Solidarity and the practical ethics of care and protection

The modern discussion on responsibility is full with philosophical, quasi-philosophical, sociological, and legal reflections, while political reflection and analysis is relatively less. This is because modern political power is suffused with the idea of sovereignty and very little with responsibility. A theory of the separation of powers and the constitutional principle of the division of powers imply responsibility as an intrinsic element of legitimate authority. There is also a doctrine of sovereignty with responsibility. However, power is measured not by responsibility but by its reach, and even though power may be honed with prudence to be exercised in a measured manner, it has the capacity to turn itself into a centre, a univocal sovereign signifier of capacity. A capillary existence of power by itself does not guarantee federalisation of political power or, to be precise, its existence in a responsible mode. The study of responsibility as an essential component of politics has suffered from a top-down approach. Posing from the margins, the question of responsibility is a post-colonial way of critiquing the organisation of power. A post-colonial framing of responsibility will mean taking into account the background of decolonisation, partitions, structural reforms, environmental disasters, and neoliberal development against which population flows continue, and bio-political responses from below to the crisis of our time.