Empire (30 page)

humanism is the utopia that anchors this revolutionary principle.

The second Machiavellian principle at work here is that the social

base ofthis democratic sovereignty is always conflictual. Power is

organized through the emergence and the interplay ofcounterpow-

ers. The city is thus a constituent power that is formed through

plural social conflicts articulated in continuous constitutional pro-

cesses. This is how Machiavelli read the organization ofrepublican

ancient Rome, and this is how the Renaissance notion ofthe city

served as the foundation for a realist political theory and practice:

social conflict is the basis ofthe stability ofpower and the logic ofthe

city’s expansion. Machiavelli’s thought inaugurated a Copernican

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revolution that reconfigured politics as perpetual movement. These

are the primary teachings that the Atlantic doctrine ofdemocracy

derived from the republican Machiavelli.4

This republican Rome was not the only Rome that fascinated

Machiavelli and guided the Atlantic republicans. Their new ‘‘science

ofpolitics’’ was also inspired by imperial Rome, particularly as it

was presented in the writings ofPolybius. In the first place, Polybius’

model ofimperial Rome grounded more solidly the republican

process ofthe mediation ofsocial powers and brought it to a

conclusion in a synthesis ofdiverse forms ofgovernment. Polybius

conceived the perfect form of power as structured by a mixed

constitution that combines monarchic power, aristocratic power,

and democratic power.5 The new political scientists in the United

States organized these three powers as the three branches ofthe

republican constitution. Any disequilibrium among these powers,

and this is the second sign ofPolybius’ influence, is a symptom of

corruption. The Machiavellian Constitution ofthe United States

is a structure poised against corruption—the corruption ofboth

factions and individuals, of groups and the state. The Constitution

was designed to resist any cyclical decline into corruption by activat-

ing the entire multitude and organizing its constituent capacity

in networks oforganized counterpowers, in flows ofdiverse and

equalized functions, and in a process of dynamic and expansive

self-regulation.

These ancient models, however, go only so far in characterizing

the U.S. experience, because in many respects it was truly new and

original. In very different periods, Alexis de Tocqueville and Han-

nah Arendt both grasped the novelty ofthis new ideology and new

form ofpower. Tocqueville was the more cautious ofthe two.

Although he recognized the vitality ofthe new political world in

the United States and saw how the synthesis ofdiverse forms of

government had been forged into a regulated mass democracy, he

also claimed to have seen in America the democratic revolution

reach its natural limits. His judgment about whether American

democracy can avoid the old cycle ofcorruption was thus mixed

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when not outright pessimistic.6 Hannah Arendt, by contrast, unre-

servedly celebrated American democracy as the site ofthe invention

ofmodern politics itself. The central idea ofthe American Revolu-

tion, she claimed, is the establishment offreedom, or really the

foundation of a political body that guarantees the space where

freedom can operate.7 Arendt puts the accent on the
establishment

ofthis democracy in society, that is, the fixity ofits foundation and

the stability ofits f

unctioning. The revolution succeeds in her

estimation to the extent that it puts an end to the dynamic of

constituent powers and establishes a stable constituted power.

Later we will critique this notion ofnetwork power contained

in the U.S. Constitution, but here we want simply to highlight its

originality. Against the modern European conceptions ofsover-

eignty, which consigned political power to a transcendent realm

and thus estranged and alienated the sources ofpower from society,

here the concept ofsovereignty refers to a power entirely within

society. Politics is not opposed to but integrates and completes so-

ciety.

Extensive Empire

Before moving on to analyze how in the course of U.S. history

this new principle ofsovereignty developed and was transformed,

let us concentrate our attention for a moment on the nature of

the concept itself. The first characteristic of the U.S. notion of

sovereignty is that it poses an idea ofthe immanence ofpower

in opposition to the transcendent character ofmodern European

sovereignty. This idea ofimmanence is based on an idea ofproduc-

tivity. Ifit were not, the principle would be impotent: in immanence

alone, nothing allows society to become political. The multitude

that constitutes society is productive. U.S. sovereignty does not

consist, then, in the regulation ofthe multitude but arises, rather,

as the result ofthe productive synergies ofthe multitude. The

humanist revolution ofthe Renaissance and the subsequent experi-

ences ofsectarian Protestantism all developed this idea ofproductiv-

ity. In line with the Protestant ethic, one might say that only the

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productive power ofthe multitude demonstrates the existence of

God and the presence ofdivinity on earth.8 Power is not something

that lords over us but something that we make. The American

Declaration ofIndependence celebrates this new idea ofpower

in the clearest terms. The emancipation ofhumanity from every

transcendent power is grounded on the multitude’s power to con-

struct its own political institutions and constitute society.

This principle ofconstituent production, however, yields to

or is explained by a procedure ofself-reflection in a kind ofdialectical

ballet. This is the second characteristic ofthe U.S. notion ofsover-

eignty. In the process ofthe constitution ofsovereignty on the

plane ofimmanence, there also arises an experience offinitude that

results from the conflictive and plural nature of the multitude itself.

