Theoria

In a famous passage in A Theory of Justice, Rawls had an interesting view on fraternity. However, he did not develop it further. The first aim of this article is to show that there are at least two possible interpretations of what Rawls wrote about fraternity: the narrow interpretation and the wide interpretation. We will focus on the narrow interpretation and attract attention to the kinds of problems it presents. In the last section we will assert that there are different ways of conceptualising the ideal of fraternity and that Rawls’s general approach to the issue was just one of them and maybe not the most attractive one.

The electoral process can be considered as one basic component of a democracy and for this reason one way to evaluate the progress of a democratisation project is by looking at the development of this civic practice in terms of both quantity (voter turnout) and quality (voters’ preferences). Focusing on the former, specifically the impact of political alienation on electoral participation as voter turnout this article will look at the challenges to democratisation posed by electoral politics. From the case of electoral participation in the Philippines, I ask the question: What is the relationship between political alienation and voter turnout in the context of the latter enjoying relatively high and sustained rates? Through a synthesis between the notions of political spectatorship, habitual voting and the learning approach towards analysing voter behaviour, I argue that electoral participation is a disempowered mode of participation resulting from the interdependence of sustained spectatorship and habitual voting.

In engaging with Lawrence Hamilton’s Freedom Is Power and its position in the lexicon of academic production from the Global South, this paper explores how Hamilton’s claim about institutions utilising idealised concepts that can have counterproductive social effects is also broadly observable in knowledge production itself. This paper draws in broad and brief terms how representation of ideas has been an issue at the heart of political thought historically before discussing how ideas from the South and other under-represented areas now serve to counter not just a hegemony of power but of ideas themselves. This is a necessary extension of the theory to consider, in order to have its desired effect as ideas are perquisites to actions. The paper also challenges the reader with their role in idealising the production of knowledge and the underlying social pressures and political power relations that shape the ideas that motivate ‘real’ political structures and institutions.

This critique of the theory of freedom and power, which Lawrence Hamilton advances in Freedom is Power (2014), maintains that Hamilton’s appeal to a genealogy of needs - (established in his earlier work, The Political Philosophy of Needs (2003)) to distinguish power from domination – is inconsistent with the theory of power he advocates. His account of needs is no less vulnerable than that of rivals to the problem of power he identifies. I advance a rights recognition theory, which is compatible with this theory of power and I argue that it helps to provide support for the distinction, which Hamilton wants to make, between power and domination, which one cannot obtain from his theory of needs.

I make two main points in response to the two great articles on my book Freedom is Power: Liberty Through Political Representation (FIP) published in this issue of Theoria. First, I assess the power of ideas, especially vis-à-vis the important imperative to decolonise knowledge production, taking on board much of Boisen and Murray’s arguments while qualifying their tendency to overstate the case for the power of ideas. I then comment on Allsobrook’s criticism of my attempt in FIP to marry Foucault’s view of power with my genealogical account of needs. I take on board his main concern and then argue – all too briefly – that his alternative ‘rights recognition thesis’ fails to escape his own critique of my needs-based view of freedom as power aimed at overcoming domination.

What does it mean to be free? How is freedom related to power? How does the concept of freedom shape our conceptions of democracy? Lawrence Hamilton’s book entitled Freedom Is Power: Liberty through Political Representation offers an alternative conceptualization of freedom to the republican and liberal traditions. Hamilton delineates his framework of analysis starting from a realpolitik approach, with Machiavellian and Foucaultian inspiration: first, by conceiving politics via the lens of conflict instead of consensus; second, by conceiving freedom in terms of power (relations). In this paper we offer an overview of Hamilton’s argument, exploring the steps that lead us to a reconceptualise freedom in terms of power, needs and interests and to rethink the significance, meanings and practices of political representation in a democratic context.