political obligation nock

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On the Dissent Theory of Political Obligation Author(s): C. J. Nock Source: Polity, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Winter, 1995), pp. 141-157Published by: Palgrave Macmillan JournalsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3235198Accessed: 28-10-2015 09:36 UTC

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On the Dissent Theory of Political Obligation*

C. J. Nock McMaster University

Growing realization that the consent theory of political obligation is not supported by political realities threatens liberalism with irrelevance by undermining its account of relations between citizens and states. However, a liberal account of citizen-state relations need not rest on consent theory. Refocused to pay attention to the absence or presence and character of dissent in a country, liberalism can offer a coherent and persuasive account of political obligation that undergirds maintenance of a society based on rights and self-governance.

Christopher John Nock is currently a part-time instructor at McMaster University in Canada. His previous articles "The Welfare State: An Affront to Freedom?" and "Equal Freedom and Unequal Property" in the Canadian Journal of Political Science explore the internal incoherence of key libertarian arguments for restricted government.

The liberal notion of individual liberty-grounded in the principle of a natural equal right to self-governance-seems to demand a strictly volun- tarist account of the relationship between citizen and state. This explains the adherence of many liberal writers to the consent theory of political obligation. Consent would render self-assumed the obligation to obey and transform the actual power of the state into a form compatible with liberal freedom. However, it is now widely acknowledged that few people have actually consented to be governed by the powers that be.1 This sug-

*The author thanks Tom Lewis and John Seaman for their comments on an earlier ver- sion of this article. Thanks is also due to Tom Lewis for invaluable discussions concerning the Hobbesian account of political authority.

1. This view has been argued for by various writers on the problem of political obligation over many decades. See Joseph Tussman, Obligation and the Body Politic (London: Oxford University Press, 1960); A. John Simmons, Moral Principles and Political Obliga- tion (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979); John Horton, Political Obligation

Polity Volume XX VHf, Number 2 Winter 1995 Polity Volume XXVIII, Number 2 Winter 1995



142 On the Dissent Theory

gests that consent theory is in danger of becoming essentially irrelevant for understanding the relationship between subjects and states. The fact that citizens have not consented suggests that no existing states-includ- ing those claiming liberal-democratic credentials-can be considered legitimate under consent theory. Beyond this, the consent theory of political obligation currently seems to have little to say.2 Thus the link to consent theory threatens liberalism with irrelevance.

The aim of this article is to restore the relevance of the liberal framework by demonstrating that it is not dependent upon consent theory, which fundamentally misconstrues the nature of the relationship between the liberal state and its subjects. Consent theorists have generally committed two key errors; first, they have tended to take literally the classical liberal metaphor of the contractarian basis of society; and second, they have sought to apply the notion of the liberal contract from the perspective of the individual.3 These errors have led consent theorists to suggest that a genuinely liberal state could only emerge from the mutual ongoing agreement of naturally free individuals who have come together with a view to securing their various ends. This view-which has prompted the search for consent where none exists-has little basis in reality. The bulk of contemporary states possessing a recognizable claim to liberal credentials have evolved out of illiberal regimes, and their citizens generally have not consented to be governed. As such, these states cannot be expected to meet the criterion of strict voluntarism consent theorists erroneously extract from the metaphor of contract.

The contentions of this paper are grounded in the view that we can make a clearer formulation of the origins and nature of the liberal state by resisting the temptation to search for consent where none exists or, indeed, could exist. Liberals need to recognize the metaphor of contract

(Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press, 1992), esp. ch. 2; A. John Simmons, On the Edge of Anarchy: Locke, Consent, and the Limits of Society (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993); and Edward A. Harris, "From Social Contract to Hypothetical Agreement: Consent and the Obligation to Obey the Law," Columbia Law Review, 92 (1992): 651-83.

2. In On the Edge of Anarchy, p. 268, Simmons has pushed consent theory to its logical limits and is drawn to conclude that all governments are illegitimate. It is now accepted- even by those who retain faith in consent theory-that the most this theory might achieve is a demonstration of how government by consent might be made possible despite the fact that no existing political authority is liberal in the sense consent theorists have traditionally insisted it should be. See in this regard Bernard R. Boxill, "On Some Criticisms of Consent Theory," Journal of Social Philosophy, 24 (Spring 1993): 81-102; and Harry Beran, The Consent Theory of Political Obligation (London: Croom Helm, 1987).

3. See Thomas J. Lewis, "On Using the Concept of Hypothetical Consent," Canadian Journal of Political Science, 22 (December 1989): 793-807.



