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Surely you mean the only levers of political power aside from consent? If you have a legitimate mandate from the electorate, you can get an awful lot done. However when you reach the limits of your political base, then yes the temptation is to reach for other means. For governments without a popular mandate or support, or who are insecure in the support they may have, well, the result often isn't pretty.

>If you have a legitimate mandate from the electorate, you can get an awful lot done.

It took Massachusetts 3 years to open a recreational marijuana shop after a ballot initiative passed for legalization.

Which is why ballot initiatives and referendums are so often a terrible idea.

The problem is the executive have no ownership of the proposal and don’t feel any responsibility for it unless they were the ones campaigning for it. In a democracy the way to get something done is for someone to get elected on a platform to implement it and then own delivering it once in office.

I’m a Brit and Brexit is a classic example of the failure of referendums. None of the political parties wanted it and for several years after we had a Prime Minister who had opposed it. Result - years of confusion and recrimination. Even when it happens (actually it already has) there will be endless arguments about whether it’s a “real” Brexit. Elect leaders you trust and the let them lead. If you don’t like the results, vote them back out.

This comment seems to be at odds with your original one. So if the people vote democratically for something, and the elected officials don't do it, it's the people fault for not doing democracy the right way?

I'm not sure there's a better example of democracy than when people vote for something that it happens.

Please don't use Brexit as an example indicative of all ballot iniatives and referendums. California (especially SF and possibly a few other cities), Switzerland, and a few other places have a large number of referendums on their ballots and they generally go alright in my opinion, even when some of the details have not been hammered out. I say that as someone that has lived in both of these places. I think the benefit to social acceptance and trust in a government because of the mandate provided is worth it by itself, and while one may not agree with many of the outcomes, the decisions rarely yield unforeseen consequences which (to me) feels like democracy in practice. Also, it provides an incentive for the public to value widespread quality public education and meeting basic living standards a bit more if immediate governmental policies depend on it.

Obviously, there are occasional problems, like the Swiss EU referendum which was approved but widely viewed as watered-down in practice, but it's worked very well in my opinion in other instances such as (in case you're curious about Swiss history) the formation of the canton of Jura.

I'm not entirely against referendums, I think there are cases in which they make sense. One is issues where it's not even really a political issue. Capital punishment for example. Another is where the question has significant constitutional consequences and a party seeks an additional mandate for their policy beyond a simple electoral mandate. Brexit could fit that category, in the same way that joining the EU did, but the change should be one the government is willing to take responsibility for implementing. It should be a supplement to their electoral mandate for a policy, not a vote to impose a responsibility on government it doesn't want to take. This was James Cameron's fundamental blunder.

Switzerland has another classic example of a failed ballot initiative. They voted in 2014 to limit migration from the EU, an initiative promoted by a party that was not in power. So again you had a government bound to implement a policy that was not their policy, which they were unable in practice to deliver. Who takes responsibility for that? It's just asking for trouble.

In California the legislature has been ham strung by a series of initiatives ring fencing spending on various areas such as education, and others limiting taxation in various ways squeezing the state budget. Of course give the electorate a vote on more spending and a vote on lower taxes, guess what happens.

> Surely you mean the only levers of political power aside from consent

Other than the fact that no nation-state/government was created by consent of "the people", there is a philosophical argument that consent to giving political power to "ruling class" or "elected officials" to be ruled over is impossible. In other words, consent excludes political power like consent excludes rape. Meaning you cannot consent to being raped being once you consent, it is no longer rape. The same thing with politics. Consenting to political power makes it no longer political power. It's like you need parental power to force your kids to eat broccoli, but no parental power exists to force your kids to eat ice cream because they consent to it.

Finally, nation-states/governments don't work in that idealized manner. Things works top-down, not bottom-up. Pretty much what you've been brainwashed to believe, it's not true.

> If you have a legitimate mandate from the electorate, you can get an awful lot done.

You can get a lot done without the mandate from the electorate. Getting a lot done has nothing to do with mandates but the effectiveness of the state organs.

> For governments without a popular mandate or support, or who are insecure in the support they may have, well, the result often isn't pretty.

Actually, governments "with popular mandates" are what you want to really worry about. It's those governments that tend to commit genocide, nuke cities and commit all kinds of horrors. When a leader starts claiming he has the mandate of the people, that's when you should watch out.

BTW, "populate mandates" are also created by force/deception.

You make a lot of interesting points, thanks. You're quite right, reality doesn't conform to ideal principles, they are only things we can aspire towards but rarely achieve, and then in only limited areas.

>> If you have a legitimate mandate from the electorate, you can get an awful lot done. > >You can get a lot done without the mandate from the electorate.

Sure, but then you're into either using force or deception.

>Actually, governments "with popular mandates" are what you want to really worry about. ...

Genocides and mass murders can be committed by governments with popular mandates sure, there are many examples, but many of the more grievous examples are from totalitarian states. Soviet Russia, Communist China under Mao, Cambodia. I don't think democracy makes it more likely.

Yes popular mandates can be gained through under hand means, sure. We have to be careful, but I think your analogy to sexual consent is very apt. Even consensual relationships can turn out to be based on deception or abusive psychological domination. Consent isn't a simple moral binary issue, thanks.

> Regarding her views about violence, I suspect there may only be two true levers of political power, and these are force, and deception.

I'm not saying this necessarily makes you wrong, but this is explicitly not what she thinks. In the version of this essay published in Crises of the Republic, she writes:

> It is, I think, a rather sad reflection on the present state of political science that our terminology does not distinguish among such key words as power, strength, force, authority, and, finally, violence – all of which refer to distinct, different phenomena and would hardly exist unless they did.

