Introductory Note on the Concept of Democracy. "The term democracy sounds a false note whenever it crops up in debate these day s because of a preliminary ambiguity that condemns anyone who uses it to miscomm unication. Of what do we speak when we speak of democracy? What is the underlyin g rationale? An alert observer will soon realize that, whenever she hears the wo rd, it might mean one of two different things: a way of constituting the body po litic (in which case we are talking about public law) or a technique of governin g (in which case our horizon is that of administrative practice). To put it anot her way, democracy designates both the form through which power is legitimated a nd the manner in which it is exercised. Since it is perfectly plain to everyone that the latter meaning prevails in contemporary political discourse, that the w ord democracy is used in most cases to refer to a technique of governing (someth ing not, in itself, particularly reassuring), it is easy to see why those who co ntinue, in good faith, to use it in the former sense may be experiencing a certa in malaise. These two areas of conceptuality (the juridico-political and the eco nomic-managerial) have overlapped with one another since the birth of politics, political thought, and democracy in the Greek polis or city-state, which makes i t hard to tease them apart. An example will show what I mean. The basic term pol iteia may not be familiar to readers without Greek, but they have seen it transl ated as The Republic, the title of Plato's most famous dialogue. "Republic" does not, however, exhaust its range of meanings. When the word politeia occurs in t he classical writers, it is usually followed by a discussion of three different forms of politeia: monarchy, oligarc hy, democracy, or six if you count the three corresponding parekbaseis, or devia nt forms. But translators sometimes render politeia with "constitution," sometim es with "government." In The Constitution of Athens (chapter 27), Aristotle char acterizes the "demagogy" of Pericles this way: "demotikoteran synebe genesthai t en politeian," and a standard English translation runs "the constitution became still more democratic." Aristotle continues with the statement that "apasan ten politeian mallon agein eis hautous," which the same translator renders as "broug ht all the government more into their hands." To make his translation coherent, he ought to have written "brought all the constitution more into their hands," b ut that would obviously have created a difficulty. When the same fundamental political concept can be translated to mean either "co nstitution" or "government," then we have ventured out beyond ambiguity onto the featureless terrain of amphibology (a term from grammar and rhetoric signifying indeterminacy of meaning). Let us train our gaze on two further passages from t wo classics of Western political thought, Aristotle's Politics and Rousseau's Th e Social Contract, in which this unclarity manifests itself with particular forc e. In the Politics, Aristole states his intention to itemize and analyze the dif ferent "constitutions" or "forms of constitution" (politeiai): "Since politeia a nd politeuma signify the same thing, and since the politeuma is the supreme (kyr ion) power in a city, it necessarily follows that the supreme power resides eith er with an individual, with a few, or with the many' (Politics 1279a 25 ff). Cur rent translations run more or less like this: "Since constitution and government signify the same thing, and since government is the supreme power in the state . . . " A more faithful translation would retain the closeness of the terms poli teia (political activity) and politeuma (the resulting political outcome), but, apart from that, it is clear that the essential problem with this passage lies i n Aristotle's attempt to get rid of the amphibology by using the term kyrion. Wi th a bit of wrenching, the passage can be paraphrased in modern terms as follows : the constituent power (politeia) and the constituted power (politeuma) bind th emselves together into a sovereign (kyrion) power, which appears to be that whic h holds together the two sides of politics. But why is politics riven by this fi ssure, which the word kyrion both dramatizes and heals over? As for the Social Contract, Michel Foucault gave a course in 1977- 1978 at the C ollege de France showing that Rousseau's aim was precisely to reconcile juridical and constitutional terms like contract the general will, and sovereignty with an art of government. For our purposes, the important thing is the distinction bas ic to Rousseau's political thought between sovereignty and government and their mo des of interaction. In the article on "Political Economy" which the editors of t he Encyclopedic commissioned from him, Rousseau wrote: "I beg my readers to dist inguish clearly between the topic of this article, which is public economy, or w hat I call government, and supreme authority, or what I call sovereignty. The di stinction lies in this: sovereignty has the right to legislate (le droit legisla tif) . . . whereas government has purely executive power." In The Social Contract the distinction between the general will and legislative capacity, on one hand, and government and executive power, on the other, is rest ated, but Rousseau now faces the challenge of portraying these