Political Sovereign Research Articles

The new political economy of public sector wage-setting in Europe: Introduction to the special issue

This special issue (SI) brings the industrial relations scholarship on the public sector into dialogue with the comparative political economy (CPE) literature on growth models/regimes. While the former has paid great attention to the public sector, in CPE the public sector has been analysed less, and mostly as subaltern to the export-sector’s actors, interests and institutions. We posit that the public sector matters for CPE in its own right for three reasons. First, the state remains today the single largest employer in virtually every European economy, providing incomes to a large segment of the middle class. Second, public employers’ wage bill – one of the largest items of governments’ current expenditures – is funded by the taxpayers. Hence, public sector wage policy is fiscal policy, ultimately pursued by public/political employers. Third, public employers are simultaneously public managers and political sovereigns acting in the shadow of hierarchy. Case-study contributions to the SI detail how these insights matter within different European growth regimes: (1) the Mediterranean demand-led growth regime (France, Italy, Spain and Portugal), (2) the German export-led growth regime, (3) the Nordic balanced growth regime (Denmark and Sweden) and (4) the FDI-led Eastern European growth regime (Czechia and Slovakia).

Does the sovereign exist? Robert Musil’s political theology

ABSTRACT The paper discusses a possible political theological interpretation of arguments developed in Robert Musil’s The Man Without Qualities. What emerges is that Musil (or his characters) pose a fundamental challenge to the possibility of any real analogy between God and the political sovereign, as suggested by Carl Schmitt. At stake is Austria as a yet-to-be-born modern sovereign. However, the novel shows why attempts to conceive it in an image of God all fail. After surveying four such attempts, the main focus will be the discussion of Anselm of Canterbury’s existential argument in this secular context. At Diotima’s inspiration it is General von Bordwehr, a largely neglected figure, who makes the most serious attempt to argue for the political sovereign as the greatest conceivable thing. The argument is that greatness entails containing every idea and its opposite, and this yields the concept of order. But order means the frozen end of everything. Hence, instead of a living God, we end up with a political sovereign marked by death.

The Sovereign’s Beatitude

Though it may sound awkward to ask whether the political sovereign is happy or unhappy, the question is relevant to political theory, especially within a political theological perspective. Because man was created in the image of God, human happiness needs to be a reflection of divine beatitude, and as divine sovereignty is, at least analogically, related to political sovereignty, the conceptual coherence is secured. The main argument is, however, that the analogy does not hold. I shall show how St Thomas Aquinas’s short treatment of God’s beatitude may mislead us about power, fame, riches, and dignity being essential to happiness, based on an analysis of Franz Kafka’s major novel, The Castle, and a few other writings by him. I shall argue that our tradition of political thinking and behavior remains ambivalent on this issue. The political sovereign is born out of our unhappy condition, yet its power, fame, riches, and glory suggests to us that it has appropriated our happiness. But for this very reason it cannot be happy, and it therefore suggests a false analogy between the divine and the political sovereign. It is fundamentally at variance with our happiness, which incites us to abandon, reject, and eventually, kill it.

The Referendum in the UK’s Constitution: From Parliamentary to Popular Sovereignty?

AbstractThe 2016 referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU has led to much questioning of the place of the referendum in the UK’s constitution with a particular emphasis on the status of Parliamentary and popular sovereignty. Some commentary suggests that the UK has shifted from a constitution of Parliamentary sovereignty to one of the popular sovereignty. Drawing on A.V. Dicey’s discussion of the UK constitution in his Introduction to the Law of the Constitution, this article sets out the case that the referendum is the site of a change in the UK’s constitution. However, according to this case, the change is not accurately described as a shift from Parliamentary to popular sovereignty. It is better understood in terms of the emergence of a new constitutional convention which has altered the manner by which Parliament, as the legal sovereign, is kept subordinate to the ‘people’ as the political sovereign. The article offers some preliminary empirical assessment of this case for constitutional change and indicates areas for future research. These include considering the possible influence of democratic constitutionalist thinking in the UK’s use of referendums and the desirability and implications of a full transition to democratic constitutionalism.

