The productivity of power: Hannah Arendt's renewal of the classical concept of politics

Abstract

This essay traces the development of Arendt's conception of power. This development corresponds to Arendt's conviction that the advent of totalitarian forms of government set the idea of the modern nation-state, and of the rights of "man and citizen" associated with it, in an irrevocable crisis. To respond to this crisis, Arendt attempts to conceive of power as something separate from, and in tension with, any form of government. Power becomes characterized by its egalitarianism, dynamism, unpredictability, and capacity to innovate. The essay tries to show how these formal characteristics were originally ascribed a purely negative value by Arendt, who associated them with totalitarian power, and that only after her work on totalitarianism does she revaluate them and provides arguments as to why her new concept of power is the only possible response to totalitarian phenomena.