The Right to Have Rights: Democratic, Not Political

Author(s): Sofia Näsström

Source: Political Theory , October 2014, Vol. 42, No. 5 (October 2014), pp. 543-568
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24571508

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

Sage Publications, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Political Theory

This content downloaded from

154.59.125.175 on Wed, 22 Mar 2023 16:42:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Special Section: Arendtian Orientations

Political Theory
2014, Vol. 42(5) 543-568
The Right to Have © 2014 SAGE Publications
Reprints and permissions:

Rights: Democratic, Not sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

DOI: 10.1177/0090591714538427

Political ptx.sagepub.com

Sofia Näsström1

Abstract

Recent years have witnessed an upsurge of political readings of the right

to have rights. The gist of the argument is that this right only comes into
being in the act of claiming or taking it. At the same time, the political
reading suffers from a normative lacuna which is difficult to ignore if right
is not to collapse into might. The present article seeks to show that this
normative lacuna can be accounted for if one situates the political reading
in relation to a certain form of government. Acknowledging Montesquieu's
influence on Arendt's resort to the principles which guide political action,
the article offers a new interpretation of the normative basis of the right
to have rights. It argues, first, that this right is democratic, not political, and
second, that the principle which sets the right in motion is responsibility,
not freedom.

Keywords
Arendt, Montesquieu, right to have rights, democracy, freedom, responsibility

'Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

Corresponding Author:
Sofia Näsström, Uppsala University, Gamla Torget I, Uppsala, 75120, Sweden.
Email: [email protected]

This content downloaded from

154.59.125.175 on Wed, 22 Mar 2023 16:42:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 544 Political Theory 42(5)

What I propose, therefore, is very simple: it

we are doing.

Arendt, The Human C

Witness to times of growing migration

of the modern political tradition which
her work. The point she makes is that
numbers of people of their "right to hav
to an organized political community an
this argument strikes an intuitive chor
der politics, migration and human righ
puzzle. The puzzle is how to understan
does it derive its normative force?
To Arendt, the events that unfolded before, during and after the Second
World War revealed the limits of the modern political tradition. The fact that
millions of people were excluded from their political communities and
reduced to a state of sheer natural existence demonstrated the urgency of
finding "a new political principle" by which to safeguard human dignity on
earth.2 Setting out to retrieve this principle, Arendt turns her attention to the
human condition of natality, which is her name for the capacity of human
beings to initiate something new which cannot be expected from whatever
may have happened before. The claim she makes is that it is through political
action, and the new beginning that it engenders that human beings can safe
guard human dignity on earth. Still, while many political theorists readily can
accept that what goes on between human beings is unpredictable, they usu
ally have a hard time squaring this view of political action with a normative
basis. The problem is that a normative basis by definition would seem to
require the very opposite of natality, a general law or regulative code from
which to assess and judge action. Arendt offers nothing of the sort. The result
is that while there is today a growing literature on the right to have rights,
there is fundamental uncertainty as to what underwrites its power:3

If we insist that we must treat all humans as being entitled to the right to have
rights, on the basis of which philosophical assumptions do we defend this
insistence? Do we ground such respect for universal human rights in nature, in
history or in human rationality? One searches in vain for answers to these
questions in Arendt 's text.4

The purpose of this article is to show that the normative basis of the right to
have rights becomes less puzzling if one enquires into the significance of "the
principle" referred to by Arendt. When asking for a new political principle by

This content downloaded from

154.59.125.175 on Wed, 22 Mar 2023 16:42:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Näsström 545

which to guarante
tive ideal, be it on
of Montesquieu,
and sets a certain
there is a differe
former is its polit
to act."5 The point
ciples of action,
Monarchies are an
virtue and despot
Arendt praises M
menthas its own
she also develops
about the signific
However, on on
Montesquieu, she
ernment. The hu
independently of
ments. In this art
follow out the con
it enacts is the m
rights. In an atte
rights, I will mak
The first argumen
Instead of interpr
the right to have
the right it enac
Arendt makes cle
modern democrat
which prompts h
when Arendt artic
she stands in the
ment, one which
If Montesquieu sh
category of polit
critic of the mode
limits of this tra
contrary, I shall a
ers, and by follo
democracy it beco
right to have righ

This content downloaded from

154.59.125.175 on Wed, 22 Mar 2023 16:42:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 546 Political Theory 42(5)

The second argument concerns the ch

has become commonplace to associate t
ple of freedom—expressed in the form
I shall argue that this interpretation on
show how the act of freedom is able to
principle of responsibility is what ach
principle is to be found in the Americ
happens in the revolutionary shift fro
people takes the place of God as guarant
of authority in political affairs. This
imposing. The removal of an external l
sense of absolute freedom, but also a s
will argue, this burden of responsibili
democracy—is the animating principle
reason is that it is only by sharing this
on, and this is precisely what member
us into an equal among others it limits
plausibly shoulder on our own.
The article falls into three parts. It beg
to have rights, and the problems associ
It then shows how Arendt's turn to M
responds to these problems. The attrac
fact that it is tied to a specific form of
ment coeval with the human condition
ment originating with the American a
part returns to the discussion on the e
rights. It shows that this right is based
that this principle offers an immanent
criticise the politics of exclusion carrie

The Elusive Foundation of th

Peoples are everywhere in the making
institutions by which to cope with mig
to this, and so does the prolonged and
ing taking place in Europe and elsewher
chance that contemporary societies are
they are confronted with a growing n
papier). The situation has its root in th
eignty. Statelessness is not the result
arises from a certain form of politica
world into separate and sovereign peoples. The problem with this