Biopolíticas e Covid-19: um esforço para entender o Brasil

A noção de biopolítica de Michel Foucault é frequentemente usada nos mais diversos contextos, devido ao seu potencial analítico singular. Esse trabalho busca investigar a inteligibilidade da noção para entender a gestão política da Covid-19 no Brasil. A consolidação de estratégias biopolíticas estão relacionadas a práticas sociais que constituem um corpo político soberano. Portanto, o caminho escolhido para entender o contexto brasileiro, foi perceber que o limites crítico da noção de biopolíticas é considerar uma prática de política nacional situada num neoliberalismo periférico e lógica neocolonial.

Time for a haircut: political regimes and sovereign debt restructurings

ABSTRACT Conventional wisdom claims that reputation leads sovereign states to full debt repayment. However, defaults are recurrent, some debtor countries take a lot of time to end them, and some extract costly concessions from investors. This article argues that these differences are largely explained by the political regimes in the borrowing countries. While previous research examines whether democracies make more credible commitments, we analyze how democracies affect bargaining with foreign investors after a default occurs. Democracies, with their institutional checks, electoral uncertainty, greater transparency, and public deliberation, make swift decision-making harder, create incentives to pander and posture, and give leverage to minimize the win set of viable agreements. We test our theory on a comprehensive dataset of debt restructurings with private creditors in the period 1975–2017. The event history analysis indicates that democracies experience longer restructurings and the double-hurdle regression analysis shows that democracies obtain larger creditor losses. Further, there is interesting variation among democracies and autocracies. Our findings suggest that political regimes are crucial to explaining why cooperation fails in international debt markets.

The Defence Needs of Azerbaijani Armed Forces for Peace, Security, and Stability

Abstract Azerbaijan is a peace-loving country and a cooperative member of the United Nations Organization. Being a sovereign member of the international community, it has all the rights and privileges entitled to a state. However, the claims of neighbouring Armenia driven by irredentism and revanchism over the contested region of Nagorno Karabakh have led to numerous conflicts between the two. Having the role of ensuring Azerbaijan’s political integrity and sovereign status, the role of its armed forces is demanding yet challenging. This article is geared towards analysing the operational capabilities of Azerbaijani Armed Forces with a special focus on equipment, doctrine, and command and control platforms. It also assesses and prescribes the necessary and immediate needs to deter the threats and to thwart any military conflict. It theorises the potential of Azerbaijan-Pakistan defence relations. Finally, it aspires to take a structural approach in explaining the state behaviour and the relevance of security in contemporary times.

Odwołania do Boga w konstytucjach państw współczesnych. Studium komparatystyczne

W artykule przedstawiono rezultaty ilościowo-jakościowego komparatystycznego studium konstytucji państw współczesnych pod kątem obecności w nich bezpośrednich odniesień do Boga. Odwołania do Boga występujące w ustawach zasadniczych blisko 2/3 państw globu posiadają różną postać językową i pełnią kilka funkcji. Najczęściej przybierają formę invocatio lub nominatio Dei w preambułach oraz pojawiają się w rotach przysięgi funkcjonariuszy publicznych, rzadziej są natomiast udziałem innych postanowień konstytucji, np. tych określających oficjalne symbole państwowe, jak flaga, hymn czy godło. Odwołania do Boga w ustawach zasadniczych nie mają wymiaru teologicznego, lecz stanowią przejaw responsywności ustrojodawcy wobec przekonań i wierzeń obywateli o Bogu. W ocenie autora, decyzja o zamieszczeniu, niezamieszczeniu lub usunięciu odniesienia do Boga w konstytucji powinna stanowić wypadkową ewoluującej doniosłości sfery sacrum dla społeczeństwa danego państwa jako politycznego suwerena.

Теоретико-методологические проблемы государства в современном политологическом дискурсе

<p>Współczesne państwo stawia czoła wyzwaniom związanym ze zmianami w tradycyjnym rozumieniu i postrzeganiu jego natury i właściwości, w tym suwerenności i konkurencyjności. W XXI wieku obie te funkcje są niezbędne – z kilku powodów. Państwo traci status podmiotu politycznego, a suwerenność jest wykorzystywana jako zasób ochrony interesów narodowych. Co więcej, sukces polityczny zależy od poziomu konkurencyjności państwa, oznacza zdolność prawną instytucji publicznych i wysoką jakość decyzji. Niska jakość państwa podważa jego konkurencyjność, a tym samym suwerenność.</p>

