Problems with representation

Gilles Deleuze, the twentieth century French philosopher, compared voting for political representation with being taken hostage. A representational government assumes that people can be divided into categories with distinct shared interests. The representative is regarded as embodying the interests of the group. Many social movements have been successful in gaining access to governments: the working class, women, young people and ethnic minorities are part of the government in many nation-states. However, there is no government where the government represents the population along the characteristics of the categories. The problem of finding suitable representatives relates to an individual's membership of different categories at the same time. The only truly representative government for a population is the population itself.

Other theories

· Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) defined power as a man's "present means, to obtain some future apparent good" (Leviathan, Ch. 10).

· The thought of Friedrich Nietzsche underlies much 20th century analysis of power. Nietzsche disseminated ideas on the "will to power," which he saw as the domination of other humans as much as the exercise of control over one's environment.

· Some schools of psychology, notably that associated with Alfred Adler, place power dynamics at the core of their theory (where orthodox Freudians might place sexuality).

20. Concept of Sovereignty.

Sovereignty is the quality of having independent authority over a geographic area, such as a territory.^[1] It can be found in a power to rule and make laws that rests on a political fact for which no pure legal definition can be provided. In theoretical terms, the idea of "sovereignty", historically, from Socrates toThomas Hobbes, has always necessitated a moral imperative on the entity exercising it.

For centuries past, the idea that a state could be sovereign was always connected to its ability to guarantee the best interests of its own citizens. Thus, if a state could not act in the best interests of its own citizens, it could not be thought of as a “sovereign” state.^[2]

The concept of sovereignty has been discussed throughout history, from the time of the Romans through to the present day. It has changed in its definition, concept, and application throughout, especially during the Age of Enlightenment. The current notion of state sovereignty contains four aspects of territory, population, authority and recognition.^[3] According to Stephen D. Krasner, the term could also be understood in four different ways:

· domestic sovereignty – actual control over a state exercised by an authority organized within this state,^[4]

· interdependence sovereignty – actual control of movement across state's borders, assuming the borders exist,^[4]

· international legal sovereignty – formal recognition by other sovereign states,^[4]

· Westphalian sovereignty – lack of other authority over state than the domestic authority (examples of such other authorities could be a non-domestic church, a non-domestic political organization, or any other external agent).^[4]

Often, these four aspects all appear together, but this is not necessarily the case – they are not affected by one another, and there are historical examples of states that were non-sovereign in one aspect while at the same time being sovereign in another of these aspects.^[4] According to Immanuel Wallerstein, another fundamental feature of sovereignty is that its a claim that must be recognised by others if there is to have any meaning: "Sovereignty is more than anything else a matter of legitimacy [...that] requires reciprocal recognition. Sovereignty is a hypothetical trade, in which two potentially conflicting sides, respecting de facto realities of power, exchange such recognitions as their least costly strategy."

21. Concept of Equality.

‘Equality’ is a contested concept: “People who praise it or disparage it disagree about what they are praising or disparaging” (Dworkin 2000, p. 2). Our first task is therefore to provide a clear definition of equality in the face of widespread misconceptions about its meaning as a political idea.

The terms “equality” (Gr. isotes, Lat. aequitas, aequalitas, Fr. égalité, Ger. Gleichheit), “equal,” and “equally” signify a qualitative relationship. ‘Equality’ (or ‘equal’) signifies correspondence between a group of different objects, persons, processes or circumstances that have the same qualities in at least one respect, but not all respects, i.e., regarding one specific feature, with differences in other features. ‘Equality’ needs to thus be distinguished from ‘identity’ — this concept signifying that one and the same object corresponds to itself in all its features: an object that can be referred to through various individual terms, proper names, or descriptions. For the same reason, it needs to be distinguished from ‘similarity’ — the concept of merely approximate correspondence (Dann 1975, p. 997; Menne 1962, p. 44 ff.; Westen 1990, pp. 39, 120). Thus, to say e.g. that men are equal is not to say that they are identical. Equality implies similarity rather than ‘sameness.’

In distinction to numerical identity, a judgment of equality presumes a difference between the things being compared. According to this definition, the notion of ‘complete’ or ‘absolute’ equality is self-contradictory. Two non-identical objects are never completely equal; they are different at least in their spatiotemporal location. If things do not differ they should not be called ‘equal,’ but rather, more precisely, ‘identical,’ as e.g., the morning and evening star. Here usage might vary. Some authors do consider absolute qualitative equality admissible as a borderline concept (Tugendhat & Wolf 1983, p. 170).