This content downloaded from

154.59.125.175 on Wed, 22 Mar 2023 16:42:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Näsström 547

organization is th
losing your polit
you no right to
modernity is "n
one."8
Still, Arendt does not merely aspire to draw our attention to the problem
of statelessness. She is also perceptive to the fact that insofar as this condition
is the outcome of a certain form of political organization it cannot be dis
missed as a natural or historical fact. It raises a question of right, a right
which appears in full bloom and comes to our attention precisely at the point
of its denial:

We become aware of a right to have rights (and that means to live in a framework
where one is judged by one's actions and opinions) and a right to belong to
some kind of organized community, only when millions of people emerged
who had lost and could not regain these rights because of the new global
political situation.9

Arendt concedes that this right is difficult to pin down. For "although every
one seems to agree that the plight of these people consists precisely in their
loss of the Rights of Man, no one seems to know which rights they lost when
they lost these human rights." Setting out to answer this question, Arendt
finds that they lost their homes, their protection by the government, and
above all they lost their right to belong to a political community, "a place in
the world which makes opinions significant and actions effective."10 But the
uncertainty as to what is lost does not end there. For despite a growing litera
ture on the right to have rights no one seems to know the basis of this right.
This uncertainty is unfortunate, not only because it plays into the hands of
those who contest its existence. The trouble is that it also affects its defend
ers. In the absence of a plausible answer as to what underwrites the right to
have rights, it may be tempting to resort to more traditional sources of right
in the form of nature or history, neither of which is able to offer a source of
critique against the politics of rightlessness. To see why, let us recapitulate
the problems associated with grounding right in nature or history.
The temptation to appeal to nature as a standpoint from which to criticise
contemporary practices of exclusion and outlawing should not be underesti
mated. As Arendt remarks, it was precisely one of the advantages of the so
called natural rights of men that they were considered to exist independently
of history, and thereby also of the privileges that history had accorded certain
strata of society. By appealing to nature, the men of the revolution thought it
possible to fashion an independent standpoint from which to criticise the

This content downloaded from

154.59.125.175 on Wed, 22 Mar 2023 16:42:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
548 Political Theory 42(5)

injustices they experienced in the prese

of their current historical status all hu
Subject to the same human nature they
from their capacity as men—life, liber
American context; equality, liberty and
It does not matter if one adopts the Ame
natural rights of men. The central poin
these rights spring directly from natu
even if only a single human being exist
human plurality and should remain va
from the human community."11
In hindsight, we know that appeal to t
protect citizens once they were expe
According to Arendt, this is not by ch
carrier of right and wrong it inevitabl
tect, not because there is something e
appeal to nature takes away the role of
says, superfluous.12 On this point, Ar
injustices by appealing to human nature
right of the naked savage.13 The fact
rights also lost their human rights bear
no matter how "inalienable" or "self-evi
it only applies to those who already h
nized as citizens of a particular commu

If a human being loses his political sta

implications of the inborn and inalienable
the situation for which the declaration
Actually the opposite is the case. It seems
has lost the very qualities which make it p
as a fellow-man.14

With this in mind, it could be tempting

right to have rights should be understoo
a specific constitutional state; as "the
inalienable "right of man."15 Rights, i
that we possess by virtue of being hum
each other through political conventio
this direction when she, praising Burke
to the abstractness of human rights. At
Burke's example and base the right to h
base the right to have rights on existin

This content downloaded from

154.59.125.175 on Wed, 22 Mar 2023 16:42:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Näsström 549

be to exclude the
those who lack c
ing them in the
order which cau
reasoning: "the ri
But if neither na
to have rights, w
political philoso
Wolin remarks, t
mere critique an
struct a shattere
expressions."17 A
emergence of st
lem in the form
democratic system
pieces of this sh
future, she finds
This is difficult,
past with "undist
It is in spiri this
own political tra
condition from t
ism.19 Doing so,
dead to the worl
lived among men
cution.20 To be hu
into the world—
beings are able t
exclusion. Arendt
equipped the for
they themselves
clusion she draws
nificance of its ow
be it in nature or
This performati
merit of avoidin
Instead of falling
enjoy citizenship
the guarantor of
salience among
human rights.23

This content downloaded from

154.59.125.175 on Wed, 22 Mar 2023 16:42:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 550 Political Theory 42(5)

political action—when it comes into be

it—the stateless, the migrants and the
contemporary democratic states. Rathe
tics of exclusion they become political
bringing something into being which d
argues, this performative aspect is wh
migrants today lay claim to the public
claiming space and rights, immigran
spaces of freedom and common appear
Still, the political reading has not go
about Arendt's understanding of polit
less" freedom is that it destabilizes the
cal thought is based.25 By making the
political action there is no basis of this r
accomplish through our own acts. If th
taught us anything, Arendt writes, it is
eral standards to determine our judgem
under which to subsume the particular
To many theorists, this means that while
of her generation her own response to
lacuna. For if there is no general standa
she conclude that political exclusion is
Arendt "leaves us with a disquiet about
political philosophy."27
Two problems in particular become par
right to have rights. First of all, politic
for the excluded ones. Citizens as well as non-citizens are involved in the
claiming of right. The problem is that these groups are not on an equal foot
ing. In the words of Peg Birmingham: "To argue that it is up to individuals to
claim rights through a debate is to miss the political urgency: those who des
perately appeal to human rights are often those who are in no position to be
recognized as claimants before a tribunal that has already decided against
them."28 The struggle between citizens and non-citizens, or between "the
haves" and the "have nots," may therefore well turn out to work in favour of
the former, and thereby leave a large part of the human population without
legal protection. Against this scenario, it would seem as if a political reading
has no other recipe than more of the same sort in the form of speech and
action. Second, and accordingly, this means that whether there is such a thing
as a right to have rights all depends on our own involvement. There is nothing
else to fall back upon. Maybe we act, or maybe we don't. The right to have
rights springs up between us whenever we engage in politics, which also
implies that it runs the risk of vanishing the moment we disperse.

