The Sovereign Problem In Political Philosophy

Whether the sovereignty should be legally bound is one of the central issues that has been debated in sovereignty study.The arguments on this issue can be roughly divided into two opposite positions,sovereignty not subject to the law vesus sovereignty restrained by law.The former is represented by Locke,Kant and Habermas,who argue that sovereignty arises from the authorization of individuals with natural rights,they authorizing each other,and human right which precedes the sovereign right forms the basis of the legal content of the community.In this perspective,sovereignty is a constitutional power.Because the scope of the use of sovereign power has been regulated in advance,it will constitute an illegal situation and should pay for its liability when it violates legal provisions.The latter is represented by Bodin,Hobbes,Schmitt and so on.They argue that the power of sovereignty is not bound by the legal content and this is the foundation to form and maintain the community.Given that without the protection of that power,the community will fall into chaos and collapse eventually.In this perspective,sovereignty is not only a constitutional power used in accordance with established legal rules,but a power that can be arbitrarily used in the case ignoring law,so for the law(or constitution)inside the community,the breach is not illegal.By examining and analyzing the views expressed by Agamben in his sovereignty study,I believe that he not only opposes the view that sovereignty is subject to legal restraint so that constitutional sovereignty is subject to legal constraints and restrictions,but also argues that sovereignty is free from legal binding,or sovereign possession of illegal immunities is the foundation of stable government.In this both-side-objection,Agamben argues that in order to get rid of the " sovereign commits violence without impunity" problem completely,it is necessary to abandon the community model that depends on the sovereign function,and then he draws the conclusion that the sovereign state should be disintegrated.However,by analyzing Agan’s argument,I do not think he has given sufficient reason for the view that the "sovereign state community should be disintegrated".Given that,the analysis and discussion of Agamban’s perspective of sovereignty is the object of this paper.In the first chapter,I will distinguish the two opposite views on the relationship between sovereignty and law by combing the history of"sovereignty" concept.By respectively analyzing their controversies and arguments,we set up a framework for the study of sovereignty.And we will use this framework as a guide to discuss how Agamban responds and settles them.In the second chapter,I will examine and analyze Agamban’s argument that sovereignty will not be constrained in the Community.His argument is based on Schmitt’s "exceptional state" concept but far more than that.Schmidt is only from the perspective of the justice concept to talk about "exceptional state",Agamben,using the subject-power relations perspective,cut into the discussion about the state of exception.According to this view,the relationship between political subject’s appearance at the initial moment and power is prohibited,rather than the contractarians’ argument that the community and the political subject is the results of the prior individuals’ discussion and therefore the relationship between the individual and the power is an automatic relationship.Based on that Agamban opposes the argument that sovereign power is a constitutional power and it should follow the law,because sovereignty is not bound by the specific legal content is a necessary condition for the creation and maintenance of a community.In Chapter 3 I will show that the analysis and critique of Agamban’s analysis of the causes of condition that sovereign is beyond laws.Agamen argues that this problem arises because of the disintegration of state membership and that the concept of"sacred man" expresses that the modern power mechanism,with its inherently homogeneous identity,cannot be able to clearly identify the object to protect or the object to exclude as it wants.According to this,he pointed out that the most serious problem of modern politics is the state power is out of control,that is the consequence of the gradual loss of the identity of the state membership in the fixed,universal and substantive sense,In front of this country’s mechanism which is set to identify what to protect and what is the threat,each person may be marked as "enemies",and as"Sacred man",who can be killed arbitrarily.In the final chapter,I will try to analyze the Agamban’s proof that sovereignty is out of the constraints of the law,and bases on he starts his criticism about sovereign state community.After that,I am trying to point out that Agamben has not given sufficient arguments and justification for his view that the "sovereign state community should be disintegrated".