Sovereignty

CARL SCHMITT’S CONCEPT OF SOVEREIGNTY IS A BORDERLINE CONCEPT THAT DIFFERS FROM HOBBE’S AND BODIN’S UNDERSTANDING IN CERTAIN KEY RESPECTS. Sovereignty is the supreme authority realised by the constituents of a territory. In modern terms it means authority exercised by a state (political authority) over the people of that state. It implies independence of a state and control over the conditions one lives under. It also thrusts responsibility upon the people to be obedient to the sovereign authority. This concept became prominent through the writings of political thinkers like Carl Schmitt, Jean Bodin, Thomas Hobbes and many more. But each of them had distinct views on who should be considered sovereign, where this sovereignty is derived from, and the powers of the sovereign. Carl Schmitt defines sovereign as he who decides upon the exception. By exception he means he who has the authority to decide in case of emergency of state. He believes that a rule made during the emergency of state is an actual applicable rule as opposed to a rule made under general conditions, which does not include the occurrence of an exception. Exceptions prove everything, they make the concept of sovereignty an important concept as the emergency of state cannot be foreseen by the sovereign and therefore the decision taken by the sovereign in such a situation proves whether the authority lies with the correct representative of the people or not. He emphasizes upon the state in conflict and what intrigues him the most is the norms that the authority makes during the state of conflict. As the constitution does not mention the norms to be followed in a state of conflict, it just mentions who decides in the state of conflict. Emphasis is laid upon this because according to him sovereignty conceptualizes two important points, which are security and public order. These cannot be implemented or tested upon unless they are threatened in any manner. The ultimate sovereign authority is the one who decides whether a normal situation exists. But the thoughts of Thomas Hobbes and Jean Bodin on the concept of sovereignty differed from the borderline concept justified by Schmitt. Thomas Hobbes first describes a state without any power. According to him a state should have collective authority to keep people in awe otherwise it would be a state of war. Every man against every man would be the common principle followed by the people and nothing then can be defined as unjust under this very principle because if there is no authority to differentiate the right from the wrong no injustice can be done. This principle was commonly called jus naturale. To stop this state of war, law was brought into the system so as to curb the civil liberties of particular men so that they cannot hurt another. In this concept the legislators of the commonwealth made the law and the people conferred power upon them to make laws in turn making the legislators a sovereign body. But in this concept, the sovereign was not subject to the laws he was above the law. The will of the legislator was expressed as law of the land. Sovereign authority was famously called the Leviathan by Hobbes. It was like a contract between the people and the authority. The people vest power in the authority making it a sovereign authority in exchange for protection. Jean Bodin’s concept of sovereignty was similar to that of Hobbes in many ways. He defines sovereignty as a supreme perpetual and indivisible power. He also believed that the sovereign was above the law and absolute in nature. His writings on sovereignty focused on two main key aspects. Firstly, sovereignty is indivisible. If the powers were distributed then there would be a state of conflict. He saw unity among a state only when the power was held by one ruler or group. The only way he saw the separation of powers was if the powers were equally separated between two parties ruling the same state . Secondly, sovereignty is absolute in nature. There had to be an individual, group or institution where the power of the state was concentrated and this power could not be encroached upon by any other independent agent of the state. But Bodin’s concept of sovereignty was exercised only in the public sphere not the private sphere, it was the right of an individual. The thoughts of all the three political thinkers vary. Carl Schmitt’s concept,a borderline concept surrounds the rule of the exception and disregards the general norm, there is no concept of absolute authority or separation of powers. Hobbes concept includes absolute authority which implies sovereignty in the hands of a single individual or a group but does not talk about Schmitt’s concept of rule of the exception. Bodin’s concept states that sovereignty is indivisible and it is absolute. But again does not talk about the rule of exception put forward by Schmitt. There is also the question of who is competent to make norms in the case of emergency in all the three concepts of sovereignty' For Bodin and Hobbes the power lies with a group or an individual so they are the only competent authority to make norms in such a situation. But under Schmitt’s concept the answer to this question yet remains a dilemma. In addition to this Schmitt defines the normal order of state and legal order,which can only exist in the state if there is normal order. Normal order of state being when all the laws are applicable to the situation and these norms are a part of the daily life of the people. For Hobbes and Bodin there is only one order of state which is the normal order as they do not consider the exception. The tendency observed by Hobbes and Bodin can also be called as the rationalist tenency which ignores the emergency or the exception as opposed to the natural law tendency followed by Schmitt which takes interest in the emergency of the state. Thus through this distinction among the three political thinkers we come across three different ideas of sovereignty which were in force during that period. Schmitt gives us the concept of rule of exception , Hobbes gives us the concept of conferring power which in the modern state forms the basis for democracy and Bodin gives us a view on separation of powers within a state. Bibliography Websites used: 1. www.newworldencyclopedia.org/enrty/jean-bodin (Date of Access: 13/07/2010) 2. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sovereign (Date of Access:13/07/2010) Work’s cited and used: 1. Jean Bodin: On sovereignty , Four chapters from The Six Books of the Commonwealth, Cambridge University Press 2. Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan , Cambridge University Press. 3. Carl Schmitt: Political Theology 1934