Hannah Arendt and the Problem of Democratic Revolution
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO Hannah Arendt and the Problem of Democratic Revolution A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science John Louis LeJeune Committee in charge: Professor Tracy B. Strong, Chair Professor Harvey Goldman Professor Gerry Mackie Professor Richard Madsen Professor Philip Roeder 2014 Copyright John Louis LeJeune, 2014 All rights reserved. The dissertation of John Louis LeJeune is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: Chair University of California, San Diego 2014 iii Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to the memory of my aunt, Melanie Maria LeJeune (1965-2013), who was a mother to all, and to Wang Ke, of two! iv Epigraph The ceaseless, senseless demand for original scholarship in a number of fields, where only erudition is now possible, has led either to sheer irrelevancy, the famous knowing of more and more about less and less, or to the development of pseudo-scholarship which actually destroys its object. Hannah Arendt 1972 v Table of Contents Signature Page……………………………………………………………………………………….. iii Dedication……………………………………………………………………………………………... iv Epigraph………………………………………………………………………………………………... v Table of Contents…………………………………………………………………………………… vi Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………... vii Vita………………………………………………………………………………………………………... viii Abstract of the Dissertation….……………...…………………………………………………. ix Chapter I: Revolutionary Narrative and the Twentieth Century………… 1 1. A Century Passed…………………………………………..……………………………………. 1 2. Ruptures in Time……………………………………………………………………….............. 6 3. Liberalism and Democracy………………………………………………………………….. 18 4. Wars, Revolutions, and Reactions………………………………………………………... 25 5. The Birth of Liberal Revolution…………………………………………………………… 37 6. Democracy and Orthodoxy………………………………………………………………….. 50 7. Home to Roost: Arab Spring, Occupy, and Revolutionary Action…………… 63 8. Hannah Arendt and the Study of Revolution………..........................……………… 78 Chapter II: Power and Political Order…………………………………...………….. 92 9. A Sociological Concept……………………………………………….................................. 93 10. Concert and the Gathering…………….......................................................................... 101 11. Potential and Plurality……….……..……………………………………........................... 112 Chapter III: The Problem of Revolutionary Leadership……………. ……..... 126 12. The Year of the Protestor………………………………………………………………….. 126 13. Representation and Res Publica……………………………………...…………………. 138 14. Picking up Power I: Revolutionary Situations and Real Revolutionaries……………………….. 151 15. Lenin, Luxemburg, and Revolutionary Statesmanship………………………... 168 Chapter IV: Egypt’s Leaderless Revolution………………………………............. 189 16. The Election of Irony……………………………………………….………………………... 190 17. Picking up Power II: Movement and The Crisis of Egyptian Leadership.. 221 18. Thinking with Arendt: Modern Revolution and the Arab Spring………….. 255 Chapter V: Freedom and Utopia: Liberalism, Revolution, and Violence…………….………………..…………...………...…………… 282 19. Utopia and the Liberal Cycle…………………………………………………………….... 283 20. Political Councils and the Lure of Violence………......……..……..…………….…. 306 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………………… 325 vi Acknowledgements The number of schools I’ve attended in one form or another over the past fifteen years has been a running joke in my family—UCSD, Bard College, National Taiwan Normal University, Marquette University, University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee, Boston University, the State University of West Georgia, and even a few summer semesters at the University of Florida and Central Florida Community College. And maybe it’s the Hegel talking, but looking back it all seems essential to whatever this dissertation is, and whoever I’ve become in the process. The debts I’ve accrued are of course enormous, and I can’t possibly do them justice here. But if you’re reading this with anticipation you should probably expect a letter—or in Ke’s case a really big gift—sometime soon. * * * * Large portions of “Chapter III: The Problem of Revolutionary Leadership” were previously published in the article “Hannah Arendt’s Revolutionary Leadership,” HannahArendt.net, Vol. 7, No. 1 (2013), pp. 1-25. An altered version of “Chapter IV: Egypt’s Leaderless Revolution” will be published in a tentatively titled article called “Picking up Power: Hannah Arendt and Egypt’s Leaderless Revolution,” in Political Theory and the Arab Spring, ed. Brian Mello and Glenn Mackin, Bloomsbury, anticipated publication 2015. vii Vita B.A. Boston University Political Science 2003 M.A. Marquette University Political Science 2005 Junior Teaching Fellow, Hannah Arendt Center 2012-13 Bard