Rachel Thomas
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
ABSTRACT Title of Document: ON POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY Hsin-Hua Fan, Ph.D., 2009 Directed By: Professor Christopher W. Morris, Department of Philosophy Popular sovereignty is a frequently used concept in contemporary politics. Many states, governments, or rulers claim to base their rule on popular sovereignty. Politicians use this concept often in their rhetoric. When people go to polls to cast their votes or demonstrate in the streets, they think they are exercising popular sovereignty. Popular sovereignty seems to be a well-recognized idea. However, in spite of its popularity, popular sovereignty often appears as an ambiguous notion. Could it be a myth or a fiction without much substance? Is it used only in political rhetoric, but has little objective reality? In his paper “The Very Idea of Popular Sovereignty: ‘We the People’ Reconsidered,” Christopher Morris does express skepticism about the possibility of attributing sovereignty to “the People”. If democracy is understood as the rule by the People and for the People, then popular sovereignty is the foundation or essence of democracy. This implies that to understand and justify democracy, we have to understand and justify popular sovereignty. If we cannot understand or justify popular sovereignty, then democracy would be problematic or impossible. Since democracy is increasingly deemed to be a universal value, clarifying and exploring its fundamental questions is not only unavoidable, but also important. An exact and thorough explication of the notion of popular sovereignty is therefore necessary. A skeptical view about popular sovereignty such as Morris’s also needs to be reconsidered. Therefore, I aim to both construct and defend a theory of popular sovereignty. While providing an exact and thorough explication of popular sovereignty, I will also argue against skepticism about popular sovereignty. Specifically, there are three primary objectives in my theory: to clarify and reshape the notion of popular sovereignty; to discuss issues in realizing popular sovereignty; to justify the People’s right to sovereignty; and explore the need for popular sovereignty. The general points I want to make in my theory are: the People in any state ought to be the sovereign; popular sovereignty can not only be understood, but can also be exercised and realized. ON POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY By Hsin-Hua Fan Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2009 Advisory Committee: Professor Christopher Morris, Chair Professor David Crocker Research Professor Andrew Levine Professor Judith Lichtenberg Professor Joe Oppenheimer © Copyright by Hsin-Hua Fan 2009 Acknowledgements I would like to express my deepest appreciation to Dr. Christopher Morris for the great help and advice I received in writing this dissertation. As my dissertation advisor and mentor, he has been very patient and supportive in assisting me at every stage of the dissertation writing process. It is a pleasure to have worked with him. I would also like to thank my readers: Dr. David Crocker, Dr. Andrew Levine, Dr. Judith Lichtenberg, and Dr. Joe Oppenheimer, for their generous and helpful comments and criticism. A great debt is due to my dearest friends both in Taiwan and in Maryland. I could not have come this far without their long-time support and encouragement. I am grateful to my parents, who have always been very supportive and believed in me. A special debt is to Allen Greenberg, who has been a great friend and proofreader. ii Table of Contents Acknowledgements ……………………………………………………………………… ii Table of Contents ……………………………………………………………………….. iii Chapter 1: Introduction …………………………………………………………...…….. 1 Chapter 2: Sovereignty ………………………………………………...……………...… 7 2.1 Classical Sovereignty ………………………………………………...…….……. 8 2.2 Sovereignty Today ………………………………………….……….…………. 14 2.3 Whose Sovereignty? …………………………………………………..……….. 27 2.4 Objective Existence of Sovereignty ………………………………………...….. 32 2.5 Why Sovereignty? …………………………………………………………........ 36 Chapter 3: The People ……………………………………………………………...…... 45 3.1 People, the People, and the Sovereign People ……………………………...…. 46 3.2 Collection and Collectivity ……………………………………………….....… 53 3.3 Membership ………………………………………………………………..….. 67 Chapter 4: Popular Sovereignty Reconsidered ……………………………………..….. 72 4.1 Making Sense of Popular Sovereignty ……………………………………...…. 73 4.2 Part and Whole ……………………………………………………………….... 78 4.3 Can Popular Sovereignty be Exercised and Realized? ……………………..…. 83 Institutions …………………………………………………………………… … 87 Civic Education ………………………………………………………………..… 95 Chapter 5: In Defense of Popular Sovereignty ……………………………………...... 104 5.1 Why “Popular” Sovereignty? ……………………………………………....