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The Power Dialectic

Paul Helm

in John Calvin's Ideas

Develops the theme of divine power raised in the previous chapter. Is God for Calvin a tyrant, a God of pure will? In the light of a consideration of the mediaeval 'power dialectic between God's ... More

Develops the theme of divine power raised in the previous chapter. Is God for Calvin a tyrant, a God of pure will? In the light of a consideration of the mediaeval 'power dialectic between God's 'absolute' and ordained' power, it is shown how Calvin upholds the essence of this distinction but deplores separating God's power from his righteousness. There is a discussion of the relation between the will of God and the atonement of Christ, and of the extent to which it is reasonable to think that Calvin was a 'Scotist'.Less

Plenitude of Power in Practice: Preserving Justice while Infringing Rights

Jane Black

in Absolutism in Renaissance Milan: Plenitude of Power under the Visconti and the Sforza 1329-1535

How the rulers of Milan contrived to disregard laws and rights while still maintaining a reputation for justice is addressed here. The Visconti reputation for justice is explored. The practical usage ... More

How the rulers of Milan contrived to disregard laws and rights while still maintaining a reputation for justice is addressed here. The Visconti reputation for justice is explored. The practical usage of absolute power is described: it was employed to undermine individual rights in defending the regime from opposition; it was invoked to issue pardons, to overrule court judgments, to make good legal defects in a decree or concession, and to repeal existing laws. Skilfully composed preambles could make the overruling of laws and rights appear as a higher form of justice. The fifteenth century saw the use of the phrase plenitude of absolute power, which also acquired its own conventions. The requirement to articulate a just cause provided an opportunity for the government to parade its championship of justice, even as basic rights were being infringed.Less

The Special Character of Organized Religion

Richard A. Schoenherr

David Yamane (ed.)

in Goodbye Father: The Celibate Male Priesthood and the Future of the Catholic Church

The chapter begins by trying to show that sacramentalism and sacerdotalism (the necessity for an ordained priesthood) are the primary and essential elements of the Catholic ministry because they ... More

The chapter begins by trying to show that sacramentalism and sacerdotalism (the necessity for an ordained priesthood) are the primary and essential elements of the Catholic ministry because they represent structural forms whereby Roman Catholicism adapts to the transrational, spiritual elements of human development. It then explains that the explicit recognition of a transcendent domain and development of structures that take it into account are what makes religious organizations different. They are also different in an additional way in that organized religion relies on two kinds of power: relative power (as in other types of organization), of which the social form is hierarchy, and corresponds to sacerdotalism; and absolute power, of which the social form is hierophany, and corresponds to sacramentalism. In the Roman Catholic tradition, the routinization of hierophany and its integration with hierarchy result in sacramental sacerdotalism. The chapter concludes with a descriptive analysis of the routinized hierarchical form of priesthood that characterizes contemporary Catholicism.Less

Introduction

Jane Black

in Absolutism in Renaissance Milan: Plenitude of Power under the Visconti and the Sforza 1329-1535

The Introduction explains the concept of absolute power or plenitude of power, as understood in the Middle Ages, when it meant a ruler's capacity to overrule laws and rights. The author describes how ... More

The Introduction explains the concept of absolute power or plenitude of power, as understood in the Middle Ages, when it meant a ruler's capacity to overrule laws and rights. The author describes how the prerogative was adopted by the Visconti and Sforza rulers of Milan. A brief historiographical survey follows, showing how the relationship between the powers of rulers and the rights of subjects has been explored in the work of Ugo Nicolini, Ennio Cortese, Dieter Wyduckel, Jesus Vallejo, and Kenneth Pennington. The sources used in the book are outlined, including legal commentaries and consilia. The author touches on the character and importance of consilia, explaining that they were considered by contemporary lawyers to be even more authoritative than academic commentaries. The other main sources are acts and decrees passed by the rulers of Milan. The Introduction concludes with an outline of the main chapters.Less

Egypt

Antony Black

in A World History of Ancient Political Thought

Authority lay with the individual king (pharaoh), who was closely identified with god as the agent through whom nature and the people prosper. He was their shepherd; without a pharaoh there would be ... More

