The Godfather , or The Sovereign

Abstract: This article suggests that Thomas Hobbes’s thought accounts for a significant part of The Godfather ’s political philosophy. The figure of the don, as it appears in Mario Puzo’s novel and Francis Ford Coppola’s movie trilogy, is a representation of the Hobbesian sovereign. The exception and the protection, the two most prominent features in the definition of sovereignty, determine the character of the Godfather. He embodies both the exception, as an authority who has absolute power over life and death, and the protection, as the head of the Mafia’s prerogative to fulfill the basic functions of the state over the members of his “family.”