Abstract

In the heated whirlwind that is contemporary politics and public debates, it is paramount to investigate whether culturally pluralistic societies — societies where citizens hold different cultural perspectives — can guarantee a relationship of friendship between their citizens. Much of the relevant literature has notably examined this civic friendship between regular same-state citizens. Nevertheless, said literature shows a significant lack of analyses of the relationship between state representatives and regular citizens. This paper, then, aims at contributing to bridge this gap. I will argue against the instantiation of civic friendship between state representatives and their citizens and instead show how the former’s authoritative power over the latter accounts for a relationship of political hierarchy. On this matter, I will also re-evaluate the significance of democracy as our only way to judge our states’ actions and, consequently, to fully own our status as citizens.

Introduction
In recent years, political thinkers have shown renewed interest in the civic friendship shared by same-state citizens (Schwarzenbach, 2009; Lister, 2011; Leland and van Wietmarschen, 2017; Ludwig, 2020). Yet, what seems to be missing is an equally detailed study of the relationship between a state and its citizens. This paper will thus contribute to this topic and enquire as to whether the relationship between a state and its citizens constitutes political friendship. I will reject this claim and instead argue that their relationship is best defined as a political hierarchy. In addition to this, I will defend that the exercise of democratic practices — such as voting, protesting, attending public debates, and so on — is our only way to hold the state accountable for its actions and to maintain our status as citizens.

In Section 1, I will present Catarina Neves’ account of civic friendship. I will concentrate particularly on her conception of relational reciprocity and elucidate how, in her perspective, it can be sustained only if citizens are friends with each other. Whether Neves’ account accurately represents the relationship between citizens is beyond the scope of this essay, so, for its purposes, I will simply grant that it does. In Section 2, I will disclose that Neves’ thesis can legitimise the relationship of political friendship between state representatives and their citizens on the basis that state representatives are citizens of the state they represent. In Section 3, I will investigate whether such an assumption holds. I will argue that state representatives must exert authoritative power over their citizens to preserve civic political agreement but that such power entails civic collective unfreedom. I will, therefore, conclude that such a relationship is too unbalanced to constitute political friendship and that it is more truthfully understood as a political hierarchy. I will advance last year’s US Palestine encampments as a case study. Lastly, in Section 4, I will consider a significant critique against my thesis, claiming that it leaves no space for democracy. I will reject it by resorting to Van der Zweerde’s interpretation of the adjective “political” as “essentially contestable” (2007, p. 35). I will thus offer an interpretation of democracy not as an institutionalised polity but, rather, as the citizens’ role as political judges towards their state. In this respect, I will reformulate the aforementioned case study of the Palestine encampments.

Neves’ Relational Reciprocity & Civic Friendship
Neves (2023) draws on Rawls’ notion of reciprocity as a disposition between self-interestedness and altruism. She reformulates it as relational reciprocity (RR), sustained only by citizens engaged in civic friendship — a bond of equality, non-prudential concern, and shared experiences that strengthen trust and cooperation across cultural pluralism. This tripartite structure ensures that citizens tolerate unrequited exchanges and uphold common values despite moral diversity, thereby stabilising political agreement and justice.

The Assumption of Political Friendship
If civic friendship sustains reciprocity among citizens, can it extend to the relationship between a state and its citizens? Superficially, it appears so: both parties pursue mutual interests, are bound in relationship, engage in unbalanced reciprocity, and maintain trust. Yet this assumption presupposes parity and goodwill that may not exist in a relationship of governance and subordination.

Authoritative Power & Political Hierarchy
Power, as Hamilton and Sharma (1996) define, is a disposition of one agent’s influence over another, grounded in control and authority. The state’s authoritative power constrains citizens’ actions — visibly through laws and sanctions, invisibly through institutions and norms. Such power preserves order but simultaneously limits citizens’ positive freedom (Berlin, 2016). Because the state must always retain potential coercive power, citizens live in perpetual republican unfreedom (Pettit, 2016), exposed to arbitrary interference even when compliant.

This collective unfreedom contradicts Neves’ three criteria for civic friendship. It precludes equality, mutual concern, and shared social parity: the state wields authority while citizens endure subordination. The disparity is not a mere imbalance but a structural hierarchy. The 2024 US campus encampments for Palestine illustrate this: police crackdowns on peaceful students demonstrated the state’s prioritisation of order and economic interest over citizens’ welfare (Ahmedzade et al., 2024). Thus, the state–citizen relation is not friendship but political hierarchy.

Objections: Democracy to Political Judges
A potential objection claims that this thesis annihilates democracy by rendering citizens permanently unfree. Yet, following Van der Zweerde (2007), the “political” is an essentially contestable sphere shaped by human decision. Citizens grant authority through elections — consciously choosing who wields power — and retain the right to contest outcomes via democratic practices. Protest, debate, and voting thus become expressions of political judgment, the only means by which citizens reclaim partial freedom. Democracy, therefore, resides not in institutions but in citizens’ ongoing contestation — their role as judges of state power.

Conclusion
This essay argued that the relationship between a state and its citizens constitutes political hierarchy rather than friendship. Authoritative power necessarily entails collective republican unfreedom, undermining the reciprocity civic friendship requires. Yet democratic practices persist as citizens’ way of reclaiming judgment and responsibility. Democracy, then, is not institutional property but civic practice — the continuous effort to hold the state accountable and sustain citizenship itself.

Bibliography

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