Authority lay with the individual king (pharaoh), who was closely identified with god as the agent through whom nature and the people prosper. He was their shepherd; without a pharaoh there would be chaos and starvation. His powers were absolute, all-embracing, and universal. His task was to maintain justice, the right order of things. The world's oldest ethical and political treatises (c.2000 bce) taught beneficence to the poor and fairness in adjudication, and offered rewards in an afterlife. They were addressed to all social ranks. Over time, religion and political thought focused more on individuals. From early on, there was awareness of the importance of ‘spin’.Less

Rights and Democracy: A Reconciliation of the Institutional Debate

JULIE DEBELJAK

in Protecting Human Rights: Instruments and Institutions

This chapter explores the concepts and practices of democracy that accommodate rights protection and promotion. It discusses that the impact on the power relations between the institutions of ... More

This chapter explores the concepts and practices of democracy that accommodate rights protection and promotion. It discusses that the impact on the power relations between the institutions of government when human rights protection is formally introduced into democratic systems causes tension. It explains that because of the corrupting nature of absolute power, the separation of powers doctrine dictates the dispersal of power between the different arms of government. It adds that the separation of powers is tempered by the need for checks and balances, which requires mixed government. It explains that an exploration of the actual sharing of power under modern human rights instruments is instructive in allaying this anti-democratic critique. It employs international human rights instruments, as well as the British Human Rights Act and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to ground the theoretical discussion.Less

From Collective Violence to Human Violation: Dark Desires in Disorders of Will

Edward Weisband

in The Macabresque: Human Violation and Hate in Genocide, Mass Atrocity and Enemy-Making

This chapter argues that the psychodynamics of desire contribute to the transformation of “ordinary” individuals into those who directly and indirectly support or engage in genocide, mass atrocity, ... More

This chapter argues that the psychodynamics of desire contribute to the transformation of “ordinary” individuals into those who directly and indirectly support or engage in genocide, mass atrocity, and their performative dramaturgies. The chapter describes the practices of the macabresque in terms of noir ecstasy and the psychodynamics of obscene surplus enjoyment in the transgressive theaters of human violation. Comparative depictions of the macabresque in the Guatemalan, Chilean, Sri Lankan, Congolese, Darfurian, and other cases are framed by Lacanian psychosocial theory and concepts focused on ideology, fantasy, and personality that analytically transitions from festivality and the carnivalesque to the macabresque. Human violation and the desire for absolute power drive perpetrator behavior in ways that normalize their anti-normative or anomic hatred and enemy-making relative to victims’ fixed, fixated, and frozen identitarian categories that become naturalized, and often racialized. Victims suffer racialization by means of forced displacement. This produces spatialized “islands” of demonization.Less

Psychic Scars: Transformative Relationships and Moral Repair

Drucilla Cornell

in Clint Eastwood and Issues of American Masculinity

This chapter considers a series of films in which Eastwood deals more directly with the complex issues at the heart of moral repair: A Perfect World (1993), Absolute Power ... More

This chapter considers a series of films in which Eastwood deals more directly with the complex issues at the heart of moral repair: A Perfect World (1993), Absolute Power (1997), and Million Dollar Baby (2004). Certainly in Absolute Power and Million Dollar Baby the theme of failed fatherhood is grappled with explicitly. Yet what makes these movies so interesting is that the failure here is not portrayed in any simple way as a man's inadequacy before traditional Oedipal complementarity. The Eastwood model is the opposite from the stereotypic good father who knows best; he is a father who is desperate to restore some sort of relationship with his female children by admitting to his failure and apologizing for it. In a sense, these fathers are admitting symbolic castration as part of what it means to be ethical men and, yes, fathers who might even be able to find ways to reconnect with their daughters.Less

Bodin’s Significance for the Concept of Sovereignty

Dieter Grimm

in Sovereignty: The Origin and Future of a Political and Legal Concept

This chapter deliberates Jean Bodin's significance to the concept of sovereignty. Before Bodin formulated his doctrine of sovereignty, “sovereignty” was described not as an abstract but a concrete ... More