This content downloaded from

154.59.125.175 on Wed, 22 Mar 2023 16:42:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Näsström 551

Confronted with
reading some theo
from which to gr
refers to Arendt's
in politics the righ
Benhabib finds th
rights concerns u
sense of the term
go beyond the de
universal basis for
basis is sourced in
ontology," and th
principle of given
oneself in the com
tude for what exis
This attempt to f
to have rights mu
tics. As Arendt re
"particular answer
a universal formu
associated with the
both an Benhabib
to be accounted f
instead of dismiss
in the eye and ask
it so difficult to s
guarantee than th
What is unbearab
moves us to embra
on nothing but ou
able, a burden too
the modern demo
this normative lac
is doing when clai
in the form of sp
limited and divide

The Attracti
In several of her
principle" which

This content downloaded from

154.59.125.175 on Wed, 22 Mar 2023 16:42:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 552 Political Theory 42(5)

discovery, and it is not difficult to see i

central features, both of which solve cr
political action into the basis of right: it
and it is normative without being regu
ing into Arendt's adoption of Montesqu
she leaves out from her discussion: the connection between the human condi
tion of natality, on the one hand, and the form of government that it enacts, on
the other.
In TheSpirit oj the Laws, Montesquieu distinguishes between the nature
and principle of governments. As he argues, the nature of a government refers
to "that by which it is constituted"; the king in a monarchical government, the
people in a republic and the tyrant in a despotic government. The principle
refers to "that by which it is made to act": honour in monarchies, virtue in
republics and fear in despotic governments.35 Contrary to the alleged legal
ism of Montesquieu, he thus conceives of law as an institution situated in a
larger social context. The principle of honour, virtue and fear is a public sen
sation which engenders ongoing commitment to the government in question
and in this way upholds and secures its continuing existence. The contention
is that government is a matter of relations, and this is why political action
becomes crucial. Just as some motors will only "go" on petrol, different gov
ernments have different drives which set them in motion.36
The first thing to notice about this understanding is that while political
action is contingent—it is not subjected to a law of nature or history—it is not
arbitrary. The reason is that political action is tied to a specific form of gov
ernment, which in turn bestows it with direction and meaning. To Arendt, this
aspect is of great importance for understanding politics. By introducing "his
tory and historical process into the structures of government," Montesquieu
strikes a unique balance between the Greek concern with the difference
between forms of governments, on the one hand, and the modern concern
with history as a process of change, on the other.37 Before Montesquieu, the
structure of governments were thought of as "unmoved and unmovable," and
"the only principle of change connected with forms of government was
change for the worse," as when an aristocracy would degenerate into oligar
chy.38 For Montesquieu, however, the forms of governments are closely tied
to historical experience, and more important still, they are set in motion by
history. They do not exist unless people keep enacting them.
At the same time, Montesquieu does not follow the modern trajectory in
his understanding of law. The advantage of introducing historical process
into the structures of governments is that while it makes motion into the basis
of politics, it is still delimited by this structure, and not as in totalitarian gov
ernments, unbound in its imitation of the "inevitable" laws of nature or

This content downloaded from

154.59.125.175 on Wed, 22 Mar 2023 16:42:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Näsström 553

history.39 The em
dismissal of Hob
kind. By this m
before the estab
this establishmen
is not to stabilize
within it—which for her is the definition of law—but to "stabilize" the
humans themselves. They become nature, and thereby robbed of their human
capacity to initiate something new and unforeseen into this world.41
It is against this background that one ought to understand Arendt's interest
in Montesquieu's principles of action. On the one hand, they show that politi
cal action is contingent. It does not follow a general law of nature or history.
On the contrary, the principle of an action "becomes fully manifest only in
the performing of the act itself." It is "manifest in the world as long as the
action lasts, but no longer."42 On the other hand, this performative under
standing of action does not mean that what goes on between human beings is
arbitrary. Principles "do not operate from within the self as motives do ... but
inspire, as it were, from without."43 What Arendt means is that honour, virtue
and fear are not merely psychological motives, but they are more general
aspirations that "map out certain directions" in politics.44 Belonging to no
one, yet enacted by everyone, they give a certain form to politics. To act from
a principle is therefore not to act arbitrarily. It is to act politically, and what
this entails varies depending on the government in question: "Just as it is the
pride of a citizen in a republic not to dominate his fellow-citizens in public
matters, so it is the pride of a subject in a monarchy to distinguish himself and
be publicly honoured."45
The second thing to notice about Montesquieu's principles is that while
they are normative—they offer "standards of right and wrong"—they are not
regulative.46 The difference is that whereas regulative ideals tell us what
ought to be, principles are not theoretical maxims. Their normativity consists
in their capacity to move, and not to prescribe action. This means that while
principles orient action, they overflow the rules that they enact: "Hedged in
by law and power, and occasionally overwhelming them, lie the origins of
motion and action."47 The principle of fear, for example, is not prescribed in
a despotic government. Nor is virtue laid down in the laws of the republic.
Fear and virtue are rather the public sensations that continue to draw ever
new actors to support their case. This is not to say that people always act in
accordance with these principles, or that there are no other political principles
influencing their actions. The point made by Montesquieu is that while all
societies are home to a mixture of aspirations there is always one dominant
principle that spurs the others in a direction favourable to the government in

