CHAPTER ONE CONCEPTUALIZING POLITICAL OBLIGATION AND SOVEREIGNTY

CHAPTER ONE CONCEPTUALIZING POLITICAL OBLIGATION AND SOVEREIGNTY INTRODUCTION There is no disputing the fact that different political thinkers at different epochs of philosophical enterprise have in different ways concentrated and ruminated on the concepts of political obligation, sovereignty. Ironically, the more definitions given to nip in the bud the various problematic arising from these conceptualizations the more issues and interpretations generated, thereby resulting to chains of ramified conceptions. Like philosophy and politics themselves, the two terms under interrogation here have no univocal or universally acceptable descriptions or nature. Individual philosophers and political thinkers view each of the concepts according to his school of thought. A transition from the question of equivocal descriptions of these terms will land us into a topos of their scope, for they are not terms limited to a particular field of study. The two terms are very much instrumental to and found in disciplines such as political science, philosophy, ethics, government, sociology, anthropology, religion, human and resource control, civilization and humanities. They are undoubtedly indispensable tools for study in these disciplines not only for their conceptual or theoretical importance, but more fundamentally for the practical role which they conspicuously play in bringing about either social transformation or deformation. The two concepts though distinct, have some necessary interconnectedness and interdependence to the extent that one cannot talk of one without the other. This is so because the idea of one necessarily presupposes the other, and in this case, sovereignty gives rise to the idea of political obligation. As a matter of fact, without one there cannot be the other. Political obligation is understood and defined as “the moral obligation to obey the state” John Hoffman and Paul Graham, Introduction to Political Concepts (London: Pearson Longman, 2006), Glossary p. 273 ; sovereignty connotes the power to make and enforce law Arjun Appadorai, The Substance of Politics (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 48. These respective descriptions are not adequate to conceptualize these concepts because they contain some philosophical complexities and conceptual controversies that shroud their meanings in perspectives. Philosophical exposition of all of these various conceptual interpretations and definitional analyses form the fulcrum of our task in the subsequent discussions in this chapter. Let us, by way of prioritization, begin to expose each of these concepts within their contextual application which encapsulate the scope of the work contained in this chapter, especially as it concerns their interrelatedness and interdependence. POLITICAL OBLIGATION IN CONTEXT As earlier noted, the concept of political obligation has attracted so much interest, which has graduated further from the level of its common-sensical connotation to a stricter and more sophisticated level. Issues that problematize the conceptualization of political obligation centre around the questions the term sets to address, namely, the question of whether or not there is need for any theory of obligation at all Iain McLean and Alistair McMillan, eds. Oxford Concise Dictionary of Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 377; or whether there is any moral or prudential ground to obey the law; or whether there is any circumstance that can permit a person to disobey the state law; or, as the Stanford Encyclopaedia of philosophy rightly puts it, whether political obligation is more a matter of being a member of a state or a matter of doing that which the law of State sanctions Online Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy/Political Obligation. First Published Tuesday April 17, 2007; Substantive Revision Friday April 30, 2010, retrieved on 13th October, 2011 ; or whether the acquisition of such obligation has a historical methodology; or whether there is number of persons who have fulfilled the necessary requirement to acquire such obligation. To these questions, various answers and theories have been proffered, with none commanding any univocal approbation, and thus, rendering the question of political obligation unanswerable. On a general consideration, “to become obliged to do something is to bind oneself to do it…obligations must be incurred by a specific act; typically, this act will be promise, which could be in form of debts, contracts, partnerships treaties or conventions.” Iain McLean and Alistair McMillan, Op. Cit. Still on this general conception, obligation is understood as though it were synonymous with “duties”, and in this sense, obligation is defined to mean ‘the ought to do according to a set of rules which are deemed to apply to people irrespective of any consent or contract such people may have made.’ Ibid. There are different kinds of obligation, namely, legal obligation, social obligation, political obligation, John Hoffman and Paul Graham, Op. Cit., p. 202 inter alia. Our concern here is political obligation. In a strict consideration, political obligation, as ‘a rare and elusive concept’ Ibid., possesses a character which makes it indefinable. However, a shift of attention to the standpoint, on which political philosophers have seeming unanimous definitional consensus of political obligation, becomes pertinent. Political obligation is moral duty to obey the law of one’s country or state. Ibid. Political obligation can also be seen as moral obligation to obey the law. Ibid. Civil disobedience implies political obligation in the sense that the offshoot of one leads to issues that get underway in the other. In sum, the two concepts are two sides of a coin. In Hobbes’ view, political obligation is defined when: Right is said aside, either by simply renouncing it; or by transferring it to another…And when a man hath in either manner abandoned, or granted away his right; then he is said to be OBLIGED, or BOUND, not to hinder those, to who such right is grante, or abandoned, from the benefit of it. Jack Lively and Andrew Reeves ed., Modern Political Theory from