The historical constitution of the obedient subject
department or school: Arts, Faculty of
department or school: Political Science, Department of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Turan, Serbülent
issued: 2018-05-14T15:38:26Z
issued: 2018
related degree: Doctor of Philosophy - PhD
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: What explains our current norms and practices of political obligation, and how should we account for the more problematic aspects of obedience to political authority? We can answer this question partially through an historical analysis of the processes constitutive of political obedience. This dissertation analyzes two major instances of disobedience that promised to radically revolutionize the political system: the Revolution of the Common Man (1525) and the English Civil Wars (1640s). Early modern, absolutist forms of political obedience emerged in the counter-revolutions that followed. I trace the transformation of the norms of obedience, during that period, from communal promises provided to a local lord through negotiation to individual obedience to political authorities that could be broken only through extraordinary justification. Thus, as the early modern state emerged, it brought forth a completely new form of obedience due from an individual to a state. This new form was engineered in part by political elites in response to the threats to their authority posed by the communal form of political organization, which functioned as sites of entrenched political resistance. In this relationship, the mastery of political authority over the individual is no longer contested, and, due largely to her political isolation, the individual remains socially and politically underequipped to offer resistance to political authorities, even when they turn oppressive. Many modern and even contemporary norms and practices of obedience still reflect these early modern attempts to engender individual discipline. Counterintuitively, when it comes to disobedience and resistance to political authorities, late feudal and early modern subjects of empires and lords were much less constrained, and freer, than the citizens of early-modern and even many modern states well into the twentieth century.
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/65842
note: THE HISTORICAL CONSTITUTION OF THE OBEDIENT SUBJECT by Serbülent Turan M.A., College of Europe, 2005 M.A., Istanbul Bilgi University & Leiden University, 2007 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Political Science) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) May 2018 © Serbülent Turan, 2018 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the dissertation entitled: The Historical Constitution of the Obedient Subject submitted by Serbulent Turan in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science Examining Committee: Mark Warren, Political Science Supervisor Barbara Arneil, Political Science Supervisory Committee Member Supervisory Committee Member Samuel LaSelva, Political Science University Examiner Christopher Friedrichs, History University Examiner Additional Supervisory Committee Members: Supervisory Committee Member Supervisory Committee Member iii Abstract What explains our current norms and practices of political obligation, and how should we account for the more problematic aspects of obedience to political authority? We can answer this question partially through an historical analysis of the processes constitutive of political obedience. This dissertation analyzes two major instances of disobedience that promised to radically revolutionize the political system: the Revolution of the Common Man (1525) and the English Civil Wars (1640s). Early modern, absolutist forms of political obedience emerged in the counter-revolutions that followed. I trace the transformation of the norms of obedience, during that period, from communal promises provided to a local lord through negotiation to individual obedience to political authorities that could be broken only through extraordinary justification. Thus, as the …
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2018-09
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0366281
language: eng
degree discipline: Political Science
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/65842