The Risks of Political Authority
The Risks of Political Authority
Trust, Knowledge, and Political Agency in Locke’s Politics and Economy
This chapter explains how John Locke's work on epistemology, politics, and economy can be read as a sustained meditation on the relationship of risk and trust. The extensive literature on trust and authority in Locke's work establishes that he thinks citizens' trust in the state helps them organize and survive in the face of uncertainty, as well as manage the risks they might find in the future. This chapter argues that Lockean political trust is actually more closely related to risk than it appears at first glance. Political trust, Locke theorizes, is actually underwritten by the perpetual work of risk calculation and probabilistic reasoning by citizens. His work shows that if a strong central state is the institution that manages political and economic risk for subjects, then those subjects still must scrutinize the state as a new risk, using whatever cognitive tools they have at their disposal.
Keywords: John Locke, political authority, political trust, Lockean political trust, political risk, economic risk
Princeton Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.