The Politics of Global Constitutionalism

ICL Journal ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ekaterina Yahyaoui Krivenko
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Carl Schmitt ◽  
The Political ◽  
Giorgio Agamben ◽  
Political Dimension ◽  
Current State ◽  
Global Constitutionalism ◽  
Open Discussion ◽  
State Form

AbstractThe article argues that no understanding of global constitutionalism will be complete without a thorough discussion of its political dimension. The current state of scholarship on global constitutionalism is dominated by discussions of legal elements. However, any theory of global constitutionalism has an underlying vision of the political. Without discussing this underlying vision of the political global constitutionalism will remain incomplete. In particular the article demonstrates that the contemporary debates on global constitutionalism are plagued by a contradiction between its aims and its underlying vision of the political. Thus, global constitutionalism postulates individuals as central units of its concern. However, by maintaining states as central actors although in a changed form and with fewer powers global constitutionalism unwittingly subscribes to a vision of the political anchored in the state form and based on the exclusion/inclusion dynamic. This vision of the political is most clearly articulated by Carl Schmitt. The discussion of his view of the political demonstrates that the political based on the state form makes the project of global constitutionalism impossible. The only way forward is an open discussion of different visions of the political and a search for a more adequate vision of the political able to further the aims of global constitutionalism and its focus on individuals. The article discusses one of these alternative visions of the political, namely the concept of the coming politics and coming community as articulated by Giorgio Agamben. It demonstrates how with this vision of the political the project of global constitutionalism can conceive of a political community fully dedicated to the singularities of each individual human being without creating divisions. The article concludes that in order for global constitutionalism to continue as a viable project, an open and explicit discussion of the political is called for.

scholarly journals Not All Will Be Saved: The Boundaries of the Political Community as a Socio-ontological Premise

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 90-106
Author(s):  
Oleg Kildyushov
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Research University ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Mutual Recognition ◽  
Social Ontology ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Carl Schmitt ◽  
The Political ◽  
Leading Role

The article offers an exposition of the range of topics discussed at the events of the Centre for Fundamental Sociology at the National Research University Higher School of Economics in 2017–2018. These topics were generally connected with the basic theme of the return of the sacred to the world of late modernity which seemed to be completely secularized long ago. Special emphasis is given to the role the state plays in this process of the political rehabilitation of the transcendent. The statement of the problem starts with the analysis of significant structural changes within the global discursive landscape, including the demise of the leading role of triumphalist globalization narratives which, until recently, dominated the sphere of values and symbolic meanings. Then it raises the question of the return of the state as an operator of worldly, secular salvation, which, through its institutions, ensures the inclusion of the social world into the transcendent one, thereby defining the circle of those to be rescued. A short historical-philosophical excursus then demonstrates the rooted-ness of the problem of borders of communities in solidarity united by certain transcendent values in the tradition of social science since the times of antiquity. The next section, appealing to the Aristotelian understanding of the political, proposes a participatory model of the mutual recognition for the members of a certain “We”-group structurally separated from other historically-contingent communities of fate. By conceptual means, the article offers an analysis of the attempts to overcome the inevitably discrete character of social ontology undertaken by universalist discourse through the return to cosmopolitan utopias such as projects of global citizenship, post-national inclusive politics, etc. Finally, the text proposes a reconstruction of the alternative line of argumentation usually associated with the names of Aristotle and Rousseau, but explicitly developed by Carl Schmitt. In this line of reasoning, homogeneity is postulated as a condition of the possibility for any community of solidarity. The article offers preliminary conclusions on the relevance of this topic to the theory of social order.

Religion and the Construction of a Christian Roman Polity

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-113
Author(s):  
Francesco Rotiroti
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Political Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Dimension ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Theories Of Religion ◽  
Ancient Christianity

This article seeks to define a theoretical framework for the study of the relation between religion and the political community in the Roman world and to analyze a particular case in point. The first part reviews two prominent theories of religion developed in the last fifty years through the combined efforts of anthropologists and classicists, arguing for their complementary contribution to the understanding of religion's political dimension. It also provides an overview of the approaches of recent scholarship to the relation between religion and the Roman polity, contextualizing the efforts of this article toward a theoretical reframing of the political and institutional elements of ancient Christianity. The second part focuses on the religious legislation of the Theodosian Code, with particular emphasis on the laws against the heretics and their performance in the construction of the political community. With their characteristic language of exclusion, these laws signal the persisting overlap between the borders of the political community and the borders of religion, in a manner that one would expect from pre-Christian civic religions. Nevertheless, the political essence of religion did also adapt to the ecumenical dimension of the empire. Indeed, the religious norms of the Code appear to structure a community whose borders tend to be identical to the borders of the whole inhabited world, within which there is no longer room for alternative affiliations; the only possible identity outside this community is that of the insane, not belonging to any political entity and thus unable to possess any right.