C. J. Nock 143

for what it is: "an abstraction that does not correspond to any past or present event,"4 which is properly applied from the perspective of the de facto power, rather than that of the individual. While real citizens in actual states have not consented, the metaphor of contract still signifies what is needed to transform de facto power into liberal authority.

I maintain that the origins of the liberal state lie in a purely political decision made by the ruler to proceed as if liberal subjects had consented. On this view, achieving a reasonable facsimile of the political relations implied by the metaphor of contract relies upon the state producing liberal subjects-not vice versa as the consent theorist would have it. What is at stake here can most clearly be indicated by utilizing some of Hobbes's contentions in his Leviathan. Accordingly, I shall employ these contentions-supplemented by others drawn from James M. Buchanan's Hobbesian liberalism-to develop the foundations of an alternative to consent theory. On the basis of this alternative, I will contend that what the liberal state needs to concern itself with is not the presence (or otherwise) of consent, but the absence (or otherwise) of dissent. I will then assess the implications of this dissent theory for contemporary liberal- democratic states and suggest that, under present conditions, it requires a shift towards a more participatory form of democracy.

I. The Nature of the Hypothetical Contract

Anglo-American liberalism has its origins in a particular type of response to the horrors of civil war resulting from the religious value-pluralism of seventeenth-century England. Value-pluralism, as Hobbes was acutely aware, means that various individuals, groups, and coalitions hold dif- fering values that are sometimes not merely difficult to balance, but are irreconcilable. Since many human beings are intolerant of those with whom they disagree, a sovereign that obviously promotes the claims of certain individuals or groups at the expense of others produces its own internal enemies. If it produces sufficient numbers of these enemies, it sows the seeds for its own demise through the resulting civil war. Here, the state of nature is not something that rational men contract their way out of. Rather, it is the state into which society is doomed to fall unless the sovereign takes pains to rule in accordance with the metaphor of contract.5

4. Lewis, "On Using the Concept of Hypothetical Consent," p. 795. 5. John W. Seaman, "Hobbes on Public Charity & the Prevention of Idleness: A

Liberal Case for Welfare," Polity, 23 (Fall 1990): 123.




That Hobbes understood the contractarian basis of a stable society metaphorically is indicated by his indifference to the origins of political power. He acknowledged that de facto power could immediately achieve the status of liberal authority through the creation of a sovereign by insti- tution.6 Yet the fact of the matter is that in his day, as in our own, such sovereigns were in short supply. What we have to deal with primarily is de facto political power that has originated in conquest or civil war.7 For Hobbes, such de facto power could approximate the status of liberal authority to the extent that it approximated the form which would pre- vail if every citizen had said to every citizen "IAuthorise and give up my Right of Governing myselfe, to this Man, or to this Assembly of men, on the condition, that thou give up thy Right to him, and Authorise all his Actions in like manner."8 On this perspective, the capacity to create a reasonable facsimile of liberal authority is placed firmly in the hands of the powers that be.

Hobbes held that the sovereign had an immediate interest in attempt- ing to replicate the political relations implied by the metaphor of contract. Doing this would provide the best hedge against its own destruc- tion by minimizing the risk of civil war. As such, the purpose of the Leviathan was to offer sovereigns advice on "how to govern."9 Only by learning this lesson could the sovereign power be rendered capable of undertaking the longer-term task of teaching subjects "how to obey."10 As such, the Hobbesian framework suggests that the origins of liberal society lie with the de facto power reaching the politically prudential decision to rule as if its authority originated in the consent of its subjects. The first step in this process is for the sovereign power to commit itself to the principle of formal equality-what Hobbes called "Equity"-in its dealings with its subjects. Only sovereigns with significant power can take this initial step for securing peace. No sovereign dependent upon the good graces of particular groups of subjects could sustain a long-term commitment to formal equality.

The commitment to formal equality demands two immediate things of

6. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, or the Matter, Forme, and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiastical and Civil, ed. C. B. Macpherson (London: Penguin, 1985), pp. 228-30.

7. Lewis, "On Using the Concept of Hypothetical Consent," p. 797. 8. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 227 (emphasis in original). As is noted by Seaman ("Hobbes

on Public Charity & the Prevention of Idleness," p. 125), the key part of the sentence leading to this quote are the words "as if," suggesting that Hobbes recognized that few-or no-actual commonwealths had been founded this way.

9. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 408. 10. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 408.