This content downloaded from

154.59.125.175 on Wed, 22 Mar 2023 16:42:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 554 Political Theory 42(5)

question, and as such allows us to s

"republic," "monarchical" or "despo
dition of possibility, for "if these
specific criteria of behaviour are n
tions themselves are jeopardized."49
This evaluative aspect is of particu
theory, one often thinks of normat
opposed to what "is." For exampl
against which political relationsh
However, Montesquieu's notion of th
to a regulative ideal from which to
nature, history or reason—it is poss
normative basis of politics. The pri
only set a particular form of gover
ative role to play. As Arendt writes
which all public life is led and judge
action is judged on the basis of how
private corruption, and in a monarch
guards honour against baseness and
So far, we have discussed the sign
stitution of government. But what a
ical action? What form of governm
where Arendt's thinking becomes m
what guides political action is the hu
ity. Natality is a beginning which i
therefore a beginning which cannot
ent. Like the event of birth, it has th
saves the world, the realm of human
ultimately the fact of natality, in w
rooted."51
1 his argument might give the impression tnat Arenat is oiienng a meta
condition for all governments, as if natality is what conditions monarchy,
republicanism and despotism alike. However, Arendt's situating of the dis
cussion of natality in modernity is telling. She explicitly says that natality
was unfamiliar to the Greeks, and when concluding her discussion of the
various principles addressed by Montesquieu she argues that each of them
should be regarded as "authentic elements of the human condition."52 The
discovery attributed to Montesquieu, that each form of government has its
own innate principle, therefore opens up a new path in the interpretation of
political action. It implies that when Arendt turns to natality she is not dis
cussing the human condition par excellence. She is discussing the human

This content downloaded from

154.59.125.175 on Wed, 22 Mar 2023 16:42:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Näsström 555

condition concom
never had the ch
The closest Aren
addresses the Am
explicitly connect
she raises is whe
munity that is n
American and th
tion that revolut
terror is the pric
to conceive of a n
in the American
"presents us with
is great enough
action to appear
ing carries with
beginning, itis n
sibleto alleviate
acknowledge the
ning from its ow
only related to ea

The Principl
What is the pri
Arendt refers to
such as "mutual p
"public happiness
ing. It often com
also the principle
the same time, fr
can be found als
ancient Greece.

In order to retrieve the principle that sets modern democracy in motion, it

is therefore necessary to undertake a more specific analysis. In this context, it
is important to recall what Arendt writes about the birth of modern democ
racy. As she points out, it is one thing to overthrow a government, quite
another to establish a new one. If "the end of rebellion is liberation... the end
of revolution is the foundation of freedom."59 Accordingly, we need to distin
guish between two forms of political action, the one that releases and the one
that binds, or hedges. What concerns us here is the latter, for it is only this act
which results in a democratic form of government. To borrow Arendt's own

This content downloaded from

154.59.125.175 on Wed, 22 Mar 2023 16:42:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 556 Political Theory 42(5)

language, it creates a lasting freedom

cess into the structure of government
mates this revolutionary process, we sh
moment of founding.
Modern democracy is a form of gove
foundations. What happens in the revo
people is that the political order no lon
appeal to divine or natural authority. T
of authority in political affairs, and wi
to account for its authority. If the kin
does the people rule? The conflict that
to a paradox of founding which in rece
among political theorists. The paradox
ple is the only legitimate source of pol
flict on its own constitution.60 Rousseau
this problem, and later it was to become
revolution.61 In order to found a legiti
sage clearly influenced by Montesquieu
work of the institution would have to
men would have to be prior to laws wh
them."62
If Rousseau was the one who saw most clearly the problem of founding,
and the men of the revolution were the ones who provided its solution in the
form of the natural rights of men, ours is the time when this problem has gone
from a mere theoretical consideration to a living and tangible fact, and no one
articulated this fact better than Arendt. Modern democracy, she notes, is a
government preoccupied with its own foundations. In order to come into
being it needs an "absolute" by which to break the vicious circle inherent in
founding.63 The trouble is that since the American and the French Revolution,
this absolute is sought in nature or history, both of which suffer from serious
problems. Instead of safeguarding human dignity, it leads either to a real or
literal regression from civilization to nature in the form of a savage existence,
or to a regression back into a distant past which then is allowed to preside
over political relationships in the present.64 The task of political theory is
therefore to find a new political principle which can guarantee human dignity
on earth. Arendt finds this principle in the realm of action. As she argues, it is
futile to search for an absolute by which to break the vicious circle of demo
cratic founding, "for this 'absolute' lies in the very act of beginning itself."65
We have now reached a central point in Arendt's attempt to avoid the fal
lacy associated with natural and historical right. Recall that neither resort to
nature nor history could serve as a normative basis of the right to have rights.

This content downloaded from

154.59.125.175 on Wed, 22 Mar 2023 16:42:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Näsström 557

Both fail to guar

mines the role of
biased towards t
Arendt says here
accompanies polit
democratic found
ning itself, and
arbitrariness? I be
ment, and that o
establish a lasting
The first interpr
modern democra
ural ruin," is fre
as guarantor of
human affairs. In
sense of absolute
of the revolution
by divine grace,
longer chained to
free—as distingu
they act, neither
problem with thi
Arendt calls libe
taking right, one
liberating oneself
newly won freed
is the principle w
The second inter
to this reading,
racy is responsib
affairs comes no
sibility. Human
higher order in
guarantor of rig
human beings ar
a condition of ab
this moment on
human beings ac
responsible for i
animates the bind
burden that hum

