Absolute Democracy: Rethinking Bodin on Popular Sovereignty

• In Event: Historical and Theoretical Perspectives on Equality, Liberty, and Popular Power

Abstract

Critics of “constitutional democracy” often argue that the ideals of popular sovereignty and constitutionalism are inherently opposed. But contemporary political theorists have yet to formulate a robust non-constitutionalist model of democracy. In this paper, I suggest that we can identify such a model in an unlikely source: the political thought of the 16th-century jurist Jean Bodin. In contrast to recent scholarship, I argue that Bodin’s theory of popular sovereignty commits him not to an early model of modern constitutional democracy, but rather to the striking possibility of "absolute democracy."

“Absolutism” is often understood as an exclusively monarchical political doctrine. But in the high absolutist theory of the 16th and 17th centuries, the notion that sovereign authority is "absolute" (absolutus) – and thus unbound by law (legibus solutus) – was not restricted to monarchies; it also applied to aristocracies and democracies. Bodin, the central figure of this tradition, argues that all political sovereigns – whether monarchical, aristocratic, or democratic – must hold “absolute power,” an authority unconstrained by either law or constitutional norms. For Bodin, a democracy is a therefore a regime in which the people, like an absolute monarch, retains an exclusive and unlimited right to legislate, annul existing laws or institutions, and override judicial verdicts through a simple majority vote.

After reconstructing Bodin’s model of "absolute democracy," I reassess his relationship to modern constitutional democracy. I conclude that Bodin would regard most – if not all - existing liberal states as essentially undemocratic. For Bodin, any “democracy” in which legislative power belongs to a small group of representatives – such as senators, courts, or judges – is not a democracy at all, but rather a tyranny per usurpationem, a regime in which sovereignty has been “usurped” from its rightful owner.

I suggest that Bodin’s conception of democracy is incompatible with the institutional arrangements of many contemporary liberal democracies – including the separation of powers, the independence of the judiciary, and the protection of minority rights through constitutional provisions. Rather than promoting Bodinian “absolute democracy” as a model for contemporary democratic theory or practice, I propose that Bodin’s political thought can help contemporary theorists envision the possibilities – and potential dangers – of democracy without constitutionalism.

Author

• Eero Arum, UC Berkeley