The Right of Resistance

When early modern writers invoked the right of resistance their intentions were generally directed at addressing two fundamental ideas in the conceptual catalogue of political philosophy: sovereignty and liberty. Both of these concepts have played a major role in the history of political thought, each undergoing a crescendo in the late medieval period to become the dominant actors on the stage of early modernity. But their historical development cannot be separated from the dawn of certain ideas about resistance, which evolved in parallel and served as a fulcrum for debates about the origin and nature of political authority, as well as the boundaries and implications of subjection to political power. It was precisely through the construction and appeal to a right of resistance that many contemporary thinkers canvassed the fundamental questions of what is the state and what is its ultimate raison d’être.