This content downloaded from

154.59.125.175 on Wed, 22 Mar 2023 16:42:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
558 Political Theory 42(5)

to have rights does. By granting everyo

a room for freedom, a constitution in w
for deciding and judging what is right
In the remaining part of the section, I
interpretation for the right to have righ
argues that there is no guarantee for the
we provide through our own deeds she
condition. She is doing something, and
ciple of responsibility innate to the mod
ciple that animates her claim that hum
and allows her to conclude that it is w
participation in political affairs.
By making this suggestion, I will fol
important respect. Principles, as she ar
self as motives do, but they inspire fr
writings as well. Accordingly, in exami
have rights I will not lay claim to have
or aspirations. The principle of resp
something that she herself intends, bu
political principle which moves and gui
us begin where Arendt herself begins.
that influenced her turn to the politica
ing happened the day the Reichstag bur
moment on," she says, "I felt responsib
This may seem like a displaced com
seems to blame the victims rather than
responsible for something done by othe
just argued, however, this testimony fr
have rights is perhaps not that unexpe
describes the loneliness that afflicts th
to a political community. To be stateles
human mind can only be the supreme t
in a condition of statelessness is politic
and act together with others they becom
longer perceived as humans, they can b
drawing the conclusion that a crime aga
As a stateless person, one is therefore n
is dismissed from humanity itself. We
zens, and losing our citizenship we
responsibilities."74

This content downloaded from

154.59.125.175 on Wed, 22 Mar 2023 16:42:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Näsström 559

This
argument is
therefore be disti
animal. According
an individual who lives outside of the state cannot be human. It "must be
either a beast or a god."75 This description does not capture what Arendt
means by statelessness. In keeping with the absolute freedom and responsi
bility that arises in the shift from divine to popular right, the situation of the
stateless person is best characterized by an inverted form of omnipotence. It
consists in the burden of having to bear the entire world within oneself with
out assistance of others. However, omnipotence in the clothes of a human
makes a most precarious creature. The problem is that since human beings
only can act freely and take responsibility in the company of others, a state
less person will be perceived as the most irresponsible person on earth.
Responsible for everything, one is in effect responsible for nothing, and
therefore not accountable to a discourse of right and wrong. One is placed
outside of all human power and law: "Innocence, in the sense of complete
lack of responsibility, was the mark of their rightlessness as it was the seal of
their loss of political status."76
To be stateless is therefore not to be a beast or a god. It is indeed to be
human, but to find oneself in a condition of being deprived of all common
human responsibilities. Politically speaking, Arendt writes, the stateless are
"the only totally nonresponsible people." They are "the absolutely innocent
ones; and it is precisely this absolute innocence that condemns them to a posi
tion outside, as it were, of mankind as a whole."77 This interpretation helps to
explain why Arendt regards membership in a political community as such a
prized status in modern democratic life, for it is only through this status as a
citizen that we can remain what we are: human beings prone to action and
judgment. Absent natural and divine authorities in political affairs, it is what
guarantees our human dignity. It is also for this reason that it is better to be a
criminal than an outlaw, for as someone who can be prosecuted and so held
to account in the eyes of others we can at least regain some kind of human
equality.78
Arendt s definition or the stateless as someone whose condition paradoxi
cally is improved when committing a crime cuts to the heart of the matter.79
The problem is that living outside of the jurisdiction of the law the stateless
have constantly to transgress the law in order to live and make a living. Still,
unlike criminals who are charged for their deeds the stateless find themselves
outside the pale of the law. Their predicament "is not that they are not equal
before law, but that no law exists for them."80 This predicament is not the
animal condition in which man is a wolf to man. The wolf who takes the
sheep is neither guilty nor not guilty. He is innocent in the more profound

This content downloaded from

154.59.125.175 on Wed, 22 Mar 2023 16:42:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 560 Political Theory 42(5)

sense of being beyond right and wrong

ceptible to right and wrong. They judge
lows in these terms. Accordingly, to be
worst form of persecution: that of not ev
great satisfaction that Arendt reports o
fact that she eventually had to flee the
had done something! At least I am not
me!"82
The principle of responsibility, I have argued so far, guides Arendt in
claiming a right to have rights. The question is whether this principle, apart
from guiding political action also can serve as a normative standard by which
to judge it. Does it offer a way to distinguish right from wrong? One of the
most original aspects of Montesquieu's notion of the principle is that it har
bours a normativity which goes beyond a regulative understanding of right.
The principle of honour, virtue and fear are at once principles of action and
principles of judgment. In a monarchy, for example, the government is both
enacted by the principle of honour and evaluated on its terms. It follows that
as a noble man who treats a peasant as an equal we would violate the princi
ple of honour which upholds the monarchical form of government. By not
distinguishing ourselves from the peasant, we jeopardize the normative basis
of monarchy itself. In a republic, it is the other way around. As citizens who
strive for our own private good without regard for the community as a whole
we violate the principle of public virtue which upholds the republican form
of government. By not acting out of love for country and law, we corrupt the
normative basis of the republic.
In a similar vein, it is important to see that the principle of responsibility
worked out in this article does not only guide Arendt in claiming a right to
have rights. As a standard of right and wrong, it also provides an immanent
standpoint from which to judge political action in a democratic form of gov
ernment. It helps us to see why the exclusion of human beings from political
life corrupts the normative basis of democracy. The problem is that it burdens
them with a responsibility that ought to be publicly shared and divided
between equals, and Arendt herself bears witness to this corruption of
democracy.83
On the one hand, the responsibility that she takes upon herself in the face
of her own persecution is unbearable, and we can feel this weight or burden
on her. How can she be responsible? She is a victim and not a perpetrator. On
the other hand, we cannot blame the situation on God or the German
"nature."84 In a democratic form of government, there is no higher law able
to guarantee right and wrong. In this respect, Arendt is right. She is respon
sible for what happens to her. What is wrong, however, is that she is forced to

This content downloaded from

154.59.125.175 on Wed, 22 Mar 2023 16:42:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Näsström 561

be alone in this.
sion, she enacts
divine foundatio
determining wh
from the politica
commit a wrong
rights.

