Insisting on complicity

Abstract

Contemporary conceptions and practices regarding complicity have led to the surprising emergence of citizens who seek rather than flee complicity. The purpose of this is to gain standing to challenge controversial state practices. As in the recent Hobby Lobby decision, such attempts to demonstrate complicity are not motivated by a desire to take ownership over state actions, but to justify institutional reforms or individual opt-outs that would not be legitimized absent such a finding of complicity. This article highlights the danger posed by the proliferation of claims of this sort and works to unpack and critique the logic of such efforts to demonstrate complicity. Such claims rely upon implied political meanings of complicity, which affirm a strong connection between complicity, standing, and sovereignty. These political meanings of complicity are embedded in familiar conceptions of liberal democratic citizenship, but upon examination prove to be in tension with core liberal principles. By bringing to the surface the connection between complicity, standing, and sovereignty, this logic may be reformulated in such a way as to contribute to healthier modes of democratic participation.