Hannah Arendt: When the State is Unjustified

Abstract

The chapter examines Hannah Arendt’s political theory through her major works: On Violence, The Origins of Totalitarianism, Eichmann in Jerusalem, and The Human Condition, to identify the conditions under which a state loses its justification. Although Arendt never developed the concept of an “unjustified state” herself, her writings enable its reconstruction by examining the degeneration of political power into domination, of legality into decrees, and of freedom into terror. The central argument the chapter advances within Arendt’s framework is that a state forfeits its justification not simply by violating laws, but by undermining the foundational conditions that render politics possible.