Conclusion

Ours is a time of global institutional change. It would perhaps be premature

to refer to this situation as a condition of statelessness, but there is a sense in
which the modern state has lost its privileged position in the exercise of dem
ocratic politics. Partly through its own acts of outsourcing and outlawing,
partly through pressure from global actors and economic structures, it has
assisted in creating a growing class of "precarious" people around the world:
migrants, refugees, stateless persons, but also citizens without secure jobs.85
This production of precarious life, which today is fostered politically by a
privatization of responsibility—if you fail to achieve political, social or eco
nomic security, the argument goes, the responsibility falls on your shoulder—
has prompted both citizens and non-citizens to look for other institutions than
the state to realize their political hopes, be they global legal institutions, non
governmental organizations or regional entities. In this respect, one could say
that the state is undergoing a democratic crisis, and that we all share in an
emergent condition of statelessness: a condition of being deprived of "a place
in the world which makes opinions significant and actions effective."86 How
could one reclaim democracy?
The weakening of the state as the self-evident centre of democratic poli
tics has in recent years resulted in a normative pull towards a political reading
of the right to have rights. The advantage of this view is that it puts action at
the heart of the debate. By arguing that the right to have rights is activated
whenever human beings take action against exclusion, it detaches right from
its association with a particular state. As James Ingram argues, the right to
have rights can emerge "wherever people organize to claim rights they have
been denied—not only within the framework of a constitutional state, but
against any authority that should be more accountable to those over whom it
wields power."87 It offers what Monika Krause, after Arendt, calls "a portable
polis."88
In this article, I too have stressed a political view of the right to have
rights. I have argued that it only comes into being in the act of claiming or
taking it. However, I have demonstrated that while the right to have rights can

This content downloaded from

154.59.125.175 on Wed, 22 Mar 2023 16:42:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 562 Political Theory 42(5)

be detached from its association with a part

a certain form of government. The right t
share in our capacity as political beings, f
in a republic or monarchical form of gover
capacity as democratic beings, that is, as
bility for the absence of a higher law in p
analysis in a significant way. It means tha
nity on earth it is not enough to emphasiz
needs to show how this activity may resul
the missing link in the political reading o
reflects Arendt's own reluctance to connec
form of government.
Arendt was certainly no friend of democ
torted form of politics, one based on rul
recent years her work has become an imp
those concerned with reclaiming democra
As I have tried to show in this article, this
Montesquieu's notion of the principle open
modern democracy, one based on relati
Rousseau once remarked, it "would require
he never experienced the revolutions in the
takes is not a God but an acknowledgment
that arises in its absence. The central point
mative lacuna that emerges with the rem
political affairs is both liberating and im
world now depends not only on what we
doing. Inaction becomes as significant for
unbearable, but therein resides the normativ
By granting everyone an equal share in jud
limits and defines a responsibility we cann
learn from Arendt is that when a state fa
democracy.

Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the participants for helpful and insightful comments. Special
thanks to Charles Barbour, Joachim Blatter, Peg Birmingham, Matthew Clayton,
Bonnie Honig, Nikolas Kompridis, Andrew Shaap, Anna Stilz, Miguel Vatter, and
Anna Yeatman. The final draft of the article also benefitted from comments made by
three anonymous reviewers from Political Theory.

This content downloaded from

154.59.125.175 on Wed, 22 Mar 2023 16:42:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Näsström 563

Author's Note

Previous versions of this article have been presented at APS A in Seattle 2011,
workshops and university research seminars at the University of Western Sydn
Whitlam Institute, the University of St Gallen, the University of Lucerne, an
University of Antwerp.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the res
authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article: The Swedish Research Council, and the
Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences.

Notes

1. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, rev. ed. (1951; repr., New York
Schocken Books, 2004), 376.
2. Arendt, The Origins, xxvii.
3. See, among others, Jeffrey Isaac, "A New Guarantee on Earth: Hannah Aren
on Human Dignity and the Politics of Human Rights, American Political Science
Review 90, no. 1 (1996): 61-73; Frank Michelman, "Parsing 'A Right to Have
Rights,'" Constellations 3, no. 2 (1996): 200-8; Jean Cohen, "Rights, Citizenshi
and the Modern Form of the Social: Dilemmas of Arendtian Republicanism,
Constellations 3, no. 2 (1996): 164-89; Hauke Brunkhorst, "Rights and the
Sovereignty of the People in the Crisis of the Nation-State," Ratio Juris 13, no
1 (2000): 49-62; Seyla Benhabib, The Rights of Others (Cambridge: Cambridg
University Press, 2004), chap. 2; Serena Parekh, "A Meaningful Place in the
World: Hannah Arendt on the Nature of Human Rights," Journal of Human
Rights 2, no. 1 (2004): 41-53; Jacques Rancière, "Who Is the Subject of th
Right to Have Rights?" The South Atlantic Quarterly 103, no. 2/3 (2004): 297
310; Peg Birmingham, Hannah Arendt and Human Rights. The Predicament o
Common Responsibility (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006); Jame
Ingram, "What Is a Right to Have Rights? Three Images of the Politics o
Human Rights," American Political Science Review 102, no. 4 (2008): 401-16;
Bonnie Honig, Emergency Politics. Paradox, Law, Democracy (Princeton, NJ
Princeton University Press, 2009); Andrew Schaap, "Enacting the Right to Have
Rights: Jacques Rancière's Critique of Hannah Arendt," European Journal o
Political Theory 10, no. 1 (2011): 22—45; Hans Lindahl, "Give and Take: Arend
and the Nomos of Political Community," Philosophy and Social Criticism 32
no. 6 (2006): 785-805; Samantha Besson, "Human Rights and Democracy in
Global Context: Decoupling and Recoupling," Ethics & Global Politics 4, no

