Suspicion and admission of the democratic element in Hobbes's Leviathan

Abstract

Hobbes maintains a dual attitude towards political participation in general, and the democratic form of government, which is the universalization of the participatory impulse, in particular. The theory developed in Leviathan incorporates, on the one hand, the participatory element as an eminent expression of the will to power, while, on the other, tries to contain its foreseeable inconveniences through an adequate understanding of the correct design and management of the state machinery. Hobbes’s criticisms of the democratic spirit, which, from a contextualist perspective, can be considered as an anti-republican ideological intervention, can also be studied with profit if they are seen as a corollary of his conception of human nature. The evident contradiction of postulating an initial moment of maximum founding freedom, and then constraining it to the mere acceptance of the provisions of absolute government, can be seen as a lucid apprehension of the tensions of baroque statehood rather than as inconsistency. Its aim is to reconcile the preeminence of the sovereignty vector with the protection of the subjective need for participation in the different instances of the exercise of power. To this end, the Leviathan contemplates provisions for the strengthening of economic activity, as well as for the authority of public officials.