The Nature of Political Theory

250 The Nature of Political Theory

never ceased to be obsessed with the person of the sovereign’. He continues that ‘Such
theories still continue today to busy themselves with the problem of sovereignty. What
we need, however, is a political philosophy that isn’t erected around the problem of
sovereignty...We need to cut off the King’s head: in political theory that has still
to be done’ (Foucault 1980: 121). Thus, political theory becomes a more localized
genealogical enterprise.
The other point to note here is that Foucault tries to disabuse us of any sense of
progress in our understanding towards, for example, democracy or liberalism. He
comments, ‘humanity does not gradually progress from combat to combat until it
arrives at universal reciprocity, where the rule of law finally replaces warfare; humanity
installs each of its violences in a system of rules and thus proceeds from domination
to domination’. Success in history is seizing rules in terms of one’s own pattern of
domination. There is no sequence here, no progress, no improvement, only ‘substi-
tutions, displacements, disguised conquest’ (Foucault 1986a: 85–6). For Foucault it
is traditional humanistic metaphysics that wants to see a unified sequence however,
genealogy ‘easily disintegrates this unity’. History for Foucault is always ‘haphazard
conflicts’ and ‘randomness’ (Foucault 1986a: 87–8). What we see in all societies, indi-
viduals, and cultures is therefore nothing factual, universal, or objective but rather a
range of interpretations. The role of genealogy is to record these interpretations and
their effects.

Rorty and Connolly

The impact of the aforementioned thinkers has been profound in late-twentieth-
century thought. In my reading they (particularly Nietzsche) constitute the substance
to postmodern political theory. One can find innumerable instances of their influ-
ence. However, I examine briefly just two examples—Richard Rorty and William
Connolly.^18 Connolly’s own movement to a postmodern position can be seen devel-
oping gradually through the 1980s in the various additions to the editions of his
bookThe Terms of Political Discourse, particularly in terms of his growing admiration
for Foucault and Nietzsche. Intellectual parallels between Wittgenstein and certain
postmodern arguments also arise in Connolly’s arguments. In other words, for Con-
nolly there are grounds for seeing the essential contestability thesis as a precursor to
deconstruction and genealogy (see Connolly 2nd edition 1983: 321ff.). Connolly’s
Political Theory and Modernity(1988) ends presciently with a very positive chapter
on Nietzsche. The Nietzsche chapter is interesting since it suggests that Nietzsche’s
perspectivism and genealogy allow us to see the illusions and myths that have per-
vaded the entire political theory project in the twentieth century. The project of
modernity and political theory are seen as a depoliticized world where things that
escape our control (or will to power) are designated as ‘chaos’ or ‘mad’. The key
Nietzschean/Foucaultian contribution is seen to be the link between power and know-
ledge. Political theory should no longer be focused on issues such as sovereignty and
statehood. The key issue is micro-power constituting and normalizing subjects and