Page 194 - DPOL201_WESTERN_POLITICAL_THOUGHT_ENGLISH

Western Political Thought

Notes Separation of powers was rejected as a false doctrine, as it supported total autonomy and the
independence of each functioning category. His model portrayed all these categories as mutually
supporting aspects of the same totality.
... the constitution is rational in so far as the state inwardly differentiates and determines
its activity in accordance with the nature of the concept. The result of this is that each
of these powers is in itself the totality of the constitution, because each contains the
other moments and has them effective in itself s.
Hegel’s supreme concern was to find a method by which he could secure the unity and integrity
of the state. Absolute separation of powers led either to a stalemate, or to self-destruction of the
state. To avoid this, Hegel’s prescription was that the crown, the executive and the legislative
body would have legally differentiated spheres, with harmony and cooperation among these
bodies as necessary for guaranteeing freedom to its citizens. “Sovereignty depends on the fact that
the particular functions and powers of the state are not self-subsistent or firmly grounded but
have their roots ultimately in the unity of the state as their single self.
Interdependence and a cooperative attitude of the three important branches were the preconditions
of continuance of the sovereign state. Monarchy at the apex was supposed to signify this unity.
The monarch was the tangible expression of all the features of the constitution. Hegel opposed the
idea of an elected monarchy or the American-style presidency, for even though it might be an
expression of the popular will, it was merely a small portion of the constitution. That was an
insufficient basis, as the monarch in his own self-embodied the entire constitution and not just one
portion of it.
The power of the crown contains in itself the three moments of the whole, viz. (a) the
universality of the constitution and the laws, (b) counsel, which refers the particular to
the universal; and (c) the moment of ultimate decision, as the self determination to
which everything else reverts and from which everything else derives the beginning
of its actuality .
Monarchy was an important institution for Hegel, as it solved the problem of identifying national
sovereignty. It was a legalistic argument, for it tried to locate where the sovereignty resided. Since
this task could not be performed by popular sovereignty, it was rejected. The people represented
a mere abstraction. Following Hobbes and Austin, Hegel argued that since the manifestation of
the state was one, its head should also be an identifiable one. This guarantee was not provided by
any single person, but by the institution of monarchy. The deeper meaning of this was that it was
immaterial who that person was, and because of this, hereditary succession was the best plausible
one. Hegel’s monarch was “in essence characterized as the individual in abstraction from all his
other characteristics, and this individual is raised to the dignity of monarchy in an immediate
natural fashion, that is, by accident of birth”. For holding this symbolic office of unity, physical
power or intellectual gifts were not necessary.
Sovereignty, both in the de jure and de facto senses, rested with the state. However, sovereignty,
which stipulated that all functions were ultimately rooted in the state, was not to be found in
despotic rule or in a feudal state. Hegel had very little faith in popular sovereignty. Instead of a
democratically elected legislature, he conceived of an Assembly of Estates which would represent
the different interests with some link in matters of public concern.
Hegel’s defence of monarchy had to be understood on the basis of his philosophical framework to
find out rational arrangements within the existing institutions. It was not a descent into mysticism
as Marx thought, nor did Hegel provide “the most specious reasoning that ever disgraced a
philosopher” as he tried to prove by dialectical logic that state sovereignty was to reside in a
hereditary monarch, but rather to concretize functional differentiation with unity (Hook 1958 :
156). Hegel was not interested in finding a philosophic ruler, like Plato nor was he trying to depict

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