scholarly journals Alain Badiou’s Suturing of the Law to the Event and the State of Exception

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 192-204
Author(s):  
Antonio Calcagno
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Carl Schmitt ◽  
State Of Exception ◽  
Legal Subject ◽  
New Form ◽  
The Law ◽  
Established Order ◽  
Do So ◽  
New Time

This article questions whether we can posit a more radical desuturing of the law from the event: Can radical shifts in law produce events? Can the law itself be an event, thereby conditioning the very nature of the event itself, creating a new subjectivity and a new time?  I would like to argue that the law can do so. How? Badiou begins “The Three Negations” by discussing the work of the German jurist Carl Schmitt (TN 1877). I would like to argue that the state of exception, as elaborated by Carl Schmitt, can serve as the willed decision of a sovereign that brings about an event.  We can understand the sovereign as a kind of legal subject that has the force to bring about a new event, rupturing with an established order and introducing a new form of subjectivity and time. 

Constitutional Rights and Social Welfare: Exploring Claims-Making Practices in Post-Apartheid South Africa

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-48
Author(s):  
Whitney K. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Neighborhood Context ◽  
The State ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
The Law ◽  
Material Conditions ◽  
Do So ◽  
The Way

When do individuals choose to advance legal claims to social welfare goods? To explore this question, I turn to the case of South Africa, where, despite the adoption of a "transformative" constitution in 1996, access to social welfare goods remains sorely lacking. Drawing on an original 551-person survey, I examine patterns of legal claims-making, focusing on beliefs individuals hold about the law, rights, and the state, and how those beliefs relate to decisions about whether and how to make claims. I find striking differences between the factors that influence when people say they should file a legal claim and when they actually do so. The way that individuals interpret their own material conditions and neighborhood context are important, yet under-acknowledged, factors for explaining claims-making.

Mechanical Restraint

1896 ◽  
Vol 42 (176) ◽  
pp. 131-131
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Mechanical Restraint ◽  
The Law ◽  
Do So

The evils of wrong-doing are great and far-reaching, and not the least of these evils are the effects of the regulations which wrong-doing calls forth, and which are intended to prevent similar wrong-doing in future. In any case it is difficult to forecast the effect of legislation. It is never certain that legislation will prevent the evil that it is designed to prevent; but we may be confident that, whether it do so or not, it will produce other evils which were neither intended nor anticipated by its authors. The law which forbad the combination of workmen, for example, did not prevent their combination, and was indirectly responsible for many trade outrages. The law which forbids the sale of intoxicating liquors in the state of Maine similarly does not prevent their sale, but indirectly produces much lying and dishonesty.

‘I Am the Law’: District Commissioner Fiction and the State of Exception

2019 ◽  
pp. 26-53
Author(s):  
Katherine Isobel Baxter
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
State Of Exception ◽  
The Law ◽  
Indirect Rule ◽  
District Commissioner

Chapter Two identifies and anatomizes an important subgenre in the adventure tradition in literature: District Commissioner fiction. This subgenre is significant because, while in the nineteenth century the colonial hero was typically represented as a buccaneer outside the law, District Commissioner fiction repositions the hero within and as the law. Edgar Wallace’s Sanders of the River series is read alongside works by Arthur E. Southon in relation to theories of the state of exception, to demonstrate how the District Commissioner and the policy of indirect rule that he represents are figured exceptionally, standing outside the law as the force of law.

Why the “Haves” Come Out Ahead: Speculations on the Limits of Legal Change

2021 ◽  
pp. 297-302
Author(s):  
Marc Galanter
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
The State ◽  
Legal Change ◽  
System P ◽  
The Law ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Do So ◽  
The Way

This article proposes some conjectures about the way in which the basic architecture of the legal system creates and limits the possibilities of using the system as a means of redistributive change. Specifically, the question is under what conditions litigation can be redistributive, taking litigation in the broadest sense of the presentation of claims to be decided by courts. Because of differences in their size, differences in the state of the law, and differences in their resources, some of the actors in society have many occasions to utilize the courts; others do so only rarely. One can divide these actors into those claimants who have only occasional recourse to the courts (one-shotters) and repeat players who are engaged in many similar litigations over time. The article then looks at alternatives to the official litigation system.