two elements as d istinct and yet articulated, knit together, interwoven. This is what compels him, at the very moment he posits the distinction, to deny forcefully that there coul d exist any division within the sovereign. As with Aristotle, sovereignty that w hich is kyrion or supreme, is at the same time one of the two terms being distin guished, and the indissoluble link between constitution and government. Today we behold the overwhelming preponderance of the government and the economy over anything you could call popular sovereignty an expression by now drained of all meaning. Western democracies are perhaps paying the price for a philosophic al heritage they haven't bothered to take a close look at in a long time. To thi nk of government as simple executive power is a mistake and one of the most cons equential errors ever made in the history of Western politics. It explains why m odern political thought wanders off into empty abstractions like law, the genera l will, and popular sovereignty while entirely failing to address the central qu estion of government and its articulation, as Rousseau would say, to the soverei gn or locus of sovereignty In a recent book I tried to show that the central mys tery of politics is not sovereignty but government; not God but his angels; not the king but his minister; not the law but the police or rather, the double govern mental machine they form and propel. Our Western political system results from t he coupling of two heterogeneous elements, a politico-juridical rationality and an economic- governmental rationality, a "form of constitution" and a "form of g overnment." Incommensurable they may be, but they legitimate and confer mutual c onsistency on each other Why does the politeia get trapped in this ambiguity? Wh at is it that gives the sovereign, the kyrion, the power to ensure and guarantee the legitimacy of their union? What if it were just a fiction, a screen set up to hide the fact that there is a void at the center, that no articulation is pos sible between these two elements, these two rationalities? What if the task at h and were to disarticulate them and force into the open this "ungovernable" that is simultaneously the source and the vanishing point of any and all politics? As long as thought balks at tackling this knotty problem and its amphibology, an y debate about democracy, either as a form of constitution or as a technique of government, is likely to collapse back into mere chatter". Giorgio Agamben Democracy in what State? GIORGIO AGAMBEN. INTRODUCTORY NOTE ON THE CONCEPT OF DEMOCRACY. Giorgio Agamben. "Introductory Note on the Concept of Democracy." in: Theory & E vent. Vol. 13, No. 1, 2010. (English). Any discussion of the term "democracy" today is distorted by a preliminary ambig uity that condemns those who use it to misunderstanding. Of what do we speak whe n we speak about democracy? To what form of rationality does this term actuallypertain?A slightly more attentive observation would show that those who discuss democracy today understand this term sometimes as a form of the body politic's c onstitution, sometimes as a technique of government. The term thus refers both t o the conceptuality of public law and to that of administrative practice: it des ignates power's form of legitimation as well as the modalities of its exercise. Since it is obvious to everybody that, in contemporary political discourse, this term is more often related to a technique of government - which,as such, has no thing especially reassuring about it - one understands the malaise of those who continue to use it in the first sense in entirely good faith. That the interlacing of these two conceptualities - juridico-political on the on e hand, economico-managerial on the other - has deeproots and is not easily dise ntangled will appear clearly in the following example. When we find the word po liteia in the classics of Greek political thought (often within the context of a discussion about the different forms of politeia : monarchy, oligarchy,democr acy, as well as their parekbaseis or deviations), we see the translators render this word sometimes as "constitution," sometimesas "government." Thus, in the p assage of The Athenian Constitution ( 27) where Aristotle describes the 'demagog y' of Pericles, theEnglish translator renders demotikoteran synebe genesthai ten politeian as "the constitution became still more democratic." 1 Immediately the reafter, Aristotle adds that the multitude apasan ten politeian mallon agein eis hautons , which the same translator renders by "brought all the government more into their hands" 2 (obviously, to translate by "brought all the constitution", as consistency would have demanded, would be problematic). Where does this veritable 'amphiboly' come from, this ambiguity of the fundament al political concept, by virtue of which it appearsnow as constitution, now as g overnment? Here it will suffice to indicate two passages in the history of Weste rn political thought inwhich this ambiguity appears with particular evidence. Th e first is to be found in the Politics (1279a 25-27) when Aristotle declareshis intention to enumerate and study the different forms of constitution ( politeiai ): "Since politeia and politeuma mean the same thing,and politeuma is the supre me power ( kyrion ) of cities, it is necessary that the supreme power be in