I propose a theory of popular power, according to which a political order manifests popular power to the extent it robustly maintains itself as an egalitarian social order. There are two parts to the theory. First, the powerfulness of a political orderlies in the social order's robust self-maintenance. Second, the popularity of the political order's power lies in its equality of relations between the society's members.
I will argue that this theory avoids the perverse consequences of some existing radical democratic theories of popular power which focus on mass expression, either in plebiscites or in social movements, as popular power's canonical instances. In particular, my theory does not valourise momentary expression over durable effect, and it offers a ready framework for conceptualising the sometimes-oligarchic substructure of the supposedly canonical instances of popular power.
Sandra Leonie Field is the author of Potentia: Hobbes and Spinoza on Power and Popular Politics (Oxford University Press, 2020). She is an Assistant Professor of Humanities (Philosophy) at Yale-NUS College, Singapore. Her research topics include early modern European political philosophy; democratic theory; and concepts of power.
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