War without Citizens

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-38
Author(s):  
Stephen J. Rosow
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Consumer Culture ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Democratic Citizenship ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Public ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Advanced Technologies

Contestation over war memorialization can help democratic theory respond to the current attenuation of citizenship in war in liberal democratic states, especially the United States. As war involves more advanced technologies and fewer soldiers, the relation of citizenship to war changes. In this context war memorialization plays a particular role in refiguring the relation. Current practices of remembering and memorializing war in contemporary neoliberal states respond to a dilemma: the state needs to justify and garner support for continual wars while distancing citizenship from participation. The result is a consumer culture of memorialization that seeks to effect a unity of the political community while it fights wars with few citizens and devalues the public. Neoliberal wars fought with few soldiers and an economic logic reveals the vulnerability to otherness that leads to more active and critical democratic citizenship.

scholarly journals Kongen hersker, men regerer ikke - Guvernementalitet, statificering og statspraksis hos Michel Foucault

2018 ◽  
pp. 89-108
Author(s):  
Nicolai Von Eggers ◽  
Mathias Hein Jessen
Keyword(s):  
Michel Foucault ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Giorgio Agamben ◽  
The West ◽  
Historical Investigation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Way Of Thinking

Michel Foucault developed his now (in)famous neologism governmentality in the first of the two lectures he devoted to ’a history of governmentality, Security, Territory, Population (1977-78) and The Birth of Biopolitics (1978-79). Foucault developed this notion in order to do a historical investigation of ‘the state’ or ‘the political’ which did not assume the entity of the state but treated it as a way of governing, a way of thinking about governing. Recently, the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben has taken up Foucault’s notion of governmentality in his writing of a history of power in the West, most notably in The Kingdom and the Glory. It is with inspiration from Agamben’s recent use of Foucault that Foucault’s approach to writing the history of the state (as a history of governmental practices and the reflection hereof) is revisited. Foucault (and Agamben) thus offer another way of writing the history of the state and of the political, which focuses on different texts and on reading more familiar texts in a new light, thereby offering a new and notably different view on the emergence of the modern state and politics.

Concluding Remarks to Part 3

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Preminger
Keyword(s):  
Government Policy ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Third ◽  
Third Sphere ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

Chapter 15 summarizes the chapters which addressed the third sphere, the relationship of labor to the political community. It reiterates that since Israel was established, the labor market’s borders have become ever more porous, while the borders of the national (Jewish) political community have remained firm: the Jewish nationalism which guides government policy is as strong as ever. NGOs, drawing on a discourse of human rights, are able to assist some non-citizens but this discourse also resonates with the idea of individual responsibility: the State is no longer willing to support “non-productive” populations, who are now being shoehorned into a labor market which offers few opportunities for meaningful employment, and is saturated by cheaper labor intentionally imported by the State in response to powerful employer lobbies. These trends suggest a partial reorientation of organized labor’s “battlefront”, from a face-off with capital to an appeal to the public and state.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Feisal G. Mohamed
Keyword(s):  
John Milton ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The State ◽  
Carl Schmitt ◽  
The Political ◽  
Sovereign Power ◽  
Andrew Marvell ◽  
Universal Principles ◽  
Modern Politics ◽  
Political Settlement

A modern politics attaching itself to the state must adopt a position sovereignty, by which is meant the political settlement in which potestas and auctoritas are aligned. Three competing forms are identified: unitary sovereignty, divided and balanced sovereignty, and the view that sovereign power must be limited by universal principles. Each of these forms can be divided into “red” and “black” varieties, depending on the imagined relationship between sovereign power and modern conditions of flux. A chapter outline introduces the figures who will be explored in the book as a whole: Thomas Hobbes; William Fiennes, Lord Saye and Sele; John Barclay and the romance writers of the 1650s whom he influences; John Milton; and Andrew Marvell. Also described is the book’s sustained engagement of Carl Schmitt, and the ways in which his thought on sovereignty is an example of the competition amongst the concept’s three competing forms.

