Democracy and Its Others

320 Pages·2016·6.637 MB·English

by  Jeffrey H. Epstein

Democracy and Its Others
About the series
Political Theory and Contemporary Philosophy
Political Theory and Contemporary Philosophy encourages a sustained
dialogue between the most important intellectual currents in recent European
philosophy—including phenomenology, deconstruction, hermeneutics—and
key political theories and concepts, both classical and modern. In doing so, it not
only sheds new light on today’s shifting political realities but also explores the
previously neglected consequences of the two disciplines.
Series editor: Michael Marder
Other volumes in the series include:
Medialogies: Inflationary Media and the Crisis of Reality, David R. Castillo and
William Egginton
The Sacred and the Political: Explorations on Mimesis, Violence and Religion,
edited by Elisabetta Brighi and Antonio Cerella
The Democracy of Knowledge, Daniel Innerarity (translated by Sandra Kingery)
The Voice of Conscience: A Political Genealogy of Western Ethical Experience,
Mika Ojakangas
The Politics of Nihilism, edited by Nitzan Lebovic and Roy Ben-Shai
On Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, Martin Heidegger (edited by Peter Trawny,
Marcia Cavalcante Schuback and Michael Marder, translated by Andrew
J. Mitchell)
Deconstructing Zionism, Michael Marder and Santiago Zabala
Heidegger on Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, Marcia Sa
Cavalcante Schuback, Michael Marder and Peter Trawny
The Metaphysics of Terror, Rasmus Ugilt
The Negative Revolution, Artemy Magun
The Voice of Conscience, Mika Ojakangas
Democracy and Its Others
Jeffrey H. Epstein
Bloomsbury Academic
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First published 2016
Paperback edition fi rst published 2017
© Jeffrey H. Epstein, 2016
Jeffrey H. Epstein has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act,
1988, to be identified as Author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any
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the author.
British Library Cataloguing- in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: HB: 9781501312007

PB: 9781350061095

ePDF: 9781501312014

ePub: 9781501312021
Library of Congress Cataloging- in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
Series: Political Theory and Contemporary Philosophy
Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
1 Ethnos, Demos, and Foreignness 13
Playing politics: ethnos and the (re)unification of the demos 15
2 Hospitality or War? A Foreigner Approaches 24
The Piraeus 26
Cephalus, the metic 31
Polemarchus, the metic 34
Thrasymachus, the indecidable foreigner 39
3 The Fearful Origins of Sovereignty in the Social Contract Tradition 47
The fearful origins of sovereignty in Hobbes 48
The fearful origins of sovereignty in Locke 56
The fearful origins of sovereignty in Rousseau 58
4 The Qualities of Sovereignty in the Social Contract Tradition 63
Hobbes’ absolute sovereign 63
Locke’s neutral umpire 71
Rousseau’s general will 78
A brief summary of sovereignty 85
5 Foreignness, Sovereignty, and the Social Contract Tradition 87
Territorial exclusions 88
Homogeneous unity and the sovereign exclusion of foreignness 91
Foreignness in Hobbes’ theorization of sovereignty 96
Foreignness in Locke’s theorization of sovereignty 103
Foreignness in Rousseau’s theorization of sovereignty 111
6 The Naturalization of Artificial Sovereignty and Foreignness 130
Hobbes’ naturalization of artificial sovereignty 132

Locke’s naturalization of artificial sovereignty 137
Rousseau’s naturalization of artificial sovereignty 146
The naturalization of artificial foreignness 153
vi Contents
7 The Foreign-Sovereign 159
The quasi- regime 165
8 Foreign Unto It-Self, the Democratic Nation-State 174
Democracy’s others and the protection of the democratic
nation- state 174
Foreign unto it- self: autoimmune democracy 182
Democracy to come and the foreign- sovereign 200
9 The Foreign-Citizen at the Threshold of Democratic
Cosmopolitanism 216
Universal hospitality at the border between the moral and legal 217
Unconditional hospitality and the cosmopolitanism to come 219
Democratic iterations 231
The foreign- citizen 240
Notes 251
Bibliography 301
Index 306
Acknowledgments
I am honored to thank all of the friends and colleagues who dedicated countless
hours discussing, critiquing, and improving this book. I am especially indebted
to Eduardo Mendieta who influenced my thinking and supported this project
through every phase. I am grateful to Linda Alcoff, Ed Casey, and Anne O’Byrne
whose comments on earlier drafts were frequent and challenging. At the earliest
stages, the generous inquiries of Emiliano Diaz, Whitney Howell, Jane Jones,
Greg Kirk, and Adam Rosenfeld helped to shape and refine what would come.
Finally, a special debt of gratitude is owed to Daniela Winer whose insights were
essential to identifying the central features of this work and their relevance to
contemporary events.