Paulina Ochoa Espejo

Paradoxes of Popular Sovereignty: A View from Spanish America

Democratic theorists agree that in a democracy the people should be sovereign. However, they cannot give democratically acceptable criteria for telling who precisely the people are. According to some theorists, this “paradox of popular sovereignty” can lead to disastrous consequences such as territorial disputes and ethnic cleansing. By contrast, others hold that this paradox is productive. Using the tools of Comparative Political Theory (CPT), this article enters into the controversy by providing new evidence of how this theoretical paradox has influenced political practice. The article shows that the problem was already apparent in early nineteenth-century Spanish America, where two different conceptions of the people had contrasting consequences. The article argues that the main effect of the paradox was to bring to the fore the ineradicable discrepancies between political praxis and juridical form. This effect should be seen as an opportunity to be seized rather than a problem to be solved.

Does Political Theology Entail Decisionism

The thesis of political theology holds that all justificatory theories of the state rely on metaphysical assumptions, rather than just empirical facts and accepted political conventions. For this reason, the thesis challenges liberal theories that justify the state on the basis of individual autonomy and popular will. The thesis is controversial because many theorists believe that metaphysical assumptions introduce decisionism – the view that a state depends on the unrestrained personal decision of a ruler – to the theory of the state. But, does political theology entail decisionism? This article argues that decisionism does not follow necessarily from political theology because an omnipotent deciding sovereign is only one of many possible metaphysical assumptions in theology. It illustrates this claim with examples from the philosophy of Nicholas Cusanus and process philosophy. This conclusion challenges two different entrenched views: first, that the modern state is a continuation of theistic beliefs; and second, that metaphysical discussions have no place in contemporary normative political theory.

The analytical-Continental divide: Styles of dealing with problems

What today divides analytical from Continental philosophy? This paper argues that the present divide is not what it once was. Today, the divide concerns the styles in which philosophers deal with intellectual problems: solving them, pressing them, resolving them, or dissolving them. Using ‘the boundary problem’, or ‘the democratic paradox’, as an example, we argue for two theses. First, the difference between most analytical and most Continental philosophers today is that Continental philosophers find intelligible two styles of dealing with problems that most analytical philosophers find unintelligible: pressing them and resolving them. Second, when it comes to a genuine divide in which not understanding the other side’s basic philosophical purposes combines with disagreement on fundamental questions of doctrine, the only such divide today is that between those analytical philosophers who tend to solve problems and those Continental philosophers who tend to press problems (roughly, the heirs of Derrida). It is among these subgroups that there is a real philosophical divide today. So the analytical–Continental divide is more a matter of style than of substance; but as we try to show, differences in style shape differences over substance.