This content downloaded from

154.59.125.175 on Wed, 22 Mar 2023 16:42:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
564 Political Theory 42(5)

1 (2011): 19-50; Ayten Gündogdu, "Pe

on the Aporias of Human Right," Eu
1 (2012): 4-24; Charles Barbour, "Be
and the Subject of Rights," in Hanna
C. McCorkindale (Oxford, Portland
Bohman, "Citizens and Persons: Leg
Arendt," in Hannah Arendt and the
ofthe Living: Biopolitics and the Crit
University Press 2014), ch.7.
4. Seyla Benhabib, The Reluctant Mo
1996), 82.
5. Baron de Montesquieu, The Spirit of Laws (New York: Prometheus Books,
[1748] 2002), 19.
6. Montesquieu, The Spirit of Laws, Book III.
7. Hannah Arendt, Essays in Understanding, ed. J. Kohn (New York: Schocken
Books, 1994), 331-35. For Arendt's understanding of law, see Jeremy Waldron,
"Arendt's Constitutional Politics", in D. Villa.ed. The Cambridge Companion to
Hannah Arendt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Goldoni and
McCorkindale, eds., Hannah Arendt and the Law.
8. Arendt, The Origins, 372.
Ibid., 376.
Ibid., 372-76.
Ibid., 378.
The problem is thus not that natural right could not "guarantee" human dignity in
the sense of securing its compliance. No law can guarantee anything. If it could,
there would be no need for law in the first place. The problem is that natural right
undercuts the faculty of political judgment.
Arendt, The Origins, 381.
Ibid.
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, ed. L. G. Mitchell
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 58ff.
Rancière, "Who Is the Subject," 302.
Sheldon Wolin, Politics and Vision (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
2004), 9.
Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future (New York: Penguin Books, 1993), 28.
Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1998), 5; Margaret Canovan, Hannah Arendt. A Reinterpretation of Her
Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
Arendt, The Human Condition, 176.
Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (New York: Penguin Books, 1990), 211.
James Ingram distinguishes between three versions of a "political" reading, one
understood in terms of implementation, one understood in terms of laws and
institutions, and a third based on the activity of the rights-claimants or holders
themselves. When I refer to the political reading I have the latter version in mind.
Ingram, "What Is a Right to Have Rights?"

This content downloaded from

154.59.125.175 on Wed, 22 Mar 2023 16:42:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Näsström 565

23. See among othe

Etienne Balibar,
Reflection on th
Social Research (2
IsinEngin F and G
2008); Monika Kra
European Journal
"Going Public: Han
Political Theory 3
Life": Against Aga
567-82.

24. Beltrân, "Going Public," 597.

25. Hannah Arendt, "Willing," in The Life of the Mind (San Diego: Harcourt Inc,
1978), 27.
26. Hannah Arendt, "Remarks on 'The Crisis Character of Modern Society,'"
Christianity and Crisis 26, no. 9 (1966): 112-14. Quoted from Hannah Arendt,
Responsibility and Judgement, ed. Jerome Kohn (New York: Schocken Books,
2003), vii.
27. Benhabib, The Reluctant Modernism, 82.
28. Birmingham, Hannah Arendt, 11.
29. Arendt, The Origins, 379.
30. Benhabib, The Rights of Others, 58.
31. Birmingham, Hannah Arendt, 12.
32. Ibid., chap. 1-3.
33. Hannah Arendt, "Remarks on 'The Crisis Character,'" quoted from Responsibility
and Judgment, vii.
34. Essays, 331-35; Between Past and Future, 143-71; J. Kohn, ed., The Promise of
Politics (New York: Schocken Books, 2005), 41-62, 63-69, 93-200; The Human
Condition, 190-91; On Revolution, chap. 3, 4, 5.
35. Montesquieu, The Spirit of Laws, Book III.
36. Louis Althusser, Politics and History. Montesquieu, Rousseau, Marx, trans. B.
Brewster (London: Verso, 2007), 46.
37. Arendt, Essays, 331.
38. Ibid.

39. Arendt, Between Past and Future, 41-90; Arendt, "Willing," 19-51.
40. Montesquieu, The Spirit of Laws, 4.
41. Arendt, Essays, 342.
42. Arendt, Between Past and Future, 152.
43. Ibid.
44. Arendt, Essays, 335.
45. Ibid., 332.
46. Ibid., 335.
47. Ibid.

48. Montesquieu, The Spirit of Laws, xv.

This content downloaded from

154.59.125.175 on Wed, 22 Mar 2023 16:42:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 566 Political Theory 42(5)

