The fantasy of congruency: The Abbé Sieyès and the ‘nation-state’ problématique revisited

Philosophy and Social Criticism 42 (3):246-266 (2016)
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Abstract

This article offers an alternative reading of the Abbé Sieyès and the modern ‘nation-state’ problématique. I argue that the subject/object that is constituted in the early days of modernity is the incomplete society: an impossible-possibility ideal of congruency of population, authority and space. I suggest reading this ideal of congruency as a fantasy in that it offers a certain ‘fullness to come’, the promise of jouissance that can never be attained and is thus constantly re-envisioned and reinvoked. Drawing on discourse-analytical and psychoanalytical tools I explain the logic of fantasy before analysing Sieyès’ What is the Third Estate?, as I show how he critiques and fragments the old model of the state and how his reading of the nation is fantasmatic, a continuous project towards impossible congruency.

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Citations of this work

Sieyès and republican liberty.Adam Lindsay - 2022 - European Journal of Political Theory 21 (1):155-177.
Who, the people? Rethinking constituent power as praxis.Maxim van Asseldonk - 2022 - Philosophy and Social Criticism 48 (3):361-385.
Who, the people? Rethinking constituent power as praxis.Maxim van Asseldonk - 2021 - Sage Publications Ltd: Philosophy and Social Criticism 48 (3):361-385.
Who, the people? Rethinking constituent power as praxis.Maxim van Asseldonk - 2022 - Philosophy and Social Criticism 48 (3):361-385.
Who, the people? Rethinking constituent power as praxis.Maxim van Asseldonk - 2022 - Philosophy and Social Criticism 48 (3):361-385.

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References found in this work

The Legitimacy of the People.Sofia Näsström - 2007 - Political Theory 35 (5):624-658.
The state, rights, and the homogeneous nation.Nicholas Xenos - 1992 - History of European Ideas 15 (1-3):77-82.

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