Toward a Notion of Unlimited Statist Hegemony

Abstract

Obviously, there will always be a need for exercising hard and decisive power over others in history in order to be able to sustain the territory, home and common will of ‘We, the People’ in society. Even if the circle of parrhesia and democracy should come into rule, there will be conflicts that call for coercive power to be resolved and, thus, for disciplinary agents to obey and show duty toward their constitution and its formal institutions (Hay 2007, Keane 2013, Stoker 2006). The aim is not to erase sovereignty and discipline but to develop new political mechanisms for putting their coercive and commanding functions in the shadow of new, softer, more attractive and persuasive forms of governance (Nye 2008). There are no a priori reasons why acceptance and recognition of the real and necessary difference that the exercise of political authority can make must always imply relations of coercion and subordination. In a world where uncertainty and risk are the general rule, the successful exercise of political authority becomes increasingly dependent on listening to and learning from what laypeople say and do inside their political communities with regard to identifying, easing and handling our common existential problems and challenges (Bang 2009a, b).