Description

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We live in an age of growing dissatisfaction with the standard operations of representative democracy. The solution, according to a long radical democratic tradition, is the unmediated power of the people. Mass plebiscites and mass protest movements are celebrated as the quintessential expression of popular power, and this power promises to transcend ordinary institutional politics. But the outcomes of mass political phenomena can be just as disappointing as the ordinary politics they sought to overcome, breeding skepticism about democratic politics in all its forms. Dr Field’s new book, Potentia, argues that the very meaning of popular power needs to be rethought. The book offers a detailed study of the political philosophies of Thomas Hobbes and Benedict de Spinoza, focusing on their concept of power as potentia, concrete power, rather than power as potestas, authorized power. Where radical democrats interpret Hobbes’ “sleeping sovereign” or Spinoza’s “multitude” as the classic formulations of unmediated popular power, Dr Field argues that, for both Hobbes and Spinoza, conscious institutional design is required in order for true popular power to be achieved. Between Hobbes’ commitment to repressing private power and Spinoza’s exploration of civic strengthening, she draws on early modern understandings of popular power to provide a new lens for thinking about the risks and promise of democracy.

About The Speakers

Sandra Leonie Field is Assistant Professor of Humanities (Philosophy) at Yale-NUS College, Singapore. Her research investigates conceptions of political power and their implications for democratic theory; she approaches these themes through engagement with texts in the history of philosophy. She has also written on non-Western political philosophy. She completed her PhD in Politics at Princeton University.

Michael W. Dowdle is an Associate Professor of Law at NUS. His academic focus is on public law theory and law and geography. He has taught at the NYU Law School, Columbia Law School, and Sciences Po. He has written numerous essays and edited a number of books on public law. Among these are the edited volumes, “Building Constitutionalism in China (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) (with Stéphanie Balme) and Constitutionalism beyond Liberalism (Cambridge University Press, 2017) (with Michael Wilkinson).