In other words, power is not reducible to some combination of "force and deception". In the edited version of this essay, she even defines each of these categories:

> Power corresponds to the human ability not just to act but to act in concert. Power is never the property of an individual; it belongs to a group and remains in existence only so long as the group keeps together.

> Strength unequivocally designates something in the singular ...

> Force ... should be reserved, in terminological language, for the "forces of nature" or the "force of circumstances," that is, to indicate the energy released by physical or social movements.

> Authority can be vested in persons – there is such a thing as personal authority, as for instance, in the relation between parent and child, between teacher and pupil – or it can be vested in offices, as, for instance, in the Roman senate or in the hierarchical offices of the Church. (A priest can grant valid absolution even though he is drunk.) Its hallmark is unquestioning recognition by those who are asked to obey; neither coercion nor persuasion is needed.

> Violence, finally, as I have said, is distinguished by its instrumental character. Phenomenologically, it is close to strength, since the implements of violence, like all other tools, are designed and used for the purpose of multiplying natural strength...

Taken from http://www.fsmitha.com/review/arendt.html because I don't have a text version of this essay, but you can find it here https://monoskop.org/images/7/70/Arendt_Hannah_Crises_of_the... (154 of the pdf).

The point is that, for Arendt, power is not about coercion and it's not about deception or force. It's about consensus, shared opinions and judgements, and the proof of this consensus, which is a group of people's ability to act in concert.

My assertion afterwards was my next order conclusion, and I agree, not specifically what she asserted.

I'm going to revisit it, as the idea of power being an artifact of free consensus of belief in a group, and not intrinsic to violence is hard to reconcile with some of her earlier observations, and indeed, physics.

I am inclined to agree with the impossibility of reconciling a definition of "power" that does not involve violence and non-consensual control; a lot of modern writers and thinkers will use their own definition of "power" in order to frame it based on collectivism, as if "power" only exists if it's conceded voluntarily by other people, but I think this is wishful thinking.

Oddly enough, they want to specifically use the word "power" because of its existing reputation, i.e. its connotations with acts of non-consensual control. They may say something like "real power does not stem from violence, real power comes from a group and does not exist without group coherence." However, the only reason they're focusing on the word "power" is because they know what it implies and are using its reputation as a concept in order to lend credibility to their own ideas, which themselves usually contradict the agreed-upon meaning of the "power".

To be clear, this may not strictly apply to Hannah Arendt, but I see other people playing with the word "power" so frequently that I thought it was relevant to mention.

The bones of her argument are not semantic. She's saying that there is a sharp difference between consensual power and non-consensual power. The fact that she uses the word "power" to refer to the former and "violence" to refer to the latter is not that interesting. The distinction itself is what's interesting.

I agree with her that there's a distinction to be made between, on one hand, a group of people agreeing to follow a set of rules to accomplish some goal and, on the other, a slave driver forcing his slaves to accomplish that goal.

The idea that there is no real distinction here, that all power is based on coercion, was popular when she wrote the linked essay and it's popular today (as evidenced by the replies here). I used to think that way but I no longer do and, I have to say, it's quite a relief.

It seems pretty clear to me that the ideal (for those who don't want to be authoritarians) has always been to offer as many opportunities to evade violence as possible. If someone is violating the law, ask them to correct it. If they fail there, help them correct it. If they fail there (or insist), penalize them with inconveniences or fees. If they still fail, 'force' starts to enter the picture, but it should always come with a consideration of need. A person should have to burn through a lot of their credibility and good will before society starts forcing their hand.

I need to reread her, as well, as I cannot make my memory of her writing work entirely with this power-as-consensus claim.

Your "two levers," I think are interesting in that coercion is, in my experience of popular political argumentation, allowed to sneak in via a societal focus on physical violence ("force" in your terms?).

Example: some leftists claim property violence is not violence because, paraphrasing, is does not harm the human body. Leaving aside the validity of this claim, the coerciveness of the act remains but is somehow able to pass the smell test in certain circles. I think this depends on one's perception of conflict, but that is a long discussion.

Meanwhile, as you imply above, deception is clearly coercion, but much more effective in the longrun than physical violence. Deception generates belief congruent with the deceivers' attempt to acquire (more) power, which, once established, requires less maintenance than fear.

Finally, there is nothing in the description of power as cited above that is necessarily free from coercion. If power simply means both individual and collective agency, then capturing agency via coercion is still an acquisition of power.

Having just read "Ideology and Terror", I have to say it seems to set up a "totalitarian" strawman that sounds much closer to life under Big Brother than with what I've read of life under either Hitler or Stalin.

Interesting ideas, but I'm not sold on the idea there was anything new beyond Tyranny/Oligarchy with a more focused sales pitch.

Key difference over tyranny is that totalitarianism is necessarily an expansionist movement with global aspirations, whose enemy is any truth or belief that could enable people to find a basis for agreement against it. It's total dominion of the human spirit through terror, where traditional 'isms are just nationally focused. When you break people with the randomness of the terror, they will oppress themselves.

In this model, North Korea is still just a national tyranny, and even China's CCP is a national police state with colonial aspirations, but it hasn't metastasized into a transnational movement. Hitlerism and Stalinism were the result of movements that created totalitarian empires. Arendt's view was it was a new form of government that was an artifact of the 20th century.

If Waterloo hadn't happened, (and leaving aside expansions on the other side of the Atlantic) would the French Empire have counted as totalitarian? It had an official emperor, and they definitely tried to export revolution.