C. J. Nock 145

the sovereign power; first, it must ensure that its laws-and their associated punishments-are applied equally to all subjects regardless of socio- economic status; 1 and second, it must decide all issues of public conflict through an impartial assessment that assigns equal weight to the liberal demands of the parties in dispute.1 Subjects must be sufficiently in awe of the sovereign power that they will not object to this equal treatment of their adversaries.13 Thus, the sovereign's commitment to formal equality seeks to secure a particular mode of public behaviour from subjects. It demands a public tolerance of value-pluralism and sovereign neutrality. No subject has a claim to special treatment based on wealth, rank, or wisdom. Those subjects who hold their own values in such high esteem that they will not accept the principle of formal equality are not fit to be part of the Hobbesian settlement and must be crushed by the sovereign.

Hobbes supposed the all-powerful sovereign's commitment to formal equality would recommend itself to the prudent subject. Faced by a sovereign that offers no chance of special treatment, formal equality is both the most that prudent subjects can expect, and the least they should settle for-as is indicated by the laws of nature.14 Hobbes supposed that the vast majority of subjects could readily be educated to accept formal equality and he recommended that the sovereign undertake such education.15 There is no immediate sense in which the subjects of Hobbes's sovereign can be said to have consented. They would likely prefer a ruler that would promote their interests at the expense of their adversaries. They are unlikely to be fully satisfied by the decisions of a sovereign committed to the neutrality of formal equality-such decisions are hard- ly ever likely to satisfy anyone, let alone everyone. Yet the suggestion is that the vast majority of subjects are prudent and, confronted by an all- powerful sovereign, will come to accept the terms of the Hobbesian settlement. They can be educated to see the neutral state as offering the best possible solution to the ever-present dangers inherent in value-pluralism. Wherever the ruler's gospel of political equality generates the desired results, its subjects will come to acknowledge their fellow citizens as formal equals for public purposes.

Educating subjects to the value of formal equality is a key element in the peace process. Yet the sovereign also has other mechanisms available for augmenting this process. The Hobbesian sovereign can seek to mini-

11. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 360. 12. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 212. 13. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 314. 14. Hobbes, Leviathan, ch. XIV-XV. 15. Hobbes, Leviathan, pp. 377-84.




mize the incidence of disruptive public dispute by extending the realm of individual liberty to the limits compatible with peace preservation. According to Hobbes, the sovereign should take steps to ensure that subjects are at "Liberty to buy, and sell, and otherwise contract with one another; to choose their own aboad, their own diet, their own trade of life, and institute their children as they themselves see fit; & the like."16 This process relies upon the sovereign defining and enforcing a rights- based framework for action which places subjects "into a position to initiate agreements with other persons.""7 The aim here is to overcome one of the key difficulties of Hobbes's state of nature-the presumption of a natural right to everything.

As Hobbes recognized, there is no compelling basis for any individual to respect the property claims of others unless those claims are backed by the power of the sovereign. Without this backing, each individual would be effectively entitled to that which they could secure by their own power. This situation would, in reality, be of little use to individuals because they would continually fear having property taken from them by other individuals.18 There would be no point in individuals striving for more than required to meet their own immediate needs, and production could rise little beyond subsistence levels.19 A sovereign power which defines and enforces property rights alleviates this situation. The security it provides allows individuals to produce beyond subsistence in their search for felicity and this, Hobbes supposed, provides a basis for increased wealth in society to the general benefit.20 Subjects educated in formal equality can also be expected to tolerate material inequalities that are instrumental to a mutually beneficial increase in wealth.21 Educating subjects on the prudence of this principle of mutual benefit is the second key aspect of the sovereign's educative function.

Hobbes's desire to equate sovereign authority with parental authority is instructive in understanding these educative functions of the ruler. His assessment that the authority of parents is grounded in the consent of their children has been subject to ridicule by many commentators.22

16. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 264. 17. James M. Buchanan, The Limits of Liberty: Between Anarchy and Leviathan

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975), p. 12. 18. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 190. 19. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 188. 20. Hobbes, Leviathan, pp. 202-11, 364. 21. James M. Buchanan, "A Hobbesian Interpretation of the Rawlsian Difference Prin-

ciple," Kyklos, 29 (1976): 5-25. 22. E.g., Gordon J. Schochet, "Intending (Political) Obligation: Hobbes and the Volun-

tary Basis of Society," in Thomas Hobbes and Political Theory, ed. Mary G. Dietz

(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1990), pp. 55-73.



C. J. Nock 147

Indeed, on the face of it, there seems to be little cogency in his claims concerning the basis of parental authority. Children lack reason and, as Hobbes recognized, are in no position to consent to anything in the way consent theorists demand. They are, rather, under the despotic power of their parents who-at least in the state of nature-even possess the authority to decide whether they live or die.23 Under these circumstances, it seems nonsense to say that they consent to the authority of their parents. Yet Hobbes was insistent that this was how the relationship between children and their parents must be understood. If children have not consented, and are in no position to consent, what could Hobbes mean by this?