the hands of one, of the few, or of the many [ ]." The standard translations give here : "Since constitution and government mean the same thing, and government is thes upreme power of the State [ ]." Although a more faithful translation would have ha d to preserve the proximity of the two terms politeia (political activity) and p oliteuma (the political entity that results from this), it is clear that Aristot le's attempt to mitigate ambiguity by means of this figure he calls the kyrion c onstitutes the essential problem of this passage. To employ modern terminologynot without somewhat forcing the link - constituent power ( politeia ) and const ituted power ( politeuma ) come together here in the form of a sovereign power ( kyrion ), which appears as that which holds the two faces of politics together. But why is the political divided, and on what basis does the kyrion articulate this split, while stitching it together. The second passage is to be found in The Social Contract . In his 1977-78 lectur e course, Security, Territory, Population , Foucault had already demonstrated th at Rousseau posed precisely here the problem of reconciling a juridico-constitut ional terminology("contract," "general will," "sovereignty") with an "art of gov ernment." 3 But, from the perspective that interests us, it is the distinction a nd the articulation between sovereignty and government, which is the basis of Ro usseau's political thought, which is decisive. "I ask my readers," he writes in his Discourse on Political Economy , "to distinguish clearly also the public eco nomy of which I shall bespeaking, and which I call government , from the supreme authority, which I call sovereignty ; the distinction is that the latter has th e right to legislate [ ] while the former has the power only to execute [ ]." 4 In T he Social Contract , the distinction is reaffirmed as an articulation between ge neral will and legislative power on the one hand, and government and executive p ower on the other. Now precisely what is at issue for Rousseau is simultaneously distinguishing and tying the two elements together (this is why at the very mom ent in which he formulates the distinction he must vigorously deny that it const itutes a division of the sovereign). 5 As forAristotle, sovereignty - the kyrion- is at once one of the terms in the distinction and that which binds constitut ion and government together in an indissoluble knot. If today we witness the overwhelming domination of the government and the econom y over a popular sovereignty that has been progressively emptied of any sense, i t may be that Western democracies are paying the price for a philosophical legac y they have assumed without reservations. The misunderstanding that consists in conceiving of government as a simple executive power is one of the errors most f raught with consequences in the history of Western politics. It succeeded in ens uring that the political reflection of modernity got lost behind empty abstracti ons like the Law, the general will and popular sovereignty, while leaving withou t response the problem which is from every point of view decisive: that of gover nment and its articulation with the sovereign. In a recent book, I have attempte d to demonstrate that the central mystery of politics is not sovereignty, but go vernment, not God, but the angels, not theKing, but the ministers, not law, but the police - or, more precisely, the double governmental machine which they form and keep in motion 6. The Western political system results from the knotting together of two heterogen eous elements, which legitimate one another and which give one another mutual co nsistency: a politico-juridical rationality and an economico-governmental ration ality, a "form of constitution" and a "form of government." Why is the politeia caught in this ambiguity? What grants the sovereign (the kyrion ) the power to e nsure and to guarantee their legitimate union? Is it not a question of a fiction designed to conceal the fact that the centre of the machine is empty, that betw een the two elements and the two rationalities there is no possible articulation ? And that it is from their disarticulation that it is a question of making that ungovernable emerge, which is at once the source and the vanishing point of eve ry politics? It is probable that as long as thought does not resolve to confront this knot an d its amphibology, every discussion about democracy -as a form of constitution a nd as a technique of government - risks lapsing into chatter. Notes 1. Aristotle in Twenty-Three Volumes, XX: The Athenian Constition; The Eudemian Ethics; On Virtues and Vices , trans. H. Rackham(London: William Heinemann, 1952 ), 79. 2. Aristotle in Twenty-Three Volumes, XX , 81. 3. Cf. Michel Foucault, Security, Territory, Population, Lectures at the Collge d e France, 1977-78 , ed. Michel Senellart, trans.Graham Burchell (Hampshire: Palg rave Macmillan, 2007), 106-107. 4. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on Political Economy and The Social Contract , trans. Christopher Betts (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1994), 6. 5. Cf. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on Political Economy and The Social Cont ract , 64-65. 6. Cf. Giorgio Agamben, Il Regno e la Gloria. Per una genealogia teologica dell' economia e del governo (Vicenza: Neri Pozza,2007