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attributed to Mencius to explain how the ruler‘s virtue acts as a potent, transformative influence
on the hearts-and-minds of the people, independently of any institutions that may mediate his
power. A well-known example is from the Analects: ―The Master said, ‗The rule of virtue can be
compared to the Pole Star, which commands the homage of the multitude of stars simply by
remaining in its place‘‖ (2.2).
Pitkin denies that exemplariness or imitation can constitute a true model of founding for
self-governing polities, because the very act of imitating what is exemplary belies the
innovation—and hence the autonomy—necessary for founding acts. One can imitate such
founders‘ innovation ―only by not imitating anyone‖ (Pitkin 1984, 272); whereas true imitation
of their actions would refute the autonomy such founding was trying to instill (Pitkin 1984, 268-
273). Pitkin therefore links founding to the situated practices of citizenship that read autonomy
as embedded in practices of mutuality, in which free citizens hold ―each other to the civil limits
defined by their particular tradition‖ which they recognize as already-given ―yet honor or alter as
conscious ‗co-founders‘‖ (Pitkin 1984, 315).
When capacities for self-rule are not defined in terms of autonomy, however, many of
Pitkin‘s objections to the characterization of efficacious founding acts as exemplary ones appear
irrelevant; so too does the analogy of founding to everyday practices of mutually constituted
citizenship. The model of transmissive founding, with its constitutive political actions of
exemplariness and imitation, can be interpreted in another way that recognizes the situatedness
of political actors without at the same time conflating (and thereby eliding) the episodic,
founding act with those everyday acts that sustain any particular regime. It is in fact the close
association of efficacy and resonance that enables Zhang to replace the inaugural sage-kings of
the transmission model with the plurality of actors under democracy: it is not absolute virtue but
Convention