… 105 5.2 Why “Popular Sovereignty”? ……………………………………………...…. 112 5.3 Majoritarianism …………………………………………………………....…. 119 Chapter 6: Conclusion ………………………………………………………………… 128 Bibliography ………………………………………………………………………..… 134 Articles from Wikipedia .……………………………………………………...…... 138 Websites .…………………………………………………………………...……… 138 iii Chapter 1: Introduction Popular sovereignty is a frequently used concept in contemporary politics. Many states, governments, or rulers claim to base their rule on popular sovereignty. Politicians use this concept often in their rhetoric. When people go to polls to cast their votes or go on street to demonstrate, they think they are exercising popular sovereignty. Popular sovereignty seems to be a well-recognized idea. However, in spite of its popularity, we actually do not know much about this notion. On the one hand, we seem to know that the People should be the master of a state and are supposed to vote in elections or referendums. On the other hand, we may also be concerned about our limited power as voters. We often feel that after votes are cast, we do not have much ability or power to influence or intervene in governance or public affairs. We also complain about problems such as manipulation, corruption, lack of transparency in government, and inadequate checks and balances, etc., all of which seem to be obstacles to popular sovereignty. Therefore, we wonder in addition to being a voter, what else we can do to make ourselves sovereign. We may even question whether popular sovereignty is merely a fiction, a myth, or a slogan without much substance or reality. If democracy is understood as the rule by the People and for the People, then popular sovereignty is the foundation or essence of democracy. This implies that to understand and justify democracy, we have to understand and justify popular sovereignty, and that if we cannot understand or justify popular sovereignty, democracy would be 1 problematic or impossible. Since democracy is increasingly deemed to be a universal value, clarifying and exploring its fundamental questions is not only unavoidable, but also important. An exact and thorough explication of the notion of popular sovereignty is therefore necessary. I think that a satisfactory explication of popular sovereignty should answer the following questions: What is sovereignty? Who are the People, and what constitutes “the People”? Can we make sense of popular sovereignty? How is it possible for the People to be the sovereign? Can popular sovereignty be exercised and realized? Do the People have a right to be the sovereign? And, do we need popular sovereignty? If we fail to answer any of these questions or cannot provide at least acceptable answers to them, then democracy would be questioned. In the literature on popular sovereignty, an exact and thorough explication of popular sovereignty is rarely provided. Social contract theorists in modern times such as John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau have provided us with insightful thoughts,1 but their theories are not comprehensive enough, and I actually do not favor the contractarian approach for theorizing popular sovereignty. I think that popular sovereignty can be explicated simply in a naturalistic way, which means, without hypothetical premise, we can still construct a normative theory for popular sovereignty based on analyses of empirical facts.2 As for contemporary political theories, there are more about democracy than about popular sovereignty. Some of them do express the idea of popular sovereignty, 1 John Locke, Two Treatises of Government (Student Edition), ed. Peter Laslett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988 [1690]). Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, trans. Maurice Cranston (Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin Books, 1968 [1762]). 2 I cannot say much about my criticism of the contractarian approach in this dissertation, though I would bring it up in a few places in the dissertation. There are points needed to be developed. 2 though the term “popular sovereignty” is not used, but it is rare to see a thorough analysis of popular sovereignty. Recently, Christopher Morris wrote a paper reconsidering the notion of popular sovereignty,3 but I do not agree with the way he analyzes the notion and his skepticism about popular sovereignty. This skepticism is what I want to argue against in my dissertation. Margaret Canovan also has a book focusing on “the People” and popular sovereignty,4 but except for more thoroughly pointing out the complexity of these concepts, she does not provide much constructive responses to relevant difficulties. Morris’s skepticism about the possibility of attributing sovereignty to “the People” is mainly based on his analysis of the modern notion of