The Impersonal Sovereign

• DOI: 10.1177/0095399720978367
• Published date: 01 May 2021
• Date: 01 May 2021
• Author: Roy L. Heidelberg
• Subject Matter: Perspectives

https://doi.org/10.1177/0095399720978367

Administration & Society

2021, Vol. 53(5) 787 –810

© The Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/0095399720978367

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Perspectives

The Impersonal

Sovereign

Roy L. Heidelberg1

Abstract

Dwight Waldo’s work on the Administrative State largely neglects

sovereignty. In this essay, I address this neglect by connecting Schmitt’s

ideas of “the decision” and “the exception” to the work of Herbert Simon

on the sciences of the artificial. I introduce a political understanding of

the Administrative State that I call the impersonal sovereign. Through the

Administrative State, Schmitt’s apparent aporia of the modern state is

reconciled by the emergence of the impersonal sovereign, where the very

act of decision is increasingly assigned to nobody, by design.

Keywords

algorithms, artificial, sovereignty, administrative state, impersonal sovereign

Introduction

When we decide, we cut ourselves off from other future possibilities.1 It is for

this reason that the decision is of central concern to theories of politics. When

political theorists speak about the sovereign, they refer to the one with the

power of decision because this is the power to shape what will be. A consid-

eration of sovereignty is necessary for a political understanding of the state.

The question I address in this essay is one that has been neglected in treat-

ments of the Administrative State: The nature of the sovereign in it. I label it

the impersonal sovereign.

1Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, USA

Corresponding Author:

Roy L. Heidelberg, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA.

Email: royh@lsu.edu

978367AASXXX10.1177/0095399720978367Administration & SocietyHeidelberg

research-article2020

788 Administration & Society 53(5)

Discussions of the administrative state rarely include sovereignty. It is an

idea that seems to be out of fashion. In some respects it is, if by “sovereignty”

we refer to a power possessed by an absolute monarch. This conception has

been made obsolete primarily by the qualification that sovereignty is now

popular. But it is far from obvious what this notion of popular sovereignty

means. It is, indeed, a positive elocution, a rhetorical self-justification for a

democratic culture. But from a modern political standpoint, that is, from the

standpoint of the Administrative State, popular sovereignty is an appeal to

legitimacy without substance.

An enduring keystone for understanding the Administrative State is

Dwight Waldo’s 1948 book on the subject. In this book, however, Waldo

ignored sovereignty, and this neglect of the subject must be rectified to under-

stand better what is distinctive about the Administrative State. To understand

the issues that Waldo raises, including his concern with politics, values, and

the much-maligned idea of the dichotomy between administration and poli-

tics, we must develop an understanding of the political and the decision in

this arrangement known as the Administrative State.

Resulting from Waldo’s direction, many debates on the Administrative

State have focused more upon organizational than political matters.2 Waldo

explored the question of the Administrative State on the terms of those who

viewed Administration as bringing an end to the political, which was consid-

ered to be necessary for realizing the scientific basis of the democratic state.

Bringing an end to the political was also considered to be necessary for

progress. In studies of the Administrative State, this line of thought is com-

monly traced to Wilson, which explains Waldo’s attention to that essay. But

Waldo did not question the central premise that undid the political, which is

the rise of Administration itself. Instead, he takes Administration as an

uncontestable condition of modern politics and the modern state.3 He makes

this point in his 1952 essay “Development of Theory of Democratic

Administration,” where he described the possibilities of making administra-

tion obey democratic values. Waldo focused his attention on proper organi-

zation and the basis upon which an organization functioned, leading him to

focus his inquiry and his critique upon efficiency as the central value of

administration. This focus on efficiency was a critical error in his critique

with lasting effects, as I will discuss.

Nevertheless, Waldo’s Administrative State offered the distinction

between an administrative state and the Administrative State. One could

even argue that Waldo coined the idea of the Administrative State despite

notions of an administrative state (extended executive power in an elected

Constitutional system of government) predating him.4 Considering the

Administrative State as a political concept is Waldo’s central contribution,