Politocracy: An assessment of the coercive logic of the territorial state and ideas around a response to it

Politocracy: An assessment of the coercive logic of the territorial state and ideas around a response to it
by Koos Malan
Translated by Johan Scott
2012

ISBN: 978-1-920538-10-1
Pages: xii 356
Print version: Available
Electronic version: Free PDF available

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About the publication

A masterly summary of the history of Western political philosophy, political science and constitutional law introduces a profound and disquieting analysis of the modern territorial state. Isn’t ‘democracy’ in a heterogeneous society with a numerically dominant group necessarily synonymous with the oppression of minorities? Can human rights and the courts sufficiently protect the uniquely distinctive character of minorities? Prof Malan presents his partial solution of ‘habitative communities’ – voluntary groupings of like-minded persons that can be formed on various bases – by no means in a prescriptive manner, but as a thought-provoking contribution that will give rise to serious reflection and debate in both academia and political practice.
– Eberhard Bertelsmann, High Court, Pretoria

Is the classical triad of “monarchy, aristocracy, democracy” soon to be supplemented with a fourth type, namely “politocracy”? Or should we rather replace the triad with its further evolved form, which affords a more plausible representation of the diversity of our society? Koos Malan has succeeded in arousing our thoughts on the path followed by the modern state, by referring to the most authoritative authors – past and present. But above all, it is his own analysis that urges the reader on, not only towards new designations, but especially towards improved realities.
– Frank Judo, Advocate, Brussels

The author demonstrates that the modern territorial state in fact fails to provide due protection to various linguistic, cultural and religious entities within the state. He proposes well-considered, practical and stimulating suggestions for the possible solution of problems that are especially experienced in states that contain strong minority cultural groups. His description of politocracy, which amounts to actual democracy, deserves real and thorough consideration.
– George Barrie, University of Johannesburg

About the editor:

Koos Malan Professor of Public Law, University of Pretoria and Advocate of the High Court of South Africa

Table of Contents

• FOREWORD
• A WORD OF THANKS
• TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

1. STATISM
2. REPUBLICA CHRISTIANA — THE PREDECESSOR OF STATISM
   1 Religious identity
   2 Medieval constitutionalism
3. DECLINE AND PREPARATION: THE DEPARTURE OF THE REPUBLICA CHRISTIANA AND THE ADVENT OF STATISM
   1 Secularisation, Renaissance and Humanism
   2 Political and legal thought
   3 State formation
   4 Reformation
   5 Impasse
4. THE FOUNDING AND FOUNDERS OF STATISM
   1 The Politiques — Michel de l’Hôpital and Jean Bodin
   2 Thomas Hobbes and the birth of Leviathan, the mortal god
   3 John Locke, the constitutional continuation of Thomas Hobbes
   4 Interstatism and Hugo Grotius
5. THE STATIST PARADIGM
   1 The main markers of the statist paradigm
   2 The dynamics of paradigms
6. STATIST IDENTITY: THE MORTAL GOD ACQUIRES A CONGREGATION OF WORSHIPPERS — THE NATION
   1 State building in the guise of nation building Hobbes, Rousseau and thereafter
   2 The coercive logic of nation building
   3 More subtle forms of nation building
   4 Legal reasoning behind state-building
   4.1 John Rawls
   4.2 Nation-building jurisprudence, Ronald Dworkin and legal principles
7. STATIST DEMOCRACY
   1 Statist democracy — democracy tamed by the statist paradigm
   2 Democracy as legitimacy fiction
   3 Precariocracy and equality
   4 Massocracy — democracy of the territorial state
8. HUMAN RIGHTS — THE CARING STATE
   1 Symbiosis
   2 Tracking the development of human rights
   3 Statist-paradigmatic politics of human rights
   3.1 The specific position of socio-economic rights
   3.2 Horizontalism and the ideological turnabout of human rights
   3.3 The disharmony and suspicion of human rights
   3.4 The statist order and the prominence of the jurist class
   3.5 Human rights, the source of an ideology of dependence
9. TWO LEGAL SCENARIOS IN TERMS OF THE STATIST PARADIGM
   1 Introduction
   2 The inviolability of the state: High treason
   3 The inviolability of the state: (Territorial) statist self-determination
   3.1 History
   3.2 Analysis
   3.3 Statist versus national self-determination: the domesticating concept of self-determination
10. POLITOCRACY
    1 Introduction
    2 Politocracy
    2.1 Foundation
    2.2 Explanation
    2.2.1 The central significance of communities
    2.2.2 Pluralistic public identities and spheres of government
    2.2.3 Subsidiarity and Correction
    3 Res publica/Commonwealth
    3.1 Characteristics of a res publica
    3.2 The res of the (res) publicae
    4 Citizens — politai
    4.1 Citizens versus individuals; res publicae versus the private domain
    4.2 Citizenship
    4.3 Civic equality
    4.4 Scope

• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• TABLE OF CASES
• INTERNATIONAL AND REGIONAL LEGAL INSTRUMENTS
• INDEX

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