This chapter deliberates Jean Bodin's significance to the concept of sovereignty. Before Bodin formulated his doctrine of sovereignty, “sovereignty” was described not as an abstract but a concrete position of power. When absolute power (puissance absolue) is mentioned in connection with sovereignty, it refers to the sole responsibility and final decision-making power, and not the freedom to use such power at will. Each power, instead, had a legal framework and a legal objective. In the sixteenth century, the wars of religion in France prompted Bodin to redefine sovereignty. He aimed for a solution to the conflict that was independent of religious truth—that is, a purely political solution. In his view, a superior power was necessary to achieve the goal of restoring internal peace—one that could rise above warring factions and force them into a secular order that would allow the opposing faiths to exist side by side—by turning faith into a private matter.Less

Absolute Power: Law, Sovereignty, Absolution

Daniel Lee

in The Right of Sovereignty: Jean Bodin on the Sovereign State and the Law of Nations

Bodin’s notoriety in political theory rests upon his thesis that sovereignty is an ‘absolute power’. This chapter investigates the function of absolute power in Bodin’s theory of legislation as a ... More

Bodin’s notoriety in political theory rests upon his thesis that sovereignty is an ‘absolute power’. This chapter investigates the function of absolute power in Bodin’s theory of legislation as a sovereign authority’s negative power to unmake positive law and, consequently, release [absolvere] subjects from the bond of legal obligation. Drawing upon canonistic jurisprudence concerning papal plenitude of power, the chapter explores how Bodin modelled absolute power on the priestly power of absolution [potestas absolvendi]. Just as priests are empowered to absolve and release sinners from the bond of sin, so too are sovereigns empowered to absolve and release subjects from the bond of positive legislation, whether by full abrogation or by partial derogation. Every independent legal system, Bodin argues, must have absolute power if it is to have the reflexive capacity to correct or even repeal its own laws, especially unjust laws. Absolute power, thus, is the sovereign’s ultimate instrument of equity.Less

The Royal Government and the Courts

Jon Elster

in France before 1789: The Unraveling of an Absolutist Regime

This chapter provides a more general discussion of the royal government. It discusses the psychology of absolute power that is utterly different from the psychology of ordinary citizens or subjects. ... More

This chapter provides a more general discussion of the royal government. It discusses the psychology of absolute power that is utterly different from the psychology of ordinary citizens or subjects. It focuses on the obstacles and constraints on the power of the royal government due to unwritten constitutional laws. The chapter argues that the psychology of the kings was in a sense self-defeating, in that their search for glory caused them to make choices that tended to diminish it. It also explains how royal officials were considered unreliable tools for the implementation of policy. This chapter ends by covering the mechanisms by which the courts could obstruct the king's will.Less

Nature’s Revenge

Ellen Willis

in No More Nice Girls: Countercultural Essays

This chapter examines whether the current feminist preoccupation with pornography is really an attempt to extend the movement’s critique of sexism—or whether, on the contrary, it is evidence that ... More

This chapter examines whether the current feminist preoccupation with pornography is really an attempt to extend the movement’s critique of sexism—or whether, on the contrary, it is evidence that feminists have been affected by the conservative climate and are unconsciously moving with the cultural tide. To this end, it looks at two very different new books: Pornography and Silence, by Susan Griffin, and Pornography, by Andrea Dworkin. Griffin argues that pornography is rooted in the fear of nature, in the futile desire to deny our vulnerable, mortal bodies. Dworkin suggests that the battle of the sexes is a Manichaean clash between absolute power and absolute powerlessness, absolute villains and absolute victims. She scoffs at the distinction women are “commanded” to make between pornographic fantasy and real life. The chapter sees Pornography and Silence as a serious effort to apply feminist insights to sexual psychology. It also considers Dworkin’s claim that “male culture thrives on argument and prides itself on distinctions”.Less

Isocrates: To Nicocles

S. Usher (ed.)

in Greek Orators III: Isocrates: Panegyricus and To Nicocles

This chapter details Isocrates' To Nicocles. He begins by stating that rulers, in spite of their enjoyment of great material wealth, are at a disadvantage in the crucial matter of education. ... More

