Do Crowds Need Leaders?: Representing the Body Politic after the Decline of Monarchy in Western Europe, from Hobbes to Durkheim

The Political Imaginarium, which is the topic of this special issue, is not static. Older modes of representing the body politic, as illustrated by Ernst Kantorowicz’s account of the King’s Two Bodies, were focused on the figure of the monarch. With the transition to democratic republics based on po...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Yelle, Robert A. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group 2023
In: Political theology
Year: 2023, Volume: 24, Issue: 1, Pages: 15-34
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B England / France / Representation (Politics) / King / Leadership / History 1650-1900
IxTheo Classification:KBF British Isles
KBG France
NCD Political ethics
TJ Modern history
Further subjects:B Totemism
B Democracy
B Monarchy
B Representation
B Thomas Hobbes
B Iconoclasm
B Émile Durkheim
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:The Political Imaginarium, which is the topic of this special issue, is not static. Older modes of representing the body politic, as illustrated by Ernst Kantorowicz’s account of the King’s Two Bodies, were focused on the figure of the monarch. With the transition to democratic republics based on popular sovereignty, was this older aesthetic of sovereignty abandoned, extended, or transformed? I argue that the shift to focus on the People represented only a partial break with older modes of representation, due to the difficulty of figuring the masses as such in their unformed condition. Case studies from England and France suggest that the problem of representation remains without a final solution.
ISSN:1743-1719
Contains:Enthalten in: Political theology
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1080/1462317X.2022.2152180