As with the relationship between Leviathan and subject, it is vital to think of the parental relationship as one which proceeds as if the children had consented-which, of course, they have not.24 In raising children parents may produce either friends or enemies.25 If they produce the latter it is likely that, in the long run, the enemies they have produced will destroy them one way or another. Prudent parents will seek to avoid this. They will undertake child-rearing such that they will be in a position to satisfactorily explain what they have done when their children reach the age of reason. They must be able to convincingly demonstrate that the way they raised their children was the best under the available circumstances. That is, they are to proceed in a way that elicits the love and respect of the child when it reaches the age of reason. Under such circumstances, the relationship between parent and child takes the form of a hypothetical contract. The parent is required to do what will elicit the appropriate response when the child achieves the status of a prudent adult. The same construct works for the relationship between the sovereign and its subjects. The sovereign will punish those subjects who fail to abide by the dictates of liberal equality and sovereign neutrality, but is willing to explain the necessity of this public reason to those who wish to learn.

Parental authority is a substitutional authority which has pedagogical aims.26 The immature child will damage itself unless guided by the more mature and prudent will of the parent. Parental authority substitutes the

23. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 254. 24. R. W. K. Hinton, "Husbands, Fathers and Conquerors," Political Studies, 16

(1968): 55-67. 25. Richard Allen Chapman, "Leviathan Writ Small: Thomas Hobbes on the Family,"

The American Political Science Review, 69 (1975): 76-90. 26. Yves R. Simon, Philosophy of Democratic Government (Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 1951), pp. 7-9.




will of the parent for the period in which the child's own will is deficient. As the child matures, however, parental authority "aims at its own dis- appearance":27

It is ... good for a child to be guided by a mature person, but the main purpose of this guidance consists in the [child's eventual] attainment of the ability to exercise self-government. If paternal authority remains past the earliest possible date for its disappear- ance, it has failed to a degree.28

Applying this construct to sovereign authority suggests that the sovereign must substitute its will for that of any subject unwilling to accept formal equality for public purposes or the principle of mutual benefit in distribution. These may be imprudent subjects currently unable to recognize the importance of the terms of the Hobbesian settlement, or generally prudent subjects who are temporarily blinded to the value of these terms by their passionate involvement in a particular dispute. Imprudent subjects must learn the rules and codes of behavior appropriate to liberal society before they can play a fuller role in its deliberations. The prudent majority needs ongoing coaching in the value of formal equality and mutual benefit whenever their passions blind their reason.

The Hobbesian settlement is, thus, a political settlement. It offers sovereigns practical principles for the political treatment of their subjects. It advises the sovereign to treat subjects in the manner thought to be the best hedge against civil unrest. The Hobbesian settlement aims at achieving a particular mode of public behavior from subjects. It demands a public toleration of value-pluralism and sovereign neutrality. It invites subjects to recognize the value of as wide a degree of individual liberty as possible and a distribution of property rights that satisfies the principle of mutual benefit. The acid test of the Hobbesian settlement is the purely practical one of how real subjects respond to the treatment that is theo- retically held necessary for avoiding civil war. It is supposed that the majority of subjects who are prudent will accept the terms the sovereign offers. The long-term viability of the Hobbesian settlement is dependent upon the practical confirmation of that supposition.

II. Beyond the Hobbesian Settlement

The sovereign's commitment to the principles of formal equality and mutual benefit sets limits to the types of issues that it can allow to

27. Simon, Philosophy of Democratic Government, p. 9. 28. Simon, Philosophy of Democratic Government, p. 9.



C. J. Nock 149

become matters for public dispute. On the basis of the principle of formal equality, there is no prima facie case for any subjects to claim that their own personal values are superior to those held by others. As such, they cannot expect the sovereign's support in seeking to impose their values on others since this would be a recipe for war. Similarly, demands that seek to curtail the legal activities of others are not to be admitted for public consideration unless the activities in question can be shown to place the grieving party into a state of war. As part of its ongoing education on the value of formal equality, the sovereign must teach the mutual toleration such equality implies. Any demands by the vainglorious-those who claim special treatment on the basis of their wealth, rank, or wisdom-are to be strenuously denied by the sovereign. Like all subjects, the vainglorious must accept the sovereign's judgment on formal equality or suffer the consequences. Nevertheless, the principle of formal equality provides subjects with grounds for questioning the sovereign's activities and the arrangements it enforces wherever these seem to violate that principle. This process may eventually prompt a codifica- tion of liberal equality into a statement of equal civil rights.

