Title: The Incompatibility of Sovereignty and Politics in the Anarchist Thought of Leo Tolstoy
Abstract: Very little attention in anarchist theory has been given to the important concepts of sovereignty or the political. This essay employs a close reading of Leo Tolstoy’s non-fiction which argues for the rejection of sovereign institutions, but does not require – or even encourage – a rejection of political or social institutions. Political authority, political obligation, even political organizations and social institutions, appear completely compatible, perhaps even desirable, to Tolstoy’s anarchism, insofar as these institutions are understood as non-sovereign. Even more significantly, Tolstoy suggests that proper political activity requires a rejection of sovereign activity. Ultimately, this essay suggests that the concepts of the political and of sovereignty may be fundamentally incompatible with one another.
Publication Year: 2010
Publication Date: 2010-04-02
Language: en
Type: article
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