Etienne Balibar (2008 [1998]) _Spinoza and Politics_, trans. Peter Snowdon, London: Verso.

Although the sovereignty of the State seems necessarily absolute, Etienne Balibar examines the relationship with individual freedom of expression by making reference to Spinoza's _Tractatus Theologico-Politicus_ (published in 1670). Individuals participate in the State, and the State guarantees their participation by offering them freedom of thought and expression (2008: 25).

Rather than the apparent opposing tendencies of authoritarianism and democracy being reconciled, they operate in a reciprocal relation. Spinoza stresses the distinction between thoughts/words and actions. He maintains that since it is impossible to act with one voice (that no one can be forced to think like another or speak like another), the individual gives up their right to act freely on this basis in solidarity with the State but not their right to think freely. To Balibar, this poses some problems, and he considers that  'obedience does not lie in the motive from which one acts, but in the conformity of the act itself'. Furthermore, '_certain words are actions_, in particular those which deliver judgements on the policy of the State and which may serve to obstruct that policy' (2009: 26-7). 

Balibar explains that the liberal tradition has emphasises the distinction between the private and public realms - between individual opinions and collective actions - whereas they 'reciprocally "underwrite"  each other' (2008: 27). Spinoza recognises this: that the State and individual are not separated nor even in contradiction but in tension. This is demonstrated when the State tries to suppress freedom of speech: 'The more violent the constraints that are placed upon individual freedom, the more violent and destructive will be the reaction against them.' (2008: 28) When individuals are forced to think like others, the State itself is in danger. The diversity of human imagination cannot be suppressed. 

'On this basis, the State must open up of its own accord the largest possible domain for the expression of individual opinions. The "complexion" of each individual will then no longer be seen as an obstacle to the sovereign's power (_potestas_), but as an active, constitutive element of the power (_potentia_) of the State. When individuals consciously take part in the construction of the State, they naturally desire both its power over them and its preservation. By promoting freedom of opinion, the State maximises its chances of reaching rational decisions; at the same time, it places the individual in a situation in which obedience is the only form of  conduct he can choose that is truly to his advantage. It is given that _thoughts and words are once more actions_, in the strongest sense of the term.' (2008:  30-31)

The process is based on 'reciprocal limitation' (or 'self-limitation') where each element (the individual and the State) '"interiorises" the utility of the other' (2008: 31). The institution of democracy is explained by Spinoza in this way, through a contract (_pactum_) in which 'each individual transfers to the collective sovereign (of which he is himself one part) the right to legislate, to command and to punish crimes...' underpinned by freedom of opinion to 'enable the citizens to construct a common will and to determine their common good' (2008: 114). According to Balibar, Spinoza overestimated the capacity of the masses to rule themselves and to form democratic regimes (2008: 115). The Republican regime, of 1650 to 1672, to which he referred was in effect an oligarchy. Recognition of this leads Spinoza to investigate the process by which individuals become 'collective individuals' (and this is where the contemporary interest in the _multitude_ connects): 
'The collective is an 'individual of individuals' with a body and a soul (the body politic). The soul 'is a way in which that body can be represented in imagination and reason; it is the condition of effective decision (that is, government); and it is also an instrument for the expression of the collective passions' (2008: 116). 

Individuals must actively imagine their 'participation' in what ultimately is part of their very subjugation and freedom. Individuals _must_ voice their diverse opinions, both for and against the State, in order to legitimate its effects. This is the basis of liberal democracy as part of the 'violence of participation' (as direct violence against divergent opinions against the State serves to undermines the State itself) as well as the basis of its democratic renewal (as in non-representational democracy, for instance). Sovereignty is in effect the totality of the diverse opinions (and not in conflict with networks as stated elsewhere). At best, the collective becomes a mechanism for the multiplication of power. As Balibar puts it:
'In losing their absolute autonomy, State and Individual have lost only a fictive freedom, a powerlessness. In return, they have actively committed themselves to the project of their own liberation.' (2008: 118)

Freedom, although opposed to constraint, is not opposed to determinism: 'it does not consist in the absence of causes for human action [...] _For our liberation has always already begun_.' (2008: 123). Politics, for Balibar, is ever present in the collective human imagination.