The principle of mutual benefit also limits the type of demands the sovereign can accept as potentially valid. Of prime concern will be claims to welfare support-what Hobbes referred to as "public charity"-and aid to the able-bodied unemployed.29 These demands are directly linked to the principle of mutual benefit and are to be admitted for immediate consideration since those lacking the capacities to sustain themselves will be placed into a state of war vis-a-vis the commonwealth.30 Other disputes concerning the current distribution of property are only to be admitted for public consideration if they promise increased mutual benefit. From the perspective of the subject, the sovereign's commitment to the principle of mutual benefit-like its commitment to formal equality-allows for the formulation of liberal grievances. Resistance to the prevailing distribution can be expected to arise primarily within the poorer segments of the populace who will demand some form of redistribution unless it can be convincingly demonstrated that the prevailing unequal distribution actually promotes tangible benefits for them. If the sovereign is unable to persuasively defend the prevailing distribution in such terms, it must be prepared to broker a redistribution.

Brokering will prove necessary wherever dissenters pose a sufficient

29. For a full account of Hobbes's commitment to such policies and schemes see Seaman, "Hobbes on Public Charity & the Prevention of Idleness."

30. Seaman, "Hobbes," pp. 120-23.




threat that the costs of enforcing the prevailing distribution undermine the benefits it is supposed to promote. At this point, the sovereign must persuade the wealthier segments of the populace that the cost of main- taining their present level of capacity against dissenters has become untenable., The sovereign must indicate how they will benefit from a re- alignment of the current distribution, since enforcement costs will fall as the peace is once more secured. Where dissent has raised the costs of enforcement, the better-off will benefit from the peace that can be secured by a redistribution of property rights.31 As such, the principle of mutual benefit is non-prescriptive with regard to the actual distribution of property. It leaves open the possibility of collective economic arrangements wherever these offer benefits unavailable through market mechanisms.32

The sovereign power aims at continuing its own existence by securing its subjects' obedience. Obedience grounded in the subject's own choice will prove far more durable than obedience grounded in sovereign coercion. Thus, if the terms of the Hobbesian settlement are the least that prudent subjects will settle for, the sovereign has an immediate interest in living up to those terms. Prudent subjects will come to expect that the sovereign enforce a rights-based framework allowing individual liberty and, at the limits of freedom, a public reason grounded in the principles of formal equality and mutual benefit.

In the long term, the sovereign's production of liberal subjects lays the foundation for increased public scrutiny of its performance. Illiberal dissidents-those who oppose the sovereign by claiming a right to special treatment-can and should be crushed. Their claims will not be supported by subjects who understand the threat they pose to peace. Liberal dissidents-those who oppose the sovereign on the grounds that it has violated the principles it espouses-pose a more serious threat to the sovereign. Liberal dissidents can be expected to receive support from prudent subjects should their case have merit. Dissidents claiming there are illiberal defects in the sovereign's use of power pose a significant threat to the long-term security of the sovereign. The sovereign must respond either by persuasively defending in a public forum the arrangements it enforces in relation to the principles it espouses, or alter those arrangements should such a defense prove untenable. Thus the need to enter a public forum draws the sovereign further along the continuum toward the status of liberal authority.

31. This assessment draws directly from Buchanan's The Limits of Liberty, ch. 5. 32. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 299.



C. J. Nock 151

The sovereign aims for a set of arrangements that liberal subjects will accept as according with the principles underpinning the Hobbesian settlement. It wants a sufficiently broad-based consensus that disruptive dissent is kept to a minimum. In practical terms, however, the principles of formal equality and mutual benefit are underdefined. In a society marked by value-pluralism, disagreements can be expected regarding what amounts to equal treatment and what counts as mutual benefit. The sovereign that seeks peace through persuasion must monitor these disagreements and mold the practical details of its domestic policy in response to the concerns of its liberal subjects.33 The success of this process relies, in part, upon the sovereign's ongoing education of subjects to the value of mutual toleration. For, in responding to the diverse and ongoing liberal demands placed upon it, the sovereign power cannot expect to fully satisfy all of its subjects. A liberal political process is not one in which subjects get exactly what they demand all of the time. It is, rather, a process of ongoing compromise that entails an implicit majori- tarian element. At the limits of this compromise, dissident minorities may have to be coerced to accept arrangements they otherwise would reject.

