Theory of Sovereignty and the Body Politic in Modern and Contemporary Political Thought

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to investigate one of the most interesting and debated issues within the philosophical discussion about politics: the metaphor of the body politic and its relation with the theory of sovereignty in contemporary political theory. After an opening section, which proposes a brief sketch about the origin of the body politic within phi losophy (especially in Plato’s and Aristotle’s contributions), the article provides a theoretical insight of such a theory, by dealing with three of its definitions: Kantorowicz’s “king’s two bodies”; Hobbes’ Leviathan and Schmitt’s theory of sove reignty. The article aims at presenting some arguments to define these three perspectives, by examining – in the last section – how this paradigm has evolved into the more complex and articulated theory of the rule of law in contemporary de mocratic societies.