‘Equality’ can be used in the very same sense both to describe and prescribe, as with “thin”: “you are thin” and “you are too thin.” The approach taken to defining the standard of comparison for both descriptive and prescriptive assertions of the concept of equality is very important (Oppenheim 1970). In the case of descriptive use of equality, the common standard is itself descriptive, e.g. two people weigh the same. A prescriptive use of equality is present when a prescriptive standard is applied, i.e., a norm or rule, e.g. people ought to be equal before the law. The standards grounding prescriptive assertions of equality contain at least two components. On the one hand, there is a descriptive component, since the assertions need to contain descriptive criteria, in order to identify those people to which the rule or norm applies. The question of this identification — who belongs to which category? — may itself be normative, e.g. to whom do the U.S. laws apply? On the other hand, the comparative standards contain something normative — a moral or legal rule, in the example, the U.S. laws — specifying how those falling under the norm are to be treated. Such a rule constitutes the prescriptive component (Westen 1990, chap. 3). Sociological and economic analyses of (in-)equality mainly pose the questions of how inequalities can be determined and measured and what their causes and effects are. In contrast, social and political philosophy is in general concerned mainly with the following questions: what kind of equality, if any, should be offered, and to whom and when? Such is the case in this article as well.

‘Equality’ and ‘equal’ are incomplete predicates that necessarily generate one question: equal in what respect? (Rae 1981, p. 132 f.) Equality essentially consists of a tripartite relation between two (or several) objects or persons and one (or several) qualities. Two objects a and b are equal in a certain respect if, in that respect, they fall under the same general terminus. ‘Equality’ denotes the relation between the objects that are compared. Every comparison presumes a tertium comparationis, a concrete attribute defining the respect in which the equality applies — equality thus referring to a common sharing of this comparison-determining attribute. This relevant comparative standard represents a ‘variable’ (or ‘index’) of the concept of equality that needs to be specified in each particular case (Westen 1990, p. 10); differing conceptions of equality here emerge from one or another descriptive or normative moral standard. There is another source of diversity as well: As Temkin (1986, 1993) argues, various different standards might be used to measure inequality, with the respect in which people are compared remaining constant. The difference between a general concept and different specific conceptions (Rawls 1971, p. 21 f.) of equality may explain why according to various authors producing ‘equality’ has no unified meaning — or even is devoid of meaning. (Rae 1981, p. 127 f., 132 f.)

For this reason, it helps to think of the idea of equality or for that matter inequality, understood as an issue of social justice, not as a single principle, but as a complex group of principles forming the basic core of today's egalitarianism. Depending on which procedural principle one adopts, contrary answers are forthcoming. Both equality and inequality are complex and multifaceted concepts (Temkin 1993, chap. 2). In any real historical context, it is clear that no single notion of equality can sweep the field. (Rae 1981, p. 132) Many egalitarians concede that much of our discussion of the concept is vague and theoretical. But they believe that there is also a common underlying strain of important moral concerns implicit in it (Williams 1973). Above all it serves to remind us of our common humanity, despite various differences (cf. 2.3. below). In this sense, egalitarians tend to think of egalitarianism as a single coherent normative doctrine — but one in any case embracing a variety of principles. Following the introduction of different principles and theories of equality, I will return in the last section of this article to the question how best to define egalitarianism and the value of equality.

22. Concepts of freedom and liberty

Liberty is the value of individuals to have agency (control over their own actions). Different conceptions of liberty articulate the relationship of individuals to society in different ways—including some that relate to life under a social contract or to existence in a state of nature, and some that see the active exercise of freedom and rights as essential to liberty. Understanding liberty involves how we imagine the individual's roles and responsibilities in society in relation to concepts of free will and determinism, which involves the larger domain of metaphysics.

Individualist and classical liberal conceptions of liberty typically consist of the freedom of individuals from outside compulsion or coercion, also known asnegative liberty. This conception of liberty, which coincides with the libertarian point-of-view, suggests that people should, must, and ought to behave according to their own free will, and take responsibility for their actions, while in contrast, Social liberal conceptions of (positive liberty) liberty place an emphasis upon social structure and agency and is therefore directed toward ensuring egalitarianism. In feudal societies, a "liberty" was an area of allodial land where the rights of the ruler or monarch were waived.

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