The sovereign must, however, take pains to treat liberal dissidents in a particular manner. It is in the interests of a sovereign that pursues peace through persuasion to allow public discussion and dissenting opinion about the arrangements it enforces. This is so for two key reasons. First, public debate-in which the sovereign may play an active role-will reveal some dissenting opinion to be inappropriate or unsustainable, and this will strengthen the sovereign's own defense of the arrangements it does enforce. Second, allowing debate and dissent enables the sovereign to gauge the level of public support for those arrangements. For these reasons, the prudent sovereign will take steps to entrench the right of dissent on behalf of the liberal subjects it produces. This requires that the sovereign take steps to protect dissidents from unwarranted interference by those who support the arrangements in question. It also requires that the sovereign take care in formulating and enforcing any punishments it attaches to dissenting behavior. In terms of penalties imposed for dissent, the sovereign should render nondisruptive dissent effectively costless to encourage the process of public discussion. Disruptive dissent is more difficult to deal with and will require careful attention from the sovereign. The penalties for disruptive dissent should vary in accordance to two considerations-the nature of the disruptive activity, and the level of public support for the arrangement being questioned.

33. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 393.




Where the arrangement brought into question is generally accepted, the costs of disruptive dissent should be proportionately higher than where there is wide-ranging doubt concerning its value. In the former case, the majority perceives that the arrangement in question is conducive to the peace that disruptive dissent attempts to undermine. Vio- lent disruptive acts of dissent perpetrated by small numbers of subjects must be dealt with in an uncompromising manner. However, where there is a broad-based dissatisfaction with a particular arrangement, wide-

spread nonviolent disruptive dissent will provide the sovereign with a clear indication of its unpopularity. Such indications are invaluable to a sovereign seeking to promote arrangements that are generally acceptable to its liberal subjects. Whatever penalties are applied to disruptive dissenting acts, they should be publicly divulged and limited in their appli- cation to the particular individuals found guilty of undertaking them.34

The other key element in entrenching the right to dissent is that the

sovereign limit the punishments for dissent to those prescribed by known law.35 Beyond paying the costs associated with their activities, dissidents must be protected in their right to pursue their own private ends as they see fit. The sovereign must employ its coercive power to protect them from unwarranted interference by the majority who may consider them unworthy of such protection. Without this, the sovereign would lose the

input of dissenting opinion that is so vital to its own long-term success, and dissidents would be placed into a condition of war against the commonwealth. The value of dissent to the sovereign power also suggests that it should take steps to ensure that any lack of dissent actually signifies satisfaction with prevailing arrangements, rather than apathy or

cynicism on the part of its subjects. It needs to ensure that potential dissidents find the political process open and responsive. Nevertheless, the liberal sovereign cannot ultimately avoid imposing its decisions on dissidents, although these decisions are open to re-evaluation in light of

changing circumstances. The fact that the sovereign must protect dissidents from unwarranted

interference provides it with reasons to be ambivalent toward democracy. On the one hand, democratic processes represent a useful tool for gauging public sentiment as the sovereign seeks to mold its domestic policy to attain the broad-based consensus necessary for peace. On the other hand, the sovereign needs to be sure that democratic rights are not mis-

34. Thomas J. Lewis, "Contract Theory and the Right to be Punished," American Behavioral Scientist, 28 (November/December 1984): 269-75.

35. Hobbes, Leviathan, pp. 338, 388.



C. J. Nock 153

used by illiberal subjects tempted to employ the moral force of democratic decisions as a basis for suppressing dissidents or imposing particular values upon them. Such activities could, in the long run, lead to an undoing of the Hobbesian settlement. Nevertheless, a long-term public commitment to formal equality will incline subjects to believe that they have a right to the influence over public deliberations that the franchise seems to offer. As subjects learn the rules of the liberal political game, the sovereign will find it prudent to extend the franchise wherever this seems necessary for ongoing peace preservation. In the long run a full adult franchise may result.36

The long-term development into liberal-democracy continues the process of opening up the sovereign to greater public scrutiny. Its decisions can now be questioned by subjects through the rights-based public reason that is administered by the courts. Many of its officers may become subject to election or impeachment. In short, government becomes more responsive to the demands of its subjects. Liberal- democracy is one facsimile-albeit an imperfect one-of the consent theorist's reification of the contract metaphor. Subjects may exercise significant influence over the rulers, but that influence must remain far from complete. The liberal sovereign cannot escape the need to adjudi- cate the disputes that value-pluralism generates. Rather, it must retain its coercive powers to enforce its decisions against those unwilling to abide by them. It must continue to employ its coercive powers to protect its liberal dissidents from unwarranted interference by the majority. This suggests that liberal-democracy can never match the contract metaphor completely.

