Institutions can deliberately cultivate servility as a form of unfreedom

Evidence

The striking thing about the relationship of the institutions to the nondomination that they put in place, however, is that it does not have the same causal character. The people who live under the institutions do not have to wait on the causal effect of the institutions in inhibiting potential interferers before they enjoy non-domination. To enjoy such non-domination, after all, is just to be in a position where no one can interfere arbitrarily in your affairs, and you are in that position from the moment that the institutions are in place. True, it is bound to take time and some causal interaction for your non-domination to become a matter of common awareness, and for potential offenders to be deterred. But the non-domination as such precedes such causal sequences. It comes into existence simultaneously with the appearance of the appropriate institutions; it represents the reality of those institutions in the person of the individual. … The presence of certain antibodies in your blood makes it the case that you are immune to a certain disease, but it does not cause your immunity, as if the immunity were something separate on which we had to wait; the presence of those antibodies constitutes the immunity, as we say. By analogy, the presence in the polity of such and such empowering and protective arrangements makes it the case that you are more or less immune to arbitrary interference, but it does not cause that immunity; it constitutes it. To be immune to a certain disease is to have antibodies in your blood— maybe these, maybe those—which prevent the development of the relevant virus. The presence of the antibodies represents a way of realizing the immunity; it is not something that causally leads to it. To be immune to arbitrary interference, to enjoy non-domination, is to have inhibitors present in your society—maybe these, maybe those— which prevent arbitrary interference in your life and affairs. And the presence of suitable inhibitors—suitable institutions and arrangements—represents a way of realizing your non-domination; it is not something that leads by a causal path to that non-domination. — Philip Pettit, Republicanism, 518 (#contradicts, via linked claim)

Thus while violence presupposes power it is not identical with it. It takes power both to constrain and to disrupt, though no doubt of different kinds. The institutional power of an office need not disrupt (though of course it may); its institutionality is likely designed precisely to effect ends with as little disruption as possible. Institutional establishment may have disrupted – rent those it effects – at its founding moment, but once settled in may prove enabling and not constraining. Though its enabling power might also be predicated on its power to constrain. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1822 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim
• XREF: connects to: A lightly governed colony remains unfree if rulers hold arbitrary power. — Frank Lovett, Republicanism, 20; Institutions constitute citizens’ freedom from domination rather than causally producing it — Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and…, 518; Institutional power enables through constraint rather than disruption — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1822 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Disciplinary power produces individuality rather than merely restricting it from outside #corroborates (0.78)
• Institutions constitute citizens’ freedom from domination rather than causally producing it #contradicts (0.75) — Philip Pettit, Republicanism, 518
• Institutional power enables through constraint rather than disruption #corroborates (0.72) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1822