What is arbitrary power?

ABSTRACT

Republicans define domination as subjection to arbitrary power. But what is arbitrary power? We consider three views. According to the first, championed recently by Frank Lovett, power is arbitrary insofar as it is unconstrained. According to the second, advanced most prominently by Philip Pettit in his recent work, power is arbitrary insofar as it is uncontrolled by those subject to it. According to the third, found (among other places) in Pettit’s early work, power is arbitrary insofar as it is not forced to track the interests of those subject to it. We advance several objections against each of the first two views and offer support for the third. Pettit, we might say, got it right the first time.

KEYWORDS:

• Domination
• power
• republicanism
• arbitrary power
• freedom

Notes

1. We will assume in what follows that justice requires minimizing domination rather than maximizing non-domination, but our arguments should apply with equal force across both alternatives.

2. Lovett might also lean on value pluralism to respond to our objection (see Lovett 2012b, pp. 150–152). Non-domination, he might rightly point out, is not the only value. A constraint may therefore be non-dominating yet unfair or otherwise objectionable in terms of other values. In reply, we agree that values are plural. But we point out that non-domination, according to most republicans, is no trivial or insignificant value. Rather, it allegedly constitutes the core of justice. To say, then, that a constraint eliminates domination is to speak very highly of it indeed. It is to paint it in the color of justice. Do we really think ‘expel minority students’ deserves that particular hue? Again, Lovett must answer ‘yes’, whereas we think the correct answer must be ‘no’.

3. We borrow this example from Pettit (2012, pp. 152–153).

4. For an interesting discussion of some potential problems with the eyeball test see Savery (2015) or Bögner et al. (2016).

5. In his ‘Critical notice of On the People’s terms: a Republican theory and model of democaracy’, David Dyzenhaus (2013) raises some interesting problems for Pettit’s use of the tough-luck test (see especially pp. 509–512).

6. Here Pettit relies on the examples of the neighbor returning the key to the liquor cabinet because the relationship matters to him, and the government responding to citizens because it fears revolt. We will note that these appear to be poor examples of unconditioned control. What happens if the neighbor is indifferent to you or the government considers its citizens too timid to revolt? Effective control over your liquor cabinet is conditioned on the fact that your neighbor values your relationship and the citizen’s control over the state is analogously conditioned. Trouble lurks here for Pettit if these are to serve as paradigm examples of unconditioned control, but we do not pursue that objection any further here.

7. Perhaps the difference here, the reason why we still ought to stay home and not set out for Sweden, is that at home the control makes an important difference: we need not rely on the beneficence of Swedish politicians, rather we have a say in the policies and they are, as a result, enacted on our terms. Notice, that as long as Sweden’s laws appropriately track your interests, then you will not need to rely on the generosity of Swedish lawmakers to stay their hand; rather, since the laws ex hypothesi effectively protect your interests, their laws will forbid arbitrary interference by public officials.

8. In effect governments avoid dominating their citizens when the citizens have a vote – but this is just fair proceduralism, and such a view lacks the tools required to avoid enacting policies or laws that dominate. For more on the problems here see Estlund (2008 , especially chapter 4).

9. For more on this see Markell (2008). Markell argues that Pettit’s emphasis on control and its role in domination works to confuse two dimensions of injustice: domination and usurpation. Control has more to do with the latter than the former. So while we should resist the temptation to confuse control with domination, this does not mean that when attending to matters of justice that we may focus on one and ignore the other.