Sovereign entrepreneurship

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop a theory of sovereign entrepreneurship, which is a special kind of political entrepreneurship. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses qualitative methods/historical survey. Findings Sovereignty is rooted in self-enforced exchange of political property rights. Sovereign entrepreneurship is the creative employment of political property rights to advance a plan. Research limitations/implications Because a polity’s constitution is determined by its distribution of political property rights, sovereign entrepreneurship and constitutional change are necessarily linked. The author illustrated how sovereign entrepreneurship can be applied by using it to explain the rise of modern states. Practical implications In addition to studying instances of sovereign entrepreneurship in distant history, scholars can apply it to recent history. Sovereign entrepreneurship can be especially helpful as a tool for doing analytic narratives of low-n cases of political-economic development, especially when those polities attract interests for being “development miracles.” Originality/value This paper uses treats sovereignty as a political property right.

The birth of poetry from the music of disaster: divine violence in the poetry of Meir Wieseltier

ABSTRACTThis article explores the poetic and political-theological nexus of power, violence and sovereignty in Meir Wieseltier's work. No poet seems to have inserted himself quite so powerfully into the narrow crack between the authority of the political sovereign and that of the divine sovereign, warning against the dangerous link between the theological and the political in Israel's messianic discourse. Wieseltier seems to draw inspiration from the theological-political sovereignty which relies on “an act of exception”, then to perform it poetically (“an exceptional verb”) to found his sovereignty and authority. Wieseltier's poetry arises from the divine music of catastrophe, based on a great intimacy with the ancient sources. It includes musical syntactic structures, like the mishnaic catalogue syntax, or the apocalyptic language of liturgical poetry in the prayers for the High Holy days with their outrageous “music of curses”.

The Making of the Neoliberal Subject: Response to Whyte

In her recent essay, Jessica Whyte has challenged the tendency to repurpose Friedrich Hayek’s thought for a progressive and participatory politics. Objecting to such thinkers as Michel Foucault and William Connolly who find inspiration in Hayek’s critique of the monolithic political sovereign and his defense of spontaneous order, Whyte contends that his neoliberalism is actually predicated on the cultivation of politically submissive subjectivity and the curtailment of democratic politics. While agreeing with her substantive conclusions, I suggest that her conceptual frame centered on the themes of invisibility and providentialism is limited in explaining Hayek’s ideas and, more generally, the operation of neoliberalism. Pace Whyte, I argue that Hayek’s neoliberalism does not simply stave off political challenges by obfuscation, but wages an active and highly visible campaign to recruit and interpellate individuals as market subjects.

Inglorious Revolution: Political Institutions, Sovereign Debt, and Financial Underdevelopment in Imperial Brazil

Inglorious Revolution: Political Institutions, Sovereign Debt, and Financial Underdevelopment in Imperial Brazil

INSTITUTIONAL CONDITIONALITY OF THE ENDOGENIZATION OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

At the end of the XXth century, in the countries of the former socialist camp, the capitalist reforms of the fundamental content of the principles of ensuring the right to liberty were carried out, including the economic one, that was realized in accordance with the existence and protection of the rights for a private property. This choice was made because there was a fundamental desire to overcome the dependence on the leadership of the political sovereign, which, in fact, ensured the receipt of «rents» through the implementation of a centralized management system on a planning and distribution basis, restraining the desire to gain freedom by providing opportunities for self-realization. In place of the ideology of the political «sovereign», the new ways of human activity coordination had to come, based on the principles of the ideology of liberalism. At the initial stages of reforms, the problems of institutionalization of activity of both the state and business, remained out of attention, since freedom was «above all».Capitalism, that develops without control and restrictions, is guided by a single criterion - by the private interest of the strongest and remains hostile to any form of public interest of the majority. At the same time, the development of the social institutions requires the formation of an institutional space for the implementation of the civic initiatives and the protection of freedoms from the manifestations of power and the weakly controlled monopoly organized business in the limitation of the civic activity. For this reason, in the process of development of society, the state should establish the long-term social mechanisms not only to consolidate the new spirit of capitalization and further economic growth, but also development through the social mechanisms of the social space that will not break, but will stabilize the society on the basis of the social values.