The new principle ofsovereignty seems to produce its own internal

limit. To prevent these obstacles from disrupting order and com-

pletely emptying out the project, sovereign power must rely on

the exercise ofcontrol. In other words, after the first moment of

affirmation comes a dialectical negation of the constituent power

ofthe multitude that preserves the teleology ofthe project of

sovereignty. Are we thus faced with a point of crisis in the elabora-

tion ofthe new concept? Does transcendence, first refused in the

definition ofthe source ofpower, return through the back door

in the exercise ofpower, when the multitude is posed as finite and

thus demanding special instruments ofcorrection and control?

That outcome is a constant threat, but after having recognized

these internal limits, the new U.S. concept ofsovereignty opens

with extraordinary force toward the outside, almost as if it wanted

to banish the idea ofcontrol and the moment ofreflection from

its own Constitution. The third characteristic ofthis notion of

sovereignty is its tendency toward an open, expansive project oper-

ating on an unbounded terrain. Although the text ofthe U.S. Con-

stitution is extremely attentive to the self-reflective moment, the

life and exercise of the Constitution are instead, throughout their

jurisprudential and political history, decidedly open to expansive

movements, to the renewed declaration ofthe democratic founda-

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tion ofpower. The principle ofexpansion continually struggles

against the forces of limitation and control.9

It is striking how strongly this American experiment resembles

the ancient constitutional experience, and specifically the political

theory inspired by imperial Rome! In that tradition the conflict

between limit and expansion was always resolved in favor of expan-

sion. Machiavelli defined as expansive those republics whose demo-

cratic foundations led to both the continuous production of conflicts

and the appropriation ofnew territories. Polybius conceived expan-

siveness as the reward for the perfect synthesis of the three forms

ofgovernment, because the eminent form ofsuch a power encour-

ages the democratic pressure ofthe multitude to surpass every limit

and every control. Without expansion the republic constantly risks

being absorbed into the cycle ofcorruption.10

This democratic expansive tendency implicit in the notion of

network power must be distinguished from other, purely expansion-

ist and imperialist forms of expansion. The fundamental difference

is that the expansiveness ofthe immanent concept ofsovereignty

is inclusive, not exclusive. In other words, when it expands, this

new sovereignty does not annex or destroy the other powers it

faces but on the contrary opens itself to them, including them in

the network. What opens is the basis ofconsensus, and thus, through

the constitutive network ofpowers and counterpowers, the entire

sovereign body is continually reformed. Precisely because of this

expansive tendency, the new concept ofsovereignty is pro-

foundly reformist.11

We can now distinguish clearly the
expansive tendency
ofthe

democratic republic from the
expansionism
ofthe transcendent sovereigns—or from, because this is primarily what is at issue, the expan-

sionism ofmodern nation-states. The idea ofsovereignty as an

expansive power in networks is poised on the hinge that links the

principle ofa democratic republic to the idea ofEmpire. Empire

can only be conceived as a universal republic, a network ofpowers

and counterpowers structured in a boundless and inclusive architec-

ture. This imperial expansion has nothing to do with imperialism,

nor with those state organisms designed for conquest, pillage, geno-

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cide, colonization, and slavery. Against such imperialisms, Empire

extends and consolidates the model ofnetwork power. Certainly,

when we consider these imperial processes historically (and we will

soon focus on them in U.S. history), we see clearly that the expansive

moments ofEmpire have been bathed in tears and blood, but

this ignoble history does not negate the difference between the

two concepts.

Perhaps the fundamental characteristic of imperial sovereignty

is that
its space is always open.
As we saw in earlier sections, the modern sovereignty that developed in Europe from the sixteenth

century onward conceived space as bounded, and its boundaries

were always policed by the sovereign administration. Modern sover-

eignty resides precisely on the limit. In the imperial conception,

by contrast, power finds the logics ofits order always renewed and

always re-created in expansion. This definition ofimperial power

raises numerous paradoxes: the indifference of the subjects coupled

with the singularization ofproductive networks; the open and ex-

pansive space ofEmpire together with its continuous reterritorializa-

tions; and so forth. The idea of an Empire that is also a democratic

republic, however, is formed precisely by linking and combining the

extreme terms ofthese paradoxes. The tension ofthese conceptual

paradoxes will run throughout the articulation and establishment

ofimperial sovereignty in practice.

Finally, we should note that an idea ofpeace is at the basis of

the development and expansion ofEmpire. This is an immanent

idea ofpeace that is dramatically opposed to the transcendent idea

ofpeace, that is, the peace that only the transcendent sovereign

can impose on a society whose nature is defined by war. Here, on

the contrary, nature is peace. Virgil gives us perhaps the highest

expression ofthis Roman peace: ‘‘The final age that the oracle

foretold has arrived; / The great order of the centuries is born

again.’’12

Open Frontiers

The realization ofthe imperial notion ofsovereignty was a long

process that developed through the different phases of U.S. constitu-

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tional history. As a written document, ofcourse, the U.S. Constitu-

tion has remained more or less unchanged (except for a few ex-

tremely important amendments), but the Constitution should also

be understood as a material regime ofjuridical interpretation and

practice that is exercised not only by jurists and judges but also by

subjects throughout the society. This material, social constitution

has indeed changed radically since the founding of the republic.

U.S. constitutional history, in fact, should be divided into four

distinct phases or regimes.13 A first phase extends from the Declara-

tion ofIndependence to the Civil War and Reconstruction; a

second, extremely contradictory, phase corresponds to the Progres-