Liberal governance works through managed self-discipline, not force or consent.

Evidence

Is this account persuasive? Some doubts arise at this point. Surely, the payment of taxes and induction into the army depend not on selfenforcement but on enforcement by the state? “Some degree” of participation in governance (by which Taylor means taking part in elections once every four or five years) explicitly refers to a statistical measure of the entire population and not to a measure of how strong individual motivation is. It depends, therefore, on the political skill with which large numbers are managed—including the organization and financing of electoral campaigns—rather than on the ethics of individual self-discipline. The distinctive feature of modern liberal governance, I would submit, is neither compulsion (force) nor negotiation (consent) but the statecraft that uses “self-discipline” and “participation,” “law” and “economy” as elements of political strategy. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 24

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Asad reframes liberal legitimacy as statecraft using self-discipline as strategy — dense, paradigm-shifting, resists one-liner summary.
• XREF: Directly bridges to vaulted Cooper/Christian-social-conservatism argument: liberal ‘self-governance’ rhetoric quietly requires particular subjects, which is where Christian- and secular-normative assumptions enter.