Between Anarchy and Leviathan: A Return to Voluntarist Political Obligation

291 Pages·2013·1.22 MB·English

by  Emily Hallock

UCLA
UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Title
Between Anarchy and Leviathan: A Return to Voluntarist Political Obligation
Permalink
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8pj296m6
Author
Hallock, Emily Rachel
Publication Date
2013

Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
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Between Anarchy and Leviathan: A Return to Voluntarist Political Obligation

A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the
requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy
in Political Science

by

Emily Rachel Hallock

2013
© Copyright by
Emily Rachel Hallock
2013
ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION

Between Anarchy and Leviathan: A Return to Voluntarist Political Obligation

by

Emily Rachel Hallock
Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science
University of California, Los Angeles, 2013
Professor Carole Pateman, Chair

No defense of the liberal-democratic state can do without political obligation, yet existing
theories cannot provide a successful account of political obligation. Existing accounts of
obligation cannot parry critiques from rival theories, nor refute philosophical anarchists’
formidable attack on obligation. To move discussion of obligation forward, this dissertation
offers an alternative solution to what George Klosko has called the ‘voluntarist paradox’ of
liberal-democratic political obligation. While liberal ideas about the individual require that any
obligation to obey be assumed through a voluntary act, individuals do not voluntarily assume
obligations frequently enough to support legitimacy claims. In response to this paradox, most
scholars deploy non-voluntary justifications for a general obligation to obey, while philosophical
anarchists deny that such an obligation exists at all. In contrast, I argue that overcoming the
voluntarist paradox requires a radically different view of the aims and scope of political
obligation. While most theories of political obligation begin with a general requirement to obey
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and look for its source, my account begins with voluntary action, and asks what requirements it
can yield. I show that the conventional goal of political obligation – a general, comprehensive
requirement to obey – generates the impasse between obligation’s proponents and philosophical
anarchists, inhibits analysis of democratic self-government, and inaccurately depicts obedience
and law. Instead, I define political obligation as a voluntarily-assumed ‘binding requirement to
take political action,’ a broader category that also includes non-voluntary duties. Voluntarist
obligation, I show, is incompatible with a general, comprehensive requirement to obey the law
because it is law. Instead, much of the time, non-voluntary duty grounds requirements to obey
the law, and voluntarist political obligation concerns the whole variety of political actions one
can voluntarily undertake a requirement to perform. Political obligation is a voluntarist practice
that expresses one’s freedom to create, shape, and revise the rules of the political game, and of
social institutions more generally. A truly voluntarist theory of political obligation lets us
understand and critique enduring yet often overlooked features of liberal-democratic politics
because it goes beyond state-imposed requirements, and looks to the individual actions that
generate those requirements. In liberal democracies, the voluntary acts of state agents develop,
interpret, and enforce laws and policy, and individuals affect the state by voluntarily exercising
their rights and taking political action. Because my account of political obligation connects
voluntarily-assumed requirements to the conditions of political self-determination, it provides a
stronger foundation for liberal democracy, and allows more accurate analysis of normative
demands on political actors.
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The dissertation of Emily Rachel Hallock is approved.
Joshua Dienstag
Andrew Sabl
Seana Shiffrin
Carole Pateman, Committee Chair

University of California, Los Angeles
2013
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For Grandpa Bernie and Mom-Mom
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction....................................................................................................................................1
The Historical Roots of Obligation Revisited....................................................................10
Political Obligation Today.................................................................................................16
Political Obligation Beyond Anarchy and Leviathan........................................................22
Outline of Dissertation.......................................................................................................26

1. Political Obligation and the Law: An Internal Critique of the Obligation to Obey..........31
Obedience to ‘the’ Law in Theories of Political Obligation..............................................32
Differentiating Obedience..................................................................................................40
Disaggregating Justification..............................................................................................56
Implications for Political Obligation.................................................................................62
Conclusion.........................................................................................................................68

2. Voluntarism, Responsibility, and Freedom...........................................................................70
Voluntarism and Responsibility.........................................................................................72
A Definition of Active Voluntarism..................................................................................82
The Semi-Voluntary State.................................................................................................86
Obligation Within a Typology of Binding Requirements.................................................90
Figure 1 – Typology of Ought...............................................................................92
Voluntarist Obligation and Responsibility........................................................................95
Voluntarism Versus Obedience.......................................................................................102
The Distinguishing Features of Political Obligations.....................................................107
The Scope of Voluntarist Political Obligation.................................................................116
The Advantages of Voluntarist Obligation......................................................................119
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................122

3. Meeting the Challenge of Philosophical Anarchism ..........................................................124
A Brief Overview of Philosophical Anarchism...............................................................127
The Paradox of Voluntarist Obligation Revisited............................................................129
The Case Against Philosophical Anarchism....................................................................136
Politics Beyond Voluntarism...........................................................................................137
Coercion, Voluntary Political Association, and Self-Governance..................................139
Voluntarism as the Power to Act.....................................................................................148
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................160

4. From Voluntarism to Freedom: Political Obligation as an Evaluative Standard...........162
The Downside of Political Voluntarism..........................................................................164
Horizontal Association and State Development..............................................................171
The State’s Effect on Horizontal Association..................................................................176
Expanding the Self-Governed Sphere: Political Obligation as an Evaluative Standard..179
Political Obligation in Practice: Three Case Studies.......................................................188
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................197

5. Democracy as Action: The Politics of Political Obligation................................................200
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Democracy and the True Voluntarist Paradox.................................................................203
The ‘Democratic Gap’ and Other Empirical Challenges.................................................210
Deliberative Democratic Theory: Justification Without Decision-Makers.....................218
A Defense of Participatory Democratic Theory..............................................................226
Democracy as Action.......................................................................................................234
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................247

Conclusion..................................................................................................................................250

Bibliography...............................................................................................................................258
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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 – Typology of Ought………………………………………………………………….92
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