Leadership in State Genesis: Creative Vicediction, Guardianship, and the Crystallization of Sovereign Authority
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Leadership in State Genesis: Creative Vicediction, Guardianship, and the Crystallization of Sovereign Authority DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Tahseen Kazi Graduate Program in Comparative Studies The Ohio State University 2014 Dissertation Committee: Eugene Holland, Advisor Sonja Amadae Philip Armstrong Mathew Coleman Luis Lobo-Guerrero Copyrighted by Tahseen Kazi 2014 Abstract The complicity of leadership in the genesis of sovereign authority is neglected in contemporary political thought to the detriment of our understanding of both of these concepts. Dissatisfied with contemporary reliance on notions such as sovereign decision which ultimately imply primal repression as the sole source of all authority, my research takes the genesis of sovereignty as a problem to be solved rather than as an unalterable, natural occurrence to be presumed. Drawing on such diverse resources as Foucault’s concept of parrhesia, Weber’s concept of charisma, anthropological and mythological accounts of authority, Simondon’s theory of the genesis of the individual as crystallization, and primarily on Deleuzian philosophy, I offer an account of the genesis of the sovereign state as the result of the conjugation of two modes of leadership: leadership by guardianship and leadership by creative vicediction. Whereas leadership by guardianship in the Platonic tradition makes claim to judgment on the authority of customary founding myths, thereby severely limiting leadership’s transformative potential, leadership by creative vicediction, a ii concept I develop, trespasses on such myths to critically engage with their representation of the present circumstance, and presubjectively and affectively guides others toward another way of being. I argue that the sovereign state is the outcome of the invention of a myth that conjugates these two leadership modes and thereby crystallizes a socially hierarchized community, such as the invention of the “divine right of kings” that conjugated Papal guardianship of the Christian Scholastic doctrine with unsettling, pagan, charismatic kingship. I present a genealogy of leadership in the seventeenth and eighteenth century to make the argument that this period witnessed the genesis of a new form of sovereignty, one that is managed by not one but ongoing inventions of new myths that conjugate guardianship of the body politic with any emergence of creative vicediction. I show that it took the biopolitical technique of population manipulation by political arithmetic, a precursor to political economics, to adequately invent new myths and realize the genesis of the modern liberal state. iii Dedication To Naseem, Kabir, Shaheen, Simeen, James, and Julian iv Acknowledgments I would like to thank those who have helped and guided me in my wanders through politics, philosophy, sociology, leadership discourses, and cognitive science, out of all of which this dissertation has come about. With my advisor Gene Holland’s guidance, I have rediscovered the joy of research and writing. On hearing me say that I wanted to write a dissertation on leadership inspired by Deleuze, Gene did not flinch. I was directed to Gene’s Nomad Citizenship in which I found to my delight that leadership plays a key role. I immediately knew I was in a great place for my first book-length writing project. I would like to give many thanks to Molly Cochran for helping me make the transition from the world of nuclear (non)proliferation policymaking to political philosophy. My travels since those early days have been long, winding, at times deeply unsettling, and yet very fulfilling. Philip Armstrong’s remarkable ability to say so much in few words is a continuing source of wonder to me, and I am keenly aware that I have much still to learn from his insights. Sonja Amadae and Mathew Coleman have both inspired me by their teaching and by showing me new discourses to explore. My external faculty committee member Luis Lobo-Guerrero v graciously accepted my invitation to join the committee, and I sincerely thank Luis for his very valuable comments on the full draft. I would also like to thank Alex Wendt for suggesting I delve into Weber’s charisma in my research, and Rick Herrmann for encouraging my early forays into writing on political leadership. Many thanks go to Vicki Birchfield for her encouragement and for giving me an intellectual community while I completed my dissertation at home in Atlanta. Last but by no means least, I am happy to acknowledge my fellow students at Ohio State alongside whom I carried out my studies. In particular, my thanks go to Emilie Bécault, Myriam Chandler, and Erin Graham with whom I shared my years in Columbus. To James I can only say that I never thought our ride would go like this! Julian entered our lives early in the writing of this dissertation with a frank, refreshing disinterest in my work. With his easy vigor and unabashed celebration of life, Julian takes us outdoors and brings laughter in. This dissertation is dedicated to James and Julian as much as it is to my parents Naseem and Kabir, and to my sisters Shaheen and Simeen, for their cultivation of an intuitive appreciation for nomadic life. vi Vita 1987 ............................................................. The New English School, Kuwait 2001 ............................................................. B.S. Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology 2004 ............................................................ M.S. International Affairs, Georgia Institute of Technology 2012-2014 ................................................... Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Comparative Studies, The Ohio State University Fields of Study Major Field: Comparative Studies vii Table of Contents Dedication ...................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgments ........................................................................................... v Vita ................................................................................................................ vii List of Figures ................................................................................................. xi Chapter 1: Leadership and Sovereignty: A Quasi-Weberian Critique ............ 1 The Argument of the Dissertation ......................................................................... 1 The Structure of the Dissertation ........................................................................ 18 Chapter 2: Biopolitical Sovereignty by Management of the Body Politic ...... 31 Pastoralism in Post-Revolutionary Discourse on Machiavelli’s The Prince .......42 Pastoral Care of the Passions after the Council of Trent .............................42 Pastoral Care of the Passions in the Republican Tradition of the English Interregnum .................................................................................................. 46 Pastoralism and Biopolitics in Political Arithmetic ............................................ 52 William Petty and the Politics of Transmutation ........................................ 53 The Pastoral Ministry of Excise Taxation by Political Arithmetic and Its Judgment ........................................................................................................ 58 Biopolitics and the Individuation of Prime Ministerial Authority: Walpole’s Management of the South Sea Crisis ...................................................................65 Management, Desire, and the Spiritualized Urstaat ...................................65 The South Sea Crisis and Walpole’s Creation of the State Executive .........70 Biopolitics and Prime Ministerial Authority: Pitt’s Management of the East India Crisis ............................................................................................................ 85 The Perverse Intensity of Company Rule in India ....................................... 85 Pitt’s Response: The India Act and the Commutation Act .......................... 91 viii The Legacy of Pitt’s Management Virtuosity: A Britain Ready for Its Imperial Century........................................................................................... 97 Chapter 3: Foucault and Weber on Leadership in the Genesis of Authority ..................................................................................................................... 100 Weber’s Charisma and Foucault’s Parrhesia: A Comparison ........................... 103 Charisma in Weber’s Economy and Society ............................................... 104 Parrhesia in Foucault’s Late Lectures ......................................................... 108 Foucault and Weber on the Divine Right of Kings .................................... 120 Comparing the Oeuvres of Foucault and Weber .............................................. 124 Different Lives: Leadership and the Human Condition in Foucault and Weber ............................................................................................................................. 130 Foucault, Governmentalities, and the Parrhesiastic Modality ................... 132 Foucault and Weber: Two Distinct Projects Regarding Leadership ......... 136 Foucault, Parrhesia, and Sovereignty ......................................................... 142 Chapter 4: The Platonic Guardian and His Deleuzian Double .................... 148 Platonic Leadership and Its