The Creation and Maintenance of Government: A Neglected Dimension of Hobbes's Leviathan

Philosophical preoccupation with moral, legal, and hypothetical problems have led us to neglect those practical (or strategic) dimensions of Leviathan in which Hobbes confronts the problems of how order can actually be politically created from disorder and how, once begun, the germ of order can be perpetuated in stable political society. The possibilities of political creation reside in the idea of confederation and, importantly, in men's fundamental manipulability. The consequent maintenance of political order depends, for Hobbes, on creating conditions in which, without excessive or unnecessary resort to force, men can be made to forebear conflict among themselves and resistance to government. Those conditions, as in the case of political creation, depend upon appearances, illusion, and political manipulation.