'There are no substantive rights for subjects in Hobbes's political theory, only bare freedoms without correlated duties to protect them'. This orthodoxy of Hobbes scholarship and its Hohfeldian assumptions are challenged by Curran who develops an argument that Hobbes provides claim rights for subjects against each other and (indirect) protection of the right to self-preservation by sovereign duties. The underlying theory, she argues, is not a theory of natural rights but rather, a modern, secular theory of rights, with something to (...) offer current discussions in rights theory. (shrink)

Monarchy is a form of government that, roughly, dictates that the right to rule is inherited by birth by a single ruler. But monarchy (absolute or constitutional) breaches fundamental moral principles that undergird representative democracy, such as basic moral equality, dignity and desert. Simply put, the monarchs (and their family) are treated as morally superior to ordinary citizens and as a result ordinary citizens are treated in an unfair and undignified manner. For example, monarchs are respected, enjoy dignity, (...) income, opportunity, public office and exalted social status just because of their inherited office, which is due to the mere historical accident of family lineage. Hence, we have good moral reason to abolish monarchy. Finally, I briefly reply to the pragmatic argument for constitutional monarchy, namely, the argument that monarchy can be allowed to play a largely ceremonial role in the context of democracy because it is beneficial for the function of society. As I argue, societies run by presidential democracies can function equally well and, what is more, no matter what the pragmatic reasons for constitutional monarchy are, we still have stronger moral reasons against it. Therefore, it should be abolished. (shrink)

Controversy has long surrounded the complex relationship between King Victor Emmanuel III and the dictator Benito Mussolini in Fascist Italy. It is clear that the king played decisive roles in bringing Mussolini to power in 1922 and in removing him in 1943. In between, the two coexisted as Italy became a ‘dyarchy’, with two foci of power. The presence of the monarchy at once checked Fascist radicalism and persuaded many conservatives to adhere to the regime. Thanks especially to the (...) monarchy, the innovative thrust of Fascism was channelled in certain delimited directions, toward a statist economy, for example. Still, the relationship between the crown and Mussolini was often rocky, though the king’s reluctance did not prevent alliance with Nazi Germany, anti-Semitism, and war. Tensions were largely papered over by rhetoric and myth-making, as if the elements of Fascism fit together neatly. Despite his opposition to certain particulars, Victor Emmanuel identified with the overall Fascist project to some extent, and he worried that outright opposition to the regime would jeopardize the monarchy. But as the Second World War went badly for Italy, the king finally deposed Mussolini. Nevertheless, Italy soon voted to eliminate the monarchy, discredited by its association with fascism. (shrink)

In the first part of this text, the author attempts to demonstrate that sacral kingship might, in anthropological terms, be regarded an Elementary Form of socio-political life; not an autonomous elementary form, but one falling under the category of rulership. The reference to the anthropological notion of Elementary Forms renders virtually irrelevant the rigidity with which categorical distinctions are made between polytheistic and monotheistic kingship, as well as any civilisational divisions that might be imagined between Orient and Occident. The second (...) part of the text provides an illustration of these presuppositions, the author taking several examples from the history of monarchy – both in the Western World and in the Arab World. (shrink)

Monarchy is liberalism’s little secret. Given the number of articles and books appearing every year dealing with liberal democracy as the hallmark of contemporary Western societies, it is astonishing that monarchy is rarely ever mentioned despite the fact that monarchy, and not a republic, is the constitutional form of quite a number of Western liberal states. I argue that considering the political reality of the established monarchies in Europe leads into a dilemma: either contemporary liberalism is not (...) the kind of theory it claims to be or it has to reconsider its central tenets. In conclusion, I show that the dilemma cannot be solved or avoided but needs to be embraced by conceiving liberalism not as a applied moral theory but as a political theory that leaves room for various symbolic self-understandings and acknowledges the crooked timber of historical realities. (shrink)