The developmental history of solitary and supermax confinement: toward a phenomenology of the state of exception

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Polizzi
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Order ◽  
State Of Exception ◽  
The Political ◽  
Developmental History ◽  
Giorgio Agamben ◽  
Attitudes And Behaviors ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
History Of

The phenomenology of solitary and supermax confinement reflects what Giorgio Agamben has defined as the state of exception. The state of exception is defined as the blurring of the legal and political order, which constructs a zone of indifference for those forced to endure this situation. This notion of the state of exception can be applied to the zone of indifference created by the Supreme Court, which seems unwilling to outlaw this harmful practice relative to 8th Amendment protections prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment and the political order which is all too inclined to continue use strategy. One of the central aspects of this “ecology of harm”, is the way in which the very structures of this type of confinement, helps to invite and legitimize abusive attitudes and behaviors in penitentiary staff.

Continuity with Deficiencies: The New Basic Law of Hungary

2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
András Jakab ◽  
Pál Sonnevend
Keyword(s):  
Constitutional Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
Political Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
Basic Law ◽  
The Government ◽  
Democratic Constitution ◽  
Legal Procedures

Hungarian constitutional law – New Basic Law – Continuity with the previous democratic Constitution – Vision of the political community embedded in the new Basic Law – The level of protection of fundamental rights – Continuity and lack of foreseeability in the organisation of the state – European legal procedures against or about Hungary – The life prospects of the new Basic Law – Danger of constitutional crisis whenever the government does not hold a constitution-amending majority

The Concept of the Political: A Key to Understanding Carl Schmitt's Constitutional Theory

1997 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Carl Schmitt ◽  
The Political ◽  
Constitutional Theory ◽  
Personal Memory ◽  
Political Aspect ◽  
Legal Fiction ◽  
Political Unity ◽  
Legal Perspective ◽  
Law Student

The focus of this paper is not on the person, but on the work of Carl Schmitt, in particular the significance of Schmitt's concept of the political for an understanding of his legal and constitutional theory. Let me start with a short personal memory. When I was a third year law student, I read Carl Schmitt's Constitutional Theory. I came across the formulations that the state is the political unity of a people and that the rule of law component in a constitution is an unpolitical component. I was puzzled by these two remarks. I had learned from Georg Jellinek that the state, from a sociological perspective, is a purposeful corporative unit and, from a legal perspective, represents a territorially based corporation. I had also gathered some knowledge about “organic” state theories, especially that of Otto von Gierke who considers the state an organism and a real corporative personality rather than a mere legal fiction. On the basis of these theories, I felt unable to understand Schmitt's point that the state is the political unity of a people, because in those theories the political aspect is largely missing. It was only later that, by reading and studying Carl Schmitt's essay The Concept of the Political, I gradually learned to make sense of the above remarks. Thus I have discovered that that essay, and the understanding of the political elaborated in it, contains the key to understanding Carl Schmitt's constitutional theory in general. I would now like to explain this.

Reading Hobbes’s Sovereign into a Burmese Narrative of Police Torture

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-211
Author(s):  
Nick Cheesman
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Political Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
Public Order ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

Throughout February 2012, a court sitting at Myanmar’s central prison recorded a defendant’s narrative of torture by policemen to have him confess to a bombing two years prior. How was this record made possible? What does the narrative reveal about the relationship of police torturers to the political community giving them authority to act? Working from Agamben’s intuition that in the moment of violence the policeman occupies an area symmetrical to the sovereign, inasmuch as his use of violence is justified in the name of public order, I suggest the account of police torture in this case can be explained in terms of Hobbes’s theory of attributed action. Like Hobbes’s sovereign, the Burmese policemen had the prerogative to decide when and how to use violence against the detained subject on behalf of the state. That the defendant could later recount to a judge the torture done to him was only because he lacked standing to lay claims against sovereign police, who he himself, as a member of the political community, had authorised. Ironically, the record of his narrative was possible precisely because his claims were without efficacy.

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