The three phases of Arendt's theory of totalitarianism

So it is perhaps appropriate to conclude this essay by noting that late in the year of the book's fiftieth anniversary, world politics was unexpectedly transformed by the deeds of just such a movement--that is, the "movement" comprising the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda and its various allied radical Islamist groups. At very least, the crimes of September 11, 2001, have proved that this newly emergent movement is no less "international in organization, all-comprehensive in its ideological scope, and global in its political aspirations" than the Nazis and Bolsheviks had been, even if those global aspirations have thus far taken a different form from theirs. (36) To be sure, this movement differs in a number of obvious respects from the two totalitarian movements Arendt discusses in her book, not least in its (ostensibly) religious orientation. Whether--or to what extent--the various phases of the theory Arendt presents could give us real purchase on the motives and mentalities of the leaders of this movement, or on those of its all-too-selfless adherents, remains perforce an open question. This essay has simply sought to clarify the way in which such questions might be posed.

Notes

* Earlier versions of this essay were presented at the University of Virginia and at the conference commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of The Origins of Totalitarianism hosted by the Hannah Arendt-Zentrum at Carl Ossietzky University in Oldenburg, Germany. I am grateful to Joshua Dienstag and Antonia Grunenberg, respectively, for arranging these two occasions, and also to the members of the audience at each--especially Lawrie Balfour, Wolfgang Heuer, George Klosko, Allan Megill, Alfons Sollner, and Zoltan Szankay--for their helpful comments and criticisms. I would also like to thank Margaret Canovan, George Kateb, and Jerome Kohn for their advice and encouragement.

(1) Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1973); henceforth abbreviated as OT. Unless otherwise indicated, all parenthetical references in the body of this essay are to this text. All such citations, except those marked with an asterisk (*), refer to passages that are also contained in the differently paginated first edition (1951). Those marked with an asterisk refer to passages added in the editions of 1958 or later. (Of the passages cited, the only ones that are not included in the 1958 edition are those from the new prefaces that were written for separate paperback editions of each of the three parts, and added to the larger text in 1973.) Note that nearly all the additions and alterations in the 1958 edition reflect changes that Arendt had already made in preparing the book's first German-language edition, Elemente und Ursprunge totaler Herrschaft (1955), henceforth abbreviated TH in the notes to this essay.

(2) As Margaret Canovan has remarked, "The case is not simply that Arendt used an idiosyncratic method ... but rather that there are problems in grasping what the book is actually about. The bewildered reader, picking his way through dazzlingly complex analyses of Disraeli, the British Empire, the philosophy of Hobbes, the idea of human rights, and all the rest of this extraordinary book, may feel that if (as Arendt wrote to Voegelin) "`the elementary structure of totalitarianism is the hidden structure of the book,' then the author has hidden it rather too well." Canovan (1992: 18), quoting Arendt's "A Reply" to "The Origins of Totalitarianism" by Eric Voegelin, Review of Politics 15:1 (January 1953): 77-8. (Reprinted in Arendt, 1994: 402-3; further references to this text in this essay cite the latter publication.) My account of Arendt's project and its evolution in this essay is much indebted to Canovan's treatment of the subject (1992: 17-62; 1999; 2000), although differing on some basic points of interpretation. I am likewise indebted to the account in Kateb (1984: 52-82).