The Abbé de Saint-Pierre, best known for his 'Project for Perpetual Peace', in fact left a much larger and more coherent body of political and moral writing, but it has been only partially studied. This book, the first systematic exploration of his entire corpus, offers a complete re-evaluation of this important author's contributions to the Enlightenment. From the first decades of the eighteenth century, Saint-Pierre set forth a pioneering vision of politics as the harmonisation of interests, anticipating Bentham as a (...) utilitarian. He imagines replacing the system of inherited power and clientele networks, which structured Old Regime society and determined the exercise of power under absolutism, with a rationalised, meritocratic and dynamic organisation. He argued for the political values of social utility and public good to take the place of the Christian ideals of perfection and the aristocratic ideals of personal charisma. As a deist seeking to reconcile morality and religion, Saint-Pierre argued that the search for salvation through active piety must also promote social justice and beneficence--and that only the indivisible power of a rationalised monarch, informed by competent elites, could carry out the reforms necessary to yield a government which would produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Saint-Pierre, thus, provided among the first arguments for an imposed welfare state, well before the sources more frequently associated with that idea--political economists, cameralists and the physiocrats."--Pages v-vi. (shrink)

From one of the world's most celebrated moral philosophers comes a thorough examination of the current American political crisis and recommendations for how to mend a divided country.

The Belgian Constitution of 1831 marked a decisive step in the continental evolution from Restoration constitutional monarchy, based on the monarchical principle, towards the establishment of parliamentary constitutional monarchy. At the time, the new balance of power desired by the Belgian revolutionaries was captured by the phrase ‘republican monarchy’. It is remarkable that this concept, despite being so central to the founding fathers’ deliberations, has hardly been commented upon by later historians and public lawyers. This article aims (...) to reconstruct the origin, meaning and uses of this concept in the context of the 1830 revolutionary wave. French revolutionary veteran general Lafayette was responsible for popularizing republican monarchy in the July Revolution, although the term’s origins went back to eighteenth-century debates on the reform of absolute monarchy. Lafayette used it to summarize the institutional demands of the republican movement vis-à-vis king Louis Philippe. Its transnational migration to the Belgian context subsequently entailed a shift in meaning which will be charted through an analysis of the Belgian constituent and public debates. Finally, the reasons for the concept’s sudden disappearance from the political stage will be addressed. (shrink)

This article analyzes the plan to reform the monarchy penned by René-Louis de Voyer de Paulmy, marquis d’Argenson (1694–1757), in the 1730s. D’Argenson laid out a forceful blueprint for reform that aimed to extend ‘democracy’ within the monarchy as far as possible. His plan would establish equality as a first-order political value, even if as a heuristic goal; dismantle the legacy of feudalism in France and thus reduce the power of the nobility; and institute what he called ‘popular (...) administration under the authority of the sovereign’. The reforms d’Argenson hoped to enact would be animated by political values that were frequently associated with republics in the early modern political imagination, but d’Argenson never advocated the republic as a political form. To enact such far-reaching changes, d’Argenson called on the monarchy to reform itself, to wield its sovereign authority in order to promote equality and improve the lives of the population. D’Argenson’s treatise anticipated important themes and fault lines of modern French political thought, notably the combination of strong central authority with egalitarian reform and democratic engagement. It did so, however, while remaining rooted in the problems of the Old Regime and the political-philosophical arguments of his day. (shrink)

A discussion of the political role of monarchs in contemporary Western Europe is complicated by three uncritical preconceptions : the traditionalist-monarchist view of Kings as transcendent sovereigns, the democratic-emancipatory view which assumes that Kings are by definition nothing but constitutional nonentities, and the media-view of members of a royal family as at one and the same time both superhuman and very human actors.A realistic analysis of the role of monarchs and monarchy focuses on at least five issues : whether (...) countries remained monarchies in the wake of democratisation because of, or notwithstanding being monarchies ; the relationship of monarchs to major social cleavages; the very real importance of Kings within the actions of the nominal Crown notwithstanding the importance of the principle of ministerial responsibility ; the inevitably personal role of Kings in the making, the crisis and the fall of cabinets ; and the unavoidable conflict between the personal rights and actions of monarchs and the limitations which constitutional monarchy implies. (shrink)