49. Arendt, Essays, 332.

50. Ibid.

51. Arendt, The Human Condition, 247. As Arendt argues, the problem of the new
has its "historical origin" in theology, and it was Augustinus who first saw the
connection between Christianity and the problem of the new: "That a beginning
be made man was created." Arendt, "Willing," 18-19. For the genesis of natal
ity, see Miguel Vatter, "Natality and Biopolitics in Hannah Arendt," Revista de
Ciencia Politico 26, no. 2 (2006): 137-59.
52. Arendt, The Human Condition, 247; Arendt, Essays, 338.
53. Arendt, On Revolution, 20.
54. According to Arendt, the French revolution failed to deliver the freedom it
claimed for itself, for it was driven by "the social question," which in her under
standing is non-political: "Insofar as we all need bread, we are indeed all the
same, and may as well unite into one body." Arendt, On Revolution, 94.
55. Arendt, On Revolution, 130; Bonnie Honig, "Declarations of Independence:
Arendt and Derrida on the Problem of Founding a Republic," American Political
Science, Review 85, no. 1 (1991): 97-113.
56. Arendt, On Revolution, 206.
57. Ibid., 212.
58. Ibid., 214, 123.
59. Ibid., 142.
60. See, among others, Claude Lefort, Democracy and Political Theory, trans.
D. Macey (Cambridge: Polity, 1988); Jacques Derrida, "Force of Law: The
Mystical Foundation of Authority," in Deconstruction and the Possibility of
Justice, ed. D. Cornell, M. Rosenfeld, and D. G. Carlson (London: Routledge,
1992); Bonnie Honig, Democracy and the Foreigner (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 2001); Honig, Emergency Polities', Sofia Näsström, "What
Globalization Overshadows," Political Theory 31, no. 6 (2003): 808-34;Sofia
Näsström, "The Legitimacy of the People," Political Theory 35, no. 5 (2007):
624-58; Seyla Benhabib, Another Cosmopolitanism, ed. R. Post (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2006); Kevin Olson, "Paradoxes of Constitutional
Democracy," American Journal of Political Science 51, no. 2 (2007): 330
43; Arash Abizadeh, "Democratic Theory and Border Coercion: No Right to
Unilaterally Control Your Own Borders," Political Theory 36, no. 1 (2008): 37
65; Jason Frank, Constituent Moments. Enacting the People in Postrevolutionary
America (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010); Paulina Ochoa, The Time
of Popular Sovereignty: Process and the Democratic State (University Park, PA:
Penn State University Press, 2011 ); Hans Lindahl, Fault Lines of Globalization.
Legal Order and the Politics of A-Legality (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2013).
61. J.-J. Rousseau, The Social Contract and Other Later Political Writings, ed. V.
Gourevitch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); Emmanuel Sieyès,
Political Writings, ed. M. Sonenscher (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2003);
Thomas Jefferson, The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jeffersson, ed. A.
Koch and W. Peden (New York: Modern Library, 1944), 436.

This content downloaded from

154.59.125.175 on Wed, 22 Mar 2023 16:42:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Näsström 567

Rousseau, The So
Arendt, On Revol
For a critical anal
theory, see Nässtr
Arendt, On Revol
Arendt, Between
This Andre is also
Rancière as a mor
spective, the stru
be understood as
of possibility for
us to recognize th
precisely because
"Enacting the Rig
interpret Arendt o
As Arendt points
ernment it overth
into concepts wh
also Lefort on th
Blumenberg on "r
Wallace (Cambrid
gests that while t
different A in the
respectively—the
the place of a divi
This argument sh
sibility. Accordin
sibility inherent
is inherent in th
a foundation for
Hannah Arendt, 3
respects. First, th
belongs to a mod
in Arendt's under
tion, but it arises
the birth of mode
public in a democr
Arendt, Essays, 5;
This was a recurre
in Jerusalem. See
The Corresponden
Brightman (New
Arendt, Essays, 3

This content downloaded from

154.59.125.175 on Wed, 22 Mar 2023 16:42:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 568 Political Theory 42(5)

73. Agamben, Homo Sacer; Judith Butler,

(London: Verso, 2009); Roberto Esposi
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota P
74. Arendt, The Origins, 381.
75. Aristotle, The Politics and the Constitu
Cambridge University Press, 1996), 13-
76. Arendt, The Origins, 374.
77. Arendt, Responsibility and Judgement
78. Arendt, The Origins, 381, 363-64.
79. Ibid.
80. Ibid., 375.
81. Ibid., 364.
82. Arendt, Essays, 5.
83. For a more elaborate account of such corruption of democracy, see Sofia Näsström
and Sara Kalm, "A Democratic Critique of the Production of Precarious Life"
(unpublished manuscript).
84. Arendt, Essays, 121-32.
85. Judith Butler, Precarious Life (London: Verso, 2004); Zygmunt Bauman,
Collateral Damage (London: Polity, 2011), Guy Standing, The Precariat. A New
Dangerous Class (London: Bloomsbury, 2011).
86. Arendt, The Origins, 376.
87. Ingram, "What Is a Right to Have Rights?" 413.
88. Krause, "Undocumented Migrants," 342.
89. To Arendt a despotic government is animated by a principle of terror which
"freezes" men into inaction, and it is therefore questionable whether one can
regard the government as political at all. Arendt, Essays, 337; Arendt, "Willing,"
199.

90. For another attempt to read Arendt against herself on the question of democracy,
see Patchen Markell, "The Rule of the People: Arendt, Arche and Democracy,"
American Political Science Review 100, no. 1 (2006): 1-14.
91. Rousseau, The Social Contract, 69.
92. This is another way of saying that we are totally chained to our own actions. For
without limits, nothing stands between ourselves and the world. We are truly
alone.

Author Biography
Sofia Näsström is Associate Professor at the Department of Government, Uppsala
University. She is especially interested in questions related to constituent power, the
right to have rights and representation. Her work has appeared in journals such as
Political Theory, European Journal of Political Theory, Political Studies and
Constellations. She leads a research project on "Right to Citizenship: The Problem,
Principle and Politics of a New Law", and is currently completing a book entitled The
Spirit of the People: Thinking Democracy beyond the Nation-State.

This content downloaded from

154.59.125.175 on Wed, 22 Mar 2023 16:42:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms