to certain, basic principles [e.g. rights] that it cannot
contravene. In some sense, such a stance can be seen as the essence of liberalism, broadly
defined” (
ibid
. 229). However, starting from the premise that the state is an unavoidable part of
our political landscape enables liberal and republican thinkers alike to avoid coming to terms
with the true nature of sovereignty and,
as a consequence, to not fully appreciate a) the depth of
the incompatibility between freedom and the state or b) the impossibility of limiting sovereignty.
What is unique and important about Hobbes is that he was writing at a time before sovereignty
was established and enshrined – before it was seen as an unavoidable part of politics. Martel
argues that we read Hobbes as clarifying the true costs of submitting to sovereignty – and, at an
even more fundamental level, that it is a choice at all. “Hobbes allows us to see [sovereignty] for
what it really is: not the sine qua non of politics, but a usurpation and monopolization of political
power” (Martel 2007, 3). As will become clear later in the essay, not all political communities
have chosen sovereignty and, for those of us who endorse freedom as non-domination, we too
can and should choose differently. For the time being, let us focus on the most serious
consequence of choosing sovereignty: it is an all or nothing proposition.
