Authorisation and Representation before Leviathan

In this article, I show that Hobbes’s account of the generation of the commonwealth in both The Elements of Law and De Cive relies on ideas that he would come to theorise in terms of authorisation and representation in Leviathan. In this respect, I argue that the Leviathan account is better understood as filling in gaps and resolving equivocations in Hobbes’s theory, rather than marking a decisive break in his thinking. This argument is developed by substantiating two more specific theses. First, while Hobbes only explicitly distinguishes between the “alienation” and “authorisation” clauses of the covenant in Leviathan, the earlier versions of his theory rely on a two-clause account. Second, in the earlier versions of his theory, Hobbes equivocates between suggesting that the relation between the state and sovereign should be understood in terms of representation or identity; an equivocation that he would only resolve in Leviathan.