III. Assessing Liberal-Democracy

In Hobbes's day the methods available for assessing the grievances of subjects were less extensive than in our own. In part, the sovereign needed to rely on advisors, petitions, and representations from subjects. Wherever serious discontent was thought to be brewing, the sovereign might designate an advisor to report on the situation. The liberal- democratic sovereign of our own day has far more sophisticated tools at its disposal for monitoring the grievances of subjects. Elections, opinion polls, instant communications, more easily arranged public hearings and the like suggest that the liberal-democratic sovereign should be more adept at gauging potential dissent and providing prudent responses to it.

36. Lewis, "Contract Theory and the Right to be Punished," pp. 263-65.




At this level, the potential ability of the liberal-democratic sovereign to preserve the peace would seem to be greater than that of the Leviathan. This, however, is misleading. Liberal-democracy as we now experience it is full of potential pitfalls that threaten to undo the Hobbesian settlement on which its continued viability ultimately depends.

The liberal-democratic sovereign indirectly teaches its subjects con- flicting lessons that are not readily conducive to the promotion of the tolerance necessary for the maintenance of peace. The abstract lesson of liberal-democracy concerns the supposed moral worth of majority opinion. The democratic element of the liberal-democratic sovereign courts popular opinion and appears to mold its policy to match. Wher- ever this is so, those who consider themselves part of the prevailing majority have grounds for supposing that the popular view is the correct view. This potential-as Mill so keenly observed37-threatens the position of dissident minorities. Dissidents tend to be viewed as deviant, threatening, and wrong. Most liberal-democracies have at times been drawn to employ the weight of majority opinion to suppress minorities for short-term political gains. Whenever minorities are treated in this way and they can muster sufficient resources, the seeds are sown for civil unrest and potential acts of war. Such episodes mark breakdowns in the Hobbesian settlement. Whenever the democratic element of the sovereign body is drawn to undermine the protective functions of the liberal element in pursuit of popular support, the threat to peace rises to the sur- face. To avoid this potential threat to peace, the liberal-democratic sovereign must be equipped to successfully balance its often incompatible protective and democratic functions.

The practical development of liberal-democracy has revealed an equally worrying trend: the emergence of the politics of interest groups. Polit- ical parties have become inclined to deal with pressure groups and coalitions of such groups who offer to deliver significant blocks of votes on the understanding that the democratic element of the sovereign body will bend its efforts to promote their interests. The "democratic" process in most liberal-democracies means that, in reality, the successful party does not require the support of a majority of voters, let alone a majority of subjects. The politics of pressure groups has, on many occasions, allowed the policy process to be highjacked by coalitions of relatively small groups willing to pursue their values at the expense of those of their

37. John Stuart Mill, "On Liberty," in John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, On Liberty, and Considerations on Representative Government, ed. H. B. Acton (London: J. H. Dent, 1976), pp. 65-77.



C. J. Nock 155

adversaries. Such an arrangement is not conducive to the promotion of the toleration and compromise needed to maintain the Hobbesian settlement. Rather, it is more likely to promote the underlying friction and tension that threatens civil peace.

These dangers are further compounded by the fact that the liberal- democratic sovereign is now widely regarded as having the right to alter the current distribution of property at will. Wherever this is widely supposed to be the case, the democratic element of the sovereign body has a tool available to promote its own short-term expediency at the expense of the protective functions of the liberal element. If the current distribution is altered without regard for the principle of mutual benefit, those out- side the ruling coalition will see their capacities diminished without cor- responding compensatory rewards. Wherever people's rights are sacri- ficed in this way, the potential arises for that festering resentment that can spawn an undoing of the Hobbesian settlement. It is true that the distribution should be continually open to renegotiation, and that the sovereign-who defines and enforces these rights-may alter them in a manner thought prudent to preserve the peace. Yet this does not imply that such redistribution can be arbitrary to the extent that the liberal- democratic sovereign and its subjects now often seem to suppose. The Hobbesian sovereign recognizes that an unequal distribution should be tolerable wherever the principle of mutual benefit is satisfied.38 In this regard-as has been stressed-the sovereign must take steps to ensure that this principle is satisfied, and that its benefits are explained to its subjects. All proposed changes to the existing distribution must be defended in a similar manner.