College Ph. D. University of California, Political Science 2014 San Diego Publications “Picking up Power: Hannah Arendt and Egypt’s Leaderless Revolution,” in Political Theory and the Arab Spring, ed. Brian Mello and Glenn Mackin, Bloomsbury (forthcoming 2015) “Revolution,” The Encyclopedia of Political Thought. Michael T. Gibbons, Ed. Indianapolis: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014. “Genital Mutilation,” The Encyclopedia of Political Thought. Michael T. Gibbons, Ed. Indianapolis: Wiley Blackwell, 2014. “Hannah Arendt’s Revolutionary Leadership,” HannahArendt.net, Vol. 7, No. 1 (2013), pp. 1-25. with Gerry Mackie, “Social Dynamics of Abandonment of Harmful Practices: A new look at the theory.” Innocenti Working Paper 2009-06, Special Series on Social Norms and Harmful Practices, UNICEF Innocenti Research Center, Florence, May 2009. viii Abstract of the Dissertation Hannah Arendt and the Problem of Democratic Revolution by John Louis LeJeune Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science University of California, San Diego, 2014 Professor Tracy Strong, Chair In 2011 the wave of revolutionary upheavals in the Arab world and the ‘Occupy’ protests in the industrialized West together resurrected important questions about the nature and morality of revolution that had faded from view following the benign, non-violent “liberal revolutions” of 1989 in Eastern Europe. In the troubled aftermath of 2011 and the chaos that followed the “Arab Spring,” however, the novel alliance between political liberalism and democratic revolution witnessed over the last quarter century has suddenly become doubtful. ix The 2011 revolts produced new models of revolution, including “leaderless” revolution, that built upon the mythology of “velvet” revolution inspired by 1989. And in response to 1989 and 2011 scholars and activists alike have often turned to the political theory of Hannah Arendt either to bolster their normative political aspirations or to account for surprising revolutionary events. This dissertation contests many of these appropriations—most notably those which use Arendt to condone “leaderless” models of revolution and “horizontalist” principles of “non- representation” in revolutionary contexts. I argue that such appropriations not only misunderstand Arendt’s theory of non-violent power, but their application in practice has undermined real projects of revolutionary democracy on the ground. In response to this I clarify Arendt’s sociological understanding of political power and the foundations of political order, and place Arendt in conversation with major sociologists of her time. I also argue that Arendt’s revolutionary theory is inspired principally by Lenin, who provides the model for Arendt of “real revolutionary” leadership. I then show how Arendt’s sociological analysis of power and leadership illuminates the democratic failures of the recent Egyptian revolution, where revolutionaries confused force with power, and where the absence of responsible leadership created the opportunity for continued military dictatorship. x Chapter I: Revolutionary Narrative and the Twentieth Century Wisdom is a virtue of old age, and it seems to come only to those who, when young, were neither wise nor prudent. -Hannah Arendt1 As long as the domestic situation was normal and peaceful… theoretical ambiguity was certainly not an issue. -Carl Schmitt2 See how his shoulder-blades are now his chest. Because he aspired to see too far ahead he looks behind and treads a backward path. -Dante’s Virgil in Hell3 1. A CENTURY PASSED The “short twentieth century” lasted from 1914 to the end of the Soviet era4 and was one of the most grotesquely violent periods in human history. It was a century whose brutal “physiognomy” (as Hannah Arendt called it) was determined by a relentless series of wars and revolutions in circumstances that often rendered the two indistinguishable. It was an era steered along hazardous ideological fault lines in which inherited nineteenth century ideologies—communism and capitalism, 1 Hannah Arendt, “Isak Dinesen: 1885-1963,” Men in Dark Times. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1968, pp. 95-109. 2 Carl Schmitt, Legality and Legitimacy. John McCormick ed. Durham: Duke University Press, 2004 [1932], p. 23. 3 Dante Alighieri, The Inferno XX, 37-9. Trans. Robert Hollander and Jean Hollander. New York: Random House, 2000. 4 Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes; A History of the World, 1914-1991. New York: Vintage, 1996, p. ix. 1 2 nationalism and imperialism, liberalism and democracy—fashioned new and dynamic combinations and assumed novel political forms. And whether seized by charismatic personalities and radicalized in national and pan-national mass movements, or simply pursued to their logical political ends,