Democracy and Its Others

Jeffrey H. Epstein is Visiting Assistant Professor at Cal State University, Fullerton, USA.

This book reexamines the legitimacy of the democratic nation-state in a time of unprecedented human migration by exploring the relationship between foreignness and sovereignty in political theory. Drawing heavily on Derrida, Epstein challenges traditional theories of sovereignty as self-identicality, arguing for an “alternative understanding of foreignness as … an originary, constitutive, and ineliminable structural feature of sovereignty as such.” After arguing that both modern liberalism and conservative communitarianism tend to conflate demos with ethnos, Epstein emphasizes Thrasymachus’s central role in Plato’s Republic by meticulously unpacking the complex, contradictory relationships among guests, hosts, foreigners, citizens, friends, and enemies in that dialogue. He then turns to a multichapter examination of sovereignty in the social contract tradition, arguing that, for Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, political society is founded on a fear of foreignness that is to be mitigated by the sovereign’s efforts to unify its members around a common identity. Sovereignty, however, is “always already constituted” by foreignness, thereby calling for the “(non)concept” of the “foreign sovereign.” Building on Kant’s cosmopolitan right to hospitality, Derrida’s “autoimmune democracy” and “unconditional hospitality,” and Behabib’s discourse ethics, Epstein introduces the “foreign citizen,” putting the itinerant migrant at the center of any future democratic cosmopolitanism.

• IntroductionChapter 1: Ethnos, Demos, and Foreignness1.1. Playing Politics: Ethnos and the (Re)Unification of the DemosChapter 2: Hospitality or War? A Foreigner Approaches2.1. The Piraeus2.2. Cephalus, the Metic2.3. Polemarchus, the Metic2.4. Thrasymachus, the Indecidable Foreigner Chapter 3: The Fearful Origins of Sovereignty in the Social Contract Tradition 3.1. The Fearful Origins of Sovereignty in Hobbes3.2. The Fearful Origins of Sovereignty in Locke3.3. The Fearful Origins of Sovereignty in RousseauChapter 4: The Qualities of Sovereignty in the Social Contract Tradition 4.1. Hobbes’ Absolute Sovereign 4.2. Locke’s Neutral Umpire4.3. Rousseau’s General Will4.4. A Brief Summary of SovereigntyChapter 5: Foreignness, Sovereignty, and the Social Contract Tradition5.1. Territorial Exclusions5.2. Homogeneous Unity and the Sovereign Exclusion of Foreignness5.3. Foreignness in Hobbes’ Theorization of Sovereignty5.4. Foreignness in Locke’s Theorization of Sovereignty5.5. Foreignness in Rousseau’s Theorization of SovereigntyChapter 6: The Naturalization of Artificial Sovereignty and Foreignness 6.1. Hobbes’ Naturalization of Artificial Sovereignty6.2. Locke’s Naturalization of Artificial Sovereignty6.3. Rousseau’s Naturalization of Artificial Sovereignty6.4. The Naturalization of Artificial ForeignnessChapter 7: The Foreign-Sovereign7.1. The Quasi-Regime Chapter 8: Foreign Unto It-self, The Democratic Nation-State 8.1. Democracy’s Others and the Protection of the Democratic Nation-State 8.2. Foreign Unto It-Self: Autoimmune Democracy8.3. Democracy to Come and the Foreign-SovereignChapter 9: The Foreign-Citizen at the Threshold of Democratic Cosmopolitanism9.1. Universal Hospitality at the Border Between the Moral and Legal9.2. Unconditional Hospitality and the Cosmopolitanism to Come9.3. Democratic Iterations9.4. The Foreign-CitizenBibliographyIndex