A sample survey of 3000 Belgians shows that a large majority in both Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels is in favour of the monarchy. This support is based mainly on an attachment to tradition and a belief that the monarchy is the only institution capable of holding the nation together. Comparison with earlier research indicates that the influence of the king, as perceived by the population, has increased during the last 15 years. Older generations and catholics tend to be (...) more royalistic. Opposition against the monarchy is strongest amongst non-religious groups, younger generations, ecologists and - in Flanders - socialists and Flemish nationalists. (shrink)

An analysis of the functioning of the Dutch monarchy in the 20th century is hardly possible by lack of documents. For the study of the contacts between the Head of State and the Cabinet-ministers a scholar needs the documents from the Cabinet of the Queen and from the Royal Archives. The archives of the Cabinet of the Queen are now accessible up to the Second World War, but the Royal Archives are closed from 1898.Tbe Dutch people bas a sympathy (...) for the dynasty and by that a deduced sympathy for the monarchy.Tbere was no real criticism on the functioning of the following queens Wilhelmina, Juliana and Beatrix. Tbe Heads of State accomodated themselves to the political and social developments. By that the monarchy lengthened its life.The formation of a new Cabinet is an essential task of the Queen. Wilhelmina did not hide her personal views but respected carefully the constitutional framework and already in the beginning of this century she asked the consulted political leaders to confirm their advices by letter. The possibility to play a role seems to be more limited since 1945. (shrink)

Beginning with a sustained analysis of Seneca's theory of monarchy in the treatise De clementia, in this text Peter Stacey traces the formative impact of ancient Roman political philosophy upon medieval and Renaissance thinking about princely government on the Italian peninsula from the time of Frederick II to the early modern period. Roman Monarchy and the Renaissance Prince offers a systematic reconstruction of the pre-humanist and humanist history of the genre of political reflection known as the mirror-for-princes tradition (...) - a tradition which, as Stacey shows, is indebted to Seneca's speculum above all other classical accounts of the virtuous prince - and culminates with a comprehensive and controversial reading of the greatest work of renaissance political theory, Machiavelli's The Prince. Peter Stacey brings to light a story which has been lost from view in recent accounts of the Renaissance debt to classical antiquity, providing a radically revisionist account of the history of the Renaissance prince. (shrink)

The development of the Israelite Monarchy followed the model of a typical Syro-Hittite state and introduced a paganization into the political and social history of Israel with fateful and lasting consequences.

The papal monarchy is the subject of Thomas Hobbes's Historical Narration concerning Heresy, much of Behemoth, and his long Latin poem, the Historia Ecclesiastica. Hobbes's was not the only account in his day of the papal monarchy as a history of iniquity, or even as “the ghost of the Roman Empire.” The papal creation of a parallel system of offices in the late Roman and Holy Roman Empires is of immense institutional importance. Hobbes's analysis of the second papal (...) strategy, the co‐optation of Roman Law as canon law, is complicated. Hobbes's account of both the institutional and philosophical consequences of the papal monarchy is surprisingly congruent with some of the most authoritative modern accounts. The fourteenth‐century hierocratic publicists belonged as much to the reception of Averroist Aristotelianism as their contemporary antagonists. None of the parties to the struggle between pope and emperor appears to have been immune to the Aristotelianism of the Arabic commentators. (shrink)

The origins of the well-known hatred for the nomen regis at Rome are in this way explained by Cicero in the De Republica, written in the late 50s b.c. Tarquinius Superbus, Rome's last king, so traumatised the Roman people that the term rex still had a potent effect almost five hundred years after his downfall. Many modern scholars would accept that the Roman hatred of kings was deep-rooted and intense, and it is often called upon to explain Roman behaviour. This (...) approach finds clear expression in the latest edition of the Cambridge Ancient History, where one scholar in his discussion of the overthrow of Tarquinius writes: ‘Forever after the Romans hated the very idea of a king’. Yet an examination of Latin writings from the Republican period, rather than confirming this, reveals much that is at odds with this interpretation of the Roman attitude towards kings and the concept of kingship. Surprisingly, even their own kings are generally treated favourably. While there is no doubt that there was hostility to kings in the first century b.c., it is necessary to reconsider its origins and nature. I wish to argue that it was neither as long-standing nor as intense as is traditionally assumed. Its origins should be sought not in the distant obscurity of the last years of the regal period, but in Rome's encounters with the hellenistic kings of the East in the second century b.c. (shrink)