Hobbes to Marx: Key Debates (London: Routledge, 1989), p. 16 POLITICAL OBLIGATION AND CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE Generally, pragmatic-utilitarian approach to the understanding of the end of the State emphasizes and predicates the need for political obligation on the fact that men obey the State because they stand to receive some benefits by doing so. Arjun Appadorai, Op. Cit., p. 46For the proponents of this theory, the State has some rational end to fulfil; and that purpose is to augment on a larger proportion, the social good of its citizens; as such, the achievement of such end demands a conscientious co-operation with the State and obedience to its directives from the citizens. On a another parlance, egoist utilitarian upholds that civil obedience or rather political obligation is justified on the basis that it is a necessary factor for the actualization of individual citizen’s (social) primary goods; and that each citizen should co-operate with and be subservient to the State so that these needs could be met. For altruist utilitarian, if we need to gain our ends from the State, we must forgo our self-interest and egoistic propensities. John Hoffman and Paul Graham, Op. Cit. Our obligation to obey the State must be borne out of concern for the whole society and not our own self-interest. However, this utilitarian views fall short of some implications: for instance, as Hoffman etal argue, a law breaker may enjoy State-provided social benefits if others forgo their own interest and co-operate with the State, so that he acquires the benefits of social goods without paying the minimum price of obedience. ibid. Nonetheless, this pragmatic-utilitarian theory holds sway in the various theoretical arguments adduced to ground the idea of political obligation: that we all gain by co-operation and this requires that we jettison our immediate self-interest. Ibid. On the other side of the coin, moralist theorists propose that the necessity of political obligation should transcend the consideration of giving up self-interest and transit immediately to the level of the moral implication involved in obliging to the State: that political obligation has some degree of moral judgment in which case civil disobedience can only be justified insofar it only appeals to social moral reasons. Otherwise, it is unjustified. The consequentialist theory has a different understanding and it emphasizes that obedience to civil authority is predicated on the fear of the coercive power exercised by the person or assembly of person holding authority At issue here is the whole idea that there is moral, rational, social or legal right to resist the State and its laws. However, the right to resist the State, like all other rights, is an enabling as well as a limiting factor, that is, it is restricted by some other conditions, namely, that the individual cannot resist the State if reasonable grounds exist to show that the State is making sincere effort to meet its end, even though it has not achieved it as promptly as the citizens wish, or that the process appears not to be at the same pace with that of the citizens. Similarly, the citizen must provide justifications to show that that for which he advocates has an achievable. Also, in the actualization of the citizen’s agitation, legal means should be employed. SOVEREIGNTY The term sovereignty is derivative of the Latin word superanus meaning ‘supremacy’ Arjun Appadorai, Op. Cit., p. 48. It connotes an ultimate authority. Eddy Asirvatham and K.K. Misra, Political Theory (New Delhi: Rajendra Ravindra (Pvt.) Ltd., 2006 ), p. 287 There are different meanings and kinds of sovereignty, namely, titular, legal, political, popular, or de jure and de facto (practical) sovereignty. According to Jean Bodin, the term sovereignty means “the supreme power over citizens and subjects, unrestrained by law.” Anthony Quiton, Political Philosophy, ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967), p. 67 Political sovereignty, which is our focus here, according to Appadorai, is ‘the defined as the power of the State to make law and enforce the law with all the coercive power it cares to employ.’ Arjun Appadorai, Op. Cit., p. 48 In the view of Staatenverbindungen, sovereignty is ‘that characteristic of the State in virtue of which it cannot be legally bound except by its own will or limited by any other power than itself.’ Lehre von den Staatenverbindungen quoted in Appadorai’s The Substance of Politics, Op. Cit. He argues further that “to say that the State is sovereign is to say that the State has supreme or final authority in a community, that its rules override the rules of any other association.” D. D. Raphael, Op. Cit., p. 51 This definition sees sovereignty as a legal authority, in the sense that the State’s rules and laws possess final authority to the extent that there is no appeal from them to any superior set of rules. Ibid., p. 55 And this definition reflects the conception of Soltau who describes sovereignty as ‘the exercise of the final legal coercive power by the State’. Eddy Asirvatham and K. K. Misra, Op. Cit., p. 287 Sovereignty, in the idea of Asirvatham etal, is characterized by absoluteness, universality, inalienability, indivisibility and permanence Ibid., pp. 287-289, for, in the words of Gettel if sovereignty is not absolute, no state exists; if it is divided, more than one state exists. Ibid., p. 289 Austin defines sovereignty as ‘a determinate human superior, not in a habit of obedience to a like superior, (receiving) habitual obedience from the bulk of a given society.’ Anthony Quiton, Op. Cit., p. 67 THEORIES ON LOCATION OF SOVEREIGNTY AND ITS CONSUMMATION IN HOBBES In a synthetic consideration, Gettell has synopsized the diverse theories on the location of sovereignty into three thought categories, and they include “(1) those who opine that sovereignty is located in the citizens or rather the electorate, usually referred to as ‘political sovereignty’ Arjun Appadorai, Op. Cit., p. 50; (2) those who argue that sovereignty is located in State’s legislative arm: parliamentary or primary legislature; (3) and those who opine that sovereignty is located in sum total of all State’s legislative bodies: secondary or statutory legislature. Eddy Asirvatham and K. K. Misra, Op. Cit., p. 291 The last two schools are considered generally as ‘legal sovereignty.’ Arjun Appadorai, Op. Cit., p. 50 The first view is a child of the popular meaning of sovereignty which emphasizes that ‘ultimate authority rests with the people.’ Ibid., p. 290 The idea in the first theory is further enuciated that sovereignty can be said to have meaning and legitimacy only in the people. Put differently, subjects (or in a more official term, citizens) possess the absolute authority to dictate the system of government they want (as in, say, democracy), the set of law that should be operational in the State, the kind of leader they prefer, and the time and section of amendment to the law. The voice and command of the leader is a product of the people’s will and wishes. The leader, however, lacks any authority whatsoever, to make, implement or suspend any policy or law, unless it is sanctioned by the people, either through representative consensus or general (direct) and/or unanimous approbation. In light of this view, Rousseau, a major proponent, has consistently argued and suggested direct democracy as against representative democracy Ibid., p. 296 , in which case the people, who possess the authority can use it through their delegates. In arguing in favour of will therefore authority, for him, can be manifestly exercised only by and in the assembly of people, and not autonomously; and so Government is an executive agent who represents the general will of the citizens. Threading the Rousseauan path, Locke opines that sovereignty is located in the people; but unlike Rousseau, the authority is latent. However, John Austin, in his Province of Jurisprudence Determined, opines in these words: If a determinate human superior, not in the habit of obedience to a like superior, receive habitual obedience from the bulk of a given society, that determinate superior is sovereign in that society, and that society (including the superior) is a society political and independent Eddy Asirvatham and K. K. Misra, Op. Cit., p. 292 By this submission, Austin, in basing his argument on coercion, tries to argue that sovereignty (which acts by power and not authority) has its supremacy located in the law-making body of the State, and not in the citizens nor in the ruler. Thus, he, by way of corroborating his stand, concludes: …Every positive law, or every law simply and strictly so-called, is set directly or circuitously, by a sovereign person or body to a member or members of the independent political society wherein that person or body is sovereign or supreme Arjun Appadorai, Op. Cit., p. 49 Hobbes makes a paradigm turn from the status quo and he establishes theory different from the ideas of Rousseau, Locke and Austin (though Hobbes partially sympathizes with Austin’s submission). In his view, Hobbes attributes and conceptually locates the supremacy of the authority in the ruler. For him, sovereignty is absolute and at the same time representative, since, according to him, the authority is made and established by the people to the extent that the action of the ruler is the action of the people. The ruler, in Hobbes’ provision, is not unlike in Rousseau’s, an executive agent; rather, he is an all-embracing ruler whose commands are binding on all. The three-fold role and capacity of making, interpreting and adjudicating law is exclusive to him; even to the extent of making and implementing policies and laws that might even, in the final analysis, be detrimental to the lives of the citizens. CONCLUSION We have, in some detail, taken an overview of the multi-dimensional conceptualizations of the ideals of political obligation and sovereignty, which, respectively, as we have seen, bothers on the question of why—in the sense of the grounds for obeying state law, and the question of where—in the sense of the location of authority within a civil arrangement. If, for instance, we say ‘A ought to obey’, we would be asked to further complete our proposition with object of obedience, that is, the person who receives the obedience. Then the proposition in its complete sense will appear as, “A ought to obey B. Thus, the idea of political obligation is incomplete unless the idea of who receives such obligation is addressed. It should become clear to a keen follower of our exposition so far to see that there is an inseparable interconnectivity between political obligation and sovereignty, specifically as it relates to the whole idea of whether there is any justification for citizens to obey the law and authority of the State, and to see whether or not actually authority is located in the people, or in the ruler or in the law. The reality of the concept of citizens’ obedience to the State, or put simply, political obligation, therefore, is presupposed by the concept of an authority. Put differently, that obedience can be said to exist only if two parties are involved, one of which is inferior to the other; that is subject and ruler. So, citizens are subject to the dictate of a person or an assembly of persons, who has been made sovereign and accorded authority by the subject, or who is acting through the use of certain de jure (authority), qualities (charismatic leadership) or coercion (de facto). But how, where, when and why does this sovereign-citizen interconnectedness come into being? What was the natural condition of each party before this union? Is the sovereign-subject relationship a natural phenomenon? If yes, then there might be no much dust to raise as to why subjects ought to obey the ruler. But if no, that is, if the relationship is unnatural, (and Hobbes would affirm this), then, why do they have to be connected since each of the two parties can exist independent of the other? And so, we are set to unveil Hobbes’ consideration of the reason for the necessary coming together of both the subject and the sovereign. Therefore, all of these questions regarding the method, place, time and reason for the correlation between the subject and sovereign, as well as the raw (natural) conditions of the two parties, will be attended to, therefore, by Hobbes in our next consideration. 12