Unless the principle of mutual benefit is satisfied, redistribution becomes a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul, and Peter and his allies are likely to feel aggrieved enough to want to undo changes that have reduced their possessions. This perspective suggests that we should expect the functions of the liberal state to be more easily performed during periods of economic expansion. Increasing material wealth-at least where its benefits are enjoyed by a sufficient cross-section of society -is likely to minimize opposition to the existing distribution. At the same time, more resources will be available for the sovereign to meet the liberal demands of the few dissatisfied with the current distribution. When economic expansion falters, the sovereign's task of preserving the peace becomes correspondingly more difficult and its balancing act of ongoing compromise becomes more precarious. As Buchanan has sug-

38. Hobbes, Leviathan, pp. 298-300; Buchanan, The Limits of Liberty, p. 11.




gested, under long-term conditions of economic hardship more funda- mental changes may be needed to achieve a distribution that continues to preserve the peace.39 Liberalism linked to a stagnant economy is a potentially volatile mixture, since the inequalities of the de facto distribution cannot be as readily justified by the principle of mutual benefit. A liberal-democratic sovereign that promotes partisanship, interest group politics, and political patronage may well lack the wherewithal to promote adequate responses to rising tensions in a faltering economy.

A successful liberal state must continually take steps to explain the arrangements it enforces in a way that is sufficiently persuasive that subjects see no reason to dissent in a manner that threatens the peace. Along with toleration it must teach the importance of a rights-based system in securing a tolerable degree of self-governance. It must also justify actual inequalities in terms of mutual benefit. Unfortunately, liberal-democracy, in its current form, is not particularly adept at teaching these lessons in any direct or convincing manner. Liberal-democracy needs to retrieve the pedagogical functions Hobbes assigned to the liberal sovereign. Otherwise, it risks promoting increased struggle, unrest, and conflict, particularly in times of economic stagnation. Many have argued for the supposed pedagogical benefits of more participatory forms of democracy. Yet most proponents of participatory democracy tend to emphasize its supposed developmental benefits rather than its pedagogical functions.4 Liberals should resist this normative case for participatory democracy because it insists that subjects should participate in a process that is supposed to lead to their moral improvement-an imposition of values that has no place in a genuinely liberal political order. Yet liberals can endorse participatory arrangements in terms of their potential instrumental benefits. Participatory democracy can engender a fuller comprehension among subjects of the need for ongoing compromise and the mutual benefits such compromise can bring in its wake. Insofar as they do this, participatory arrangements are to be welcomed.

39. Buchanan, The Limits of Liberty, p. 77. 40. Carole Pateman, The Problem of Political Obligation: A Critique of Liberal Theory

(Cambridge: Polity, 1979); Richard E. Flathman, Political Obligation (London: Croom Helm, 1973); Barry Holden, The Nature of Democracy (London: Nelson, 1974), esp. pp. 223-32; C. B. Macpherson, The Life and Times of Liberal Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977); Benjamin R. Barber, Strong Democracy: Participatory Democracy for a New Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984); Lee Ann Osbun, The Prob- lem of Participation: A Radical Critique of Contemporary Democratic Theory (Lanham: University Press of America, 1985).



C.J. Nock 157

IV. Conclusion

The liberal state was not instituted by liberal individuals coming together with a view to securing their own ends. Rather, as the Hobbesian perspective suggests, individuals partial in their own interests cannot be relied upon to act in the manner demanded by the consent theorist's reification of the contract metaphor. From time to time subjects need to be coerced to abide by those public codes that make a liberal political process possible. Thus, of necessity, liberalism fails to fulfill the condition of strict voluntarism most consent theorists erroneously extract from the metaphor of contract. The origins of the liberal state actually lie with a political authority induced to treat and educate its subjects in particular ways by the threat of its own demise. Insofar as subjects come to respect the prudence of the Hobbesian settlement, the necessity of state coercive activity recedes-although it could never fully disappear in a society of real people who are sometimes unreasoning, irrational, in- vasive, partial, and intolerant. Insofar as the necessity of state coercion does diminish, the political authority moves further along the continuum toward the status of liberal authority which the metaphor of contract ideally demands.

On this view, the type of consent required by consent theory is of no real concern to the liberal state. The relevance of consent is strictly limited to the extent to which it may be inferred when liberal subjects see so little need to dissent from what is that they do not press their claims in a disruptive manner. This being so, the liberal perspective is not wedded to the strict voluntarism insisted upon by the consent theory of political obligation. Rescuing the liberal perspective from consent theory restores its relevance as a framework for distinguishing between illiberal and liberal political authority. Liberal authority is authority that promotes a practical rights-based framework for as wide a degree of self-governance as is compatible with preservation of peace. It teaches formal equality for public purposes. It accepts the task of persuasively defending the current distribution of property in terms of mutual benefit and the task of altering it should that defense become untenable. In attending to these basic functions, the liberal sovereign-no matter what form it takes, democratic or otherwise-aims at preserving peace through persuasion rather than coercion. Insofar as it is successful in this task, it promotes the closest approach to the liberal contract that practical circumstances allow.



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