Plato’s references to Empedocles in the myth of the Statesman perform a crucial role in the overarching political argument of the dialogue. Empedocles conceives of the cosmos as structured like a democracy, where the constituent powers ‘rule in turn’, sharing the offices of rulership equally via a cyclical exchange of power. In a complex act of philosophical appropriation, Plato takes up Empedocles’ cosmic cycles of rule in order to ‘correct’ them: instead of a democracy in which rule is shared cyclically (...) amongst equal constituents, Plato’s cosmos undergoes cycles of the presence and absence of a single cosmic monarch who possesses ‘kingly epistēmē’. By means of a revision of Empedocles’ democratic cosmology, Plato’s richly woven myth is designed precisely to reject the appropriateness of democracy as a form of human political association and legitimate monarchy in its stead. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDer Aufsatz beleuchtet die Aktualität Hegels, indem er zeigt, dass viele systematische Theologen der Gegenwart mit Hegels Grundstruktur operieren. Die Grundstruktur besteht in der absoluten Vermittlung differenter Momente und bildet das organisierende Prinzip vieler im 20. Jahrhundert entworfenen Trinitätslehren. Da meist nicht erkannt wird, woher diese Grundstruktur stammt, kann vom »impliziten Hegelianismus« in der gegenwärtigen Theologie gesprochen werden. Es ist die These dieses Aufsatzes, dass der implizite Hegelianismus abzulehnen ist, da Hegels Grundstruktur denkerisch unhaltbar ist. Um diese These zu begründen, (...) wird zuerst Hegel selbst exegetisiert und sodann aus theologischer wie aus philosophischer Perspektive kritisiert. Danach werden die gemachten Beobachtungen für die Hermeneutik des gegenwärtigen Diskurses genutzt, indem die Trinitätslehre von Gisbert Greshake auf ihren impliziten Hegelianismus hin durchsichtig gemacht wird. Abschließend wird der Ansatz einer solchen Trinitätslehre skizziert, die durch eine zu Hegel alternative Grundstruktur geprägt ist.SummaryThis article examines the actuality of Hegel by showing that many contemporary systematic theologians work with a Hegelian basic structure. The basic structure consists in the absolute mediation of different moments and is the organizing principle of a whole number of doctrines of the trinity developed in the 20th century. Normally, these theologians are unaware of their Hegelian heritage, so that the phenomenon may be called an “implicit Hegelianism”. It is the thesis of this article that the implicit Hegelianism has to be rejected, because Hegel's basic structure is fraught with grave problems. To argue for this thesis, the article begins with an exegesis of Hegel, followed by a theological and a philosophical critique. Then these observations are used for a hermeneutics of a contemporary theologian. The doctrine of the trinity developed by Gisbert Greshake will be shown to be implicitly Hegelian and criticised accordingly. Finally, the starting point of a doctrine of the trinity will be sketched which is shaped by a alternative basic structure to the one of Hegel. (shrink)

Spreading the universal monarchy myth in the early 16th century was closely linked to the magnitude of the territories controlled by Charles V. For the imperial chancellor Mercurino Gattinara, universal and messianic ideas, which were integrated into the symbolism of the Empire, were to legitimate a policy that aimed at giving a more rational structure to Charles’ territories and at securing a prominent influence for the Habsburg family in the whole of Europe. Gattinara imagined a kind of supranational (...) class='Hi'>monarchy, organised in accordance with the mythical model of the Roman Empire, which would be able to guarantee peace under the aegis of Christianity. (shrink)