The Militarization of Language: Cryptographic Politics and the War of All against All

The question of the militarization of language emerges from the politics surrounding cryptography, or the use of encryption in contemporary networked digital technology, and the intersection of encryption with the politics of language. Ultimately, cryptographic politics aims to embody at a foundational level a theory of language that some recent philosophers, including Charles Taylor and Philip Pettit, locate partly in the writings of Thomas Hobbes. As in Hobbes's political theory, this theory of language is closely tied to the conception of political sovereignty as necessarily absolute and as the only available alternative to absolute sovereignty being a state of nature (or more accurately what Pettit 2008 calls a “second state of nature,” one in which language plays a key role). In that state of nature, the only possible political relation is what Hobbes calls a war of “all against all.” While Hobbes intended that image as a justification for the quasi-absolute power of the political sovereign, those who most vigorously pursue cryptographic politics appear bent on realizing it as a welcome sociopolitical goal. To reject that vision, we need to adopt a different picture of language and of sovereignty itself, a less individualistic picture that incorporates a more robust sense of shared and community responsibility and that entails serious questions about the political consequences of the cryptographic program.

Property and Sovereignty, Information and Audience

AbstractMorris Cohen’s classic essay, Property and Sovereignty, correctly discerned that political sovereignty and private property are alternative forms of government. Where it failed was in suggesting that the choice between these modes of governance is a matter of dialing one up and the other down. The relationship between political sovereignty and property is complex, and varies depending on the audience of property we have in view. With respect to some audiences — strangers and transactors — those who favor a strong system of property will want to enlist a generous measure of assistance from the political sovereign. With respect to other audiences — neighbors and sharers — those who want a robust property system are more likely to want the powers of the political sovereign to be held in check. Cohen was thus right that the political order and private property are both forms of power over people. But the exact mix of these two regimes is anything but simple or unidimensional.

The Dualism of Modern Just War Theory

Conventional modern just war theory is fundamentally incoherent. On the one hand, the theory contains a theory of public war wherein ethical responsibility for the justice of war belongs uniquely to political sovereigns while subjects, including soldiers, are obligated to serve in war upon the sovereign’s command. On the other hand, the theory contains a theory of discrimination which presupposes that participants in war, including soldiers, are responsible for the justice of the wars they fight. Moreover, these two components are derived from two inconsistent visions of political justice. The theory of public war, it turns out, is derived from a theory of justice that places the value of political society conceived of as a supra-individual communal entity above the value of the private individual. The theory of discrimination, however, is derived from a theory of justice that places the value of the private individual above that of political society. This inconsistency is revealed by analyzing the theories of Vitoria, Grotius, and Walzer. Appreciating this problem also helps situate the recent revisionist critiques of conventional just war theory.

William R. Summerhill.Inglorious Revolution: Political Institutions, Sovereign Debt, and Financial Underdevelopment in Imperial Brazil.

William R. Summerhill.<i>Inglorious Revolution: Political Institutions, Sovereign Debt, and Financial Underdevelopment in Imperial Brazil</i>.

Hobbes's Paradoxical Toleration:Inter regentes tolerantia, tolerans intolerantia inter plebem

AbstractThe source of Hobbes's liberal view of toleration is a recognized paradox within his absolutist political sovereign. This article argues that Hobbes's view of toleration is consistent with his overall political theory based upon his broader religious teaching, which leads to an epistemological skepticism on the veracity of religion, and as such among rulers toleration is not only allowed, but necessary. Further, this article argues that the inability of the sovereign to punish the private conscience of the citizen derives from natural right and the inherent limitation of law. Finally, this article examines Hobbes's use of religious argumentation to support the inability of a believer to challenge or deviate from the religious commands of the sovereign.

Henry George and the crisis of inequality: progress and poverty in the Gilded Age

AcknowledgmentsList of AbbreviationsIntroductionPart I: Making of a Radical, 1839-18791. To Be Something and Somebody in the World2. Enslaves Men We Boast Are Political Sovereigns: Progress and Poverty and Henry George's RepublicanismPart II: Emergence of New Political Forces, 1880-18853. New York Is an Immense City: Empire City in the Early 1880s4. Radically and Essentially the Same: Irish-American Nationalism and American Labor5. Built This Republic, Labor Shall Rule ItPart III: Great Upheaval, 1886-18876. The Country Is Drifting into Danger7. To Save Ourselves from Ruin8. Your Party Will Go Into PiecesEpilogueNotesIndex