This chapter details Isocrates' To Nicocles. He begins by stating that rulers, in spite of their enjoyment of great material wealth, are at a disadvantage in the crucial matter of education. Isocrates then provides a careful portrayal of a ruler who avoids all the vices of tyranny as they had come to be recognised and abhorred by his time. His function is to bring prosperity to his people, and his superiority to his people in intelligence must be matched by his superior qualities and accomplishments. These qualities can be acquired and cultivated. Isocrates advises Nicocles to turn to poets and wise men for counsel and moral guidance, claiming that his success will depend on his self-improvement. He describes the ruler's general attitude to his subjects before proceeding to more detailed measures. The advice which follows underlines the prince's absolute power: to make necessary changes and personally to dispense justice, to administer the city as his own estate, and to control foreign policy. All this power must be used with discretion, which should include the judicious choice of friends and others to help him in government.Less

Covenantal Theology

John T. Slotemaker and Jeffrey C. Witt

in Robert Holcot

This chapter serves as an introduction to Holcot’s approach to academic theology, aiming to show the reader Holcot’s understanding of salvation history and the different ways God’s power manifests ... More

This chapter serves as an introduction to Holcot’s approach to academic theology, aiming to show the reader Holcot’s understanding of salvation history and the different ways God’s power manifests itself within that history. Here the notion of “obligational theology” is introduced as a way of illuminating key characteristics of Holcot’s worldview. Holcot’s fundamental theological convictions are then explained in terms of a covenant between God and his creatures. This leads to a discussion of Holcot’s position on the famous scholastic debate over the nature of divine power; namely, how Holcot does and does not use the distinction between God’s absolute (potentia absoluta) and ordained power (potentia ordinata) in his own theological discourse.Less

Absolute Power Is a Serpent

Phillip Papas

in Renegade Revolutionary: The Life of General Charles Lee

This chapter focuses on Charles Lee's views about monarchy and absolute power by focusing on his trip to Eastern Europe. In early December 1764, Lee made plans for his trip to Poland, where he hoped ... More

This chapter focuses on Charles Lee's views about monarchy and absolute power by focusing on his trip to Eastern Europe. In early December 1764, Lee made plans for his trip to Poland, where he hoped to find military employment and repair his damaged reputation. He obtained several recommendations from prominent British citizens and secured passage on a packet ship bound for the Netherlands. After a few days in Brunswick, Lee traveled to Berlin, the capital of Prussia, where he gained an audience with Frederick II. He arrived in Warsaw in March 1765 determined to obtain an important position in the military from King Stanislaus II Augustus Poniatowski of Poland. This chapter examines Lee's political radicalism and George III's rejection of his request for a promotion in the British army.Less

‘Macht nichts, macht nichts, sagte ich mir, macht nichts’: Herta Müller's Romanian Novels

Norbert Otto Eke

in Herta Müller

Herta Müller's novels force the reader to experience up close life in totalitarian systems. They chart the ‘world of anxiety’ of Nicolae Ceauşescu's dictatorship and offer insights into the inner ... More

Herta Müller's novels force the reader to experience up close life in totalitarian systems. They chart the ‘world of anxiety’ of Nicolae Ceauşescu's dictatorship and offer insights into the inner life of a materially wasted, impoverished, socially destabilized, and morally vacant society that abides in agony. Focusing especially on the Novels Herztier and Heute wär ich mir lieber nicht begegnet, the article discusses Herta Müller's scenarios of vanishing time and absolute power, which, in attempting to obliterate subjective meaning, literally take possession of the body, as examples of the inhumanity of dictatorial systems. It also analyses Müller's aesthetic method, the de-automatization of perception, as a reflection of highly restrictive dictatorship.Less

Introduction

Daniel Lee

in The Right of Sovereignty: Jean Bodin on the Sovereign State and the Law of Nations

What was sovereignty supposed to be, and what purpose might it serve for our common future? This study addresses these questions by examining the legal and political thought of Jean Bodin ... More

What was sovereignty supposed to be, and what purpose might it serve for our common future? This study addresses these questions by examining the legal and political thought of Jean Bodin (1529/30–1596), widely regarded as the preeminent theorist of sovereignty in early modern political thought. This Introduction offers a preview of four principal themes and arguments to be explored in this book: (1) sovereignty as a permissive legal right; (2) Bodin’s concept of positive law as duty-creating command; (3) the negative function of absolute power; (4) the pluralistic structure of the Bodinian sovereign state. Special emphasis will be placed on Bodin’s outsized, though overlooked, influence on the intellectual origins of modern public international law, whose architecture is still anchored fundamentally in the notion of a state’s sovereign right.Less