Spreading the universal monarchy myth in the early 16th century was closely linked to the magnitude of the territories controlled by Charles V. For the imperial chancellor Mercurino Gattinara, universal and messianic ideas, which were integrated into the symbolism of the Empire, were to legitimate a policy that aimed at giving a more rational structure to Charles’ territories and at securing a prominent influence for the Habsburg family in the whole of Europe. Gattinara imagined a kind of supranational (...) class='Hi'>monarchy, organised in accordance with the mythical model of the Roman Empire, which would be able to guarantee peace under the aegis of Christianity. (shrink)

This paper has three main goals. Firstly – to draw attention to the phenomenon of the democratic paradigm in the study of modern state systems (especially monarchical ones), characterise it and outline its sources. Also - to question the basis of this phenomenon (by pointing out, among other things, the durability of monarchical systems and the phenomenon of partial ‘re-monarchization’ – real or apparent – of certain contemporary republican systems on the examples of: Montenegro, Romania, the Czech Republic, Hungary and (...) Poland). Secondly, to present the negative consequences of the functioning of the democratic paradigm, also (paradoxically) those affecting the political practice of republics. Thirdly, to propose a way to reduce these negative consequences by changing the optics adopted in comparative studies about monarchies and republics. This change is based on the restoration, in comparative analyses of contemporary state systems (including monarchical ones), of the concepts of ‘mixed system’ and ‘monarchical principle’, which are still used in research on the history of the state and law, and should be disseminated in research on contemporary political systems and constitutional law. An explanation of the terms ‘mixed system’ and ‘monarchical principle’ as I use them here will follow in the final part of the paper. (shrink)

This paper addresses the teaching of citizenship in schools and focuses on the monarchy as an example of one issue often ignored within curriculum discourse. We argue that to conflate subjecthood and citizenship in unacknowledged ways may serve to perpetuate the status quo and is potentially unhelpful to the development of young people's critical thinking.

Tocqueville kam 1805 unter dem ersten Kaiserreich zur Welt und starb 1859 unter dem zweiten Kaiserreich. Sein Studium absolvierte er unter dem restaurierten Königreich der Bourbonen, an dessen Spitze Ludwig XVIII. und dann Karl X. standen, und bekannt wurde er unter der sogenannten Julimonarchie des Bürgerkönigs Louis-Philippe. Sieht man also von den vier Jahren der zweiten Republik ab, war Tocquevilles Frankreich monarchisch. Der dynastische Wechsel des Jahres 1830 und die mit ihm einhergehende Forderung, dem neuen Regime die Treue zu schwören, (...) stellte die ein öffentliches Amt bekleidenden Mitglieder der Familie Tocquevilles vor eine entscheidende Wahl. (shrink)

Tocqueville kam 1805 unter dem ersten Kaiserreich zur Welt und starb 1859 unter dem zweiten Kaiserreich. Sein Studium absolvierte er unter dem restaurierten Königreich der Bourbonen, an dessen Spitze Ludwig XVIII.Louis XVIII (Ludwig XVIII.) und dann Karl X. standen, und bekannt wurde er unter der sogenannten Julimonarchie des Bürgerkönigs Louis-PhilippeLouis-Philippe. Sieht man also von den vier Jahren der zweiten Republik (1848–1852) ab, war Tocquevilles Frankreich monarchisch. Der dynastische Wechsel des Jahres 1830 und die mit ihm einhergehende Forderung, dem neuen Regime (...) die Treue zu schwören, stellte die ein öffentliches Amt bekleidenden Mitglieder der Familie Tocquevilles vor eine entscheidende Wahl. (shrink)

Extrait de P. Michon, Rythmes, pouvoir, mondialisation, Paris, PUF, 2005, p. 88-94. Le cas chinois décrit par Granet apporte un éclairage supplémentaire sur le rôle que le rythme joue du point de vue politique, car il permet de se faire une idée du passage d'une société polysegmentaire, en grande partie organisée de manière immanente au gré des variations saisonnières, à une société plus stable et dominée par une entité politique qui s'est autonomisée. Il est vrai que la reconstitution granétienne des (...) (...) - Etudes chinoises – Nouvel article. (shrink)