Undocumented Migrants As Homo Sacer: Cases From Botswana and South Africa

2020 ◽  
pp. 002190962094634
Author(s):  
France Maphosa ◽  
Christopher Ntau
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
The State ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
State Of Exception ◽  
Undocumented Migrants ◽  
Homo Sacer ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Law

The concept of homo sacer originates from ancient Roman law under which an individual who committed a certain kind of crime was excluded from society and all his/her rights as a citizen were revoked. This paper uses a few selected cases reported in the media of Botswana and South Africa to demonstrate why undocumented migrants in the two countries fit Agamben’s description of homo sacer. While migrants in general, whether documented or undocumented, are targets of violence, exploitation and discrimination in these countries, undocumented migrants are particularly vulnerable because of their ‘illegal’ status. Although violence against undocumented migrants is not formally endorsed by the state, their description as a problem or a threat to society places them in a state of exception which is virtually outside the protection of the law.

Pirates of Silicon Valley: State of exception and dispossession in Web 2.0

First Monday ◽  
2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Jakobsson ◽  
Fredrik Stiernstedt
Keyword(s):  
Web 2.0 ◽  
Silicon Valley ◽  
The State ◽  
State Of Exception ◽  
Primitive Accumulation ◽  
Free Labor ◽  
Capitalist Economy ◽  
The Law ◽  
Cultural Commons ◽  
Informational Economy

This paper investigates a paradox in the reception of Web 2.0. While some of its services are seen as creators of a new informational economy and are hence publicly legitimized, other features are increasingly under surveillance and policed, although in reality the differences between these services is far from obvious. Our thesis is that we are currently experiencing a temporary postponement of the law, in the context of Web 2.0. Agamben’s work on the state of exception is here used to theorize the informational economy as an ongoing dispossession, under the guise of ‘networked production’. This dispossession is seen as a parallel to the concept of ‘primitive accumulation’, as a means of moving things from the exterior to the interior of the capitalist economy. This theory lets us problematize the concept of free labor, the metaphor of the enclosure, and puts into question the dichotomy between copyright and cultural commons.

SAYYIDA ZAYNAB IN THE STATE OF EXCEPTION: SHIʿI SAINTHOOD AS “QUALIFIED LIFE” IN CONTEMPORARY SYRIA

2012 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 285-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edith Szanto
Keyword(s):  
Refugee Camp ◽  
The State ◽  
Concentration Camp ◽  
State Of Exception ◽  
Refugee Camps ◽  
Ritual Practice ◽  
Giorgio Agamben ◽  
Nazi Concentration Camp ◽  
Homo Sacer ◽  
The Law

AbstractAccording to Giorgio Agamben, a “state of exception” is established by the sovereign's decision to suspend the law, and the archetypical state of exception is the Nazi concentration camp. At the same time, Agamben notes that boundaries have become blurred since then, such that even spaces like refugee camps can be thought of as states of exception because they are both inside and outside the law. This article draws on the notion of the state of exception in order to examine the Syrian refugee campcumshrine town of Sayyida Zaynab as well as to analyze questions of religious authority, ritual practice, and pious devotion to Sayyida Zaynab. Though Sayyida Zaynab and many of her Twelver Shiʿi devotees resemble Agamben's figure ofhomo sacer, who marked the origin of the state of exception, they also defy Agamben's theory that humans necessarily become animal-like, leading nothing more than “bare lives” (orzoē) in states of exception.

scholarly journals Action in Law’s Empire: Judging in the Deliberative Mode

2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 431-456
Author(s):  
Veronica Rodriguez-Blanco
Keyword(s):  
Classical Tradition ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
The State ◽  
Legal Cases ◽  
The Law ◽  
Do So

Dworkin advances the view that judges decide legal cases according to constructive interpretation. The aim of constructive interpretation is to justify the coercion of the State. A trivial implication of this view is that officials and citizens will comply with the law because of the justification that has been advanced by judges in their exercise of constructive interpretation. Consequently, neither officials nor citizens comply with the law because they have been coerced or because they have been simply told to do so. But then, it seems that constructive interpretation cannot really provide any guidance since officials and citizens have been asked to accept the interpretation of the law that has been put forward by the judges since arguably, it is the best possible interpretation of what the law is in this particular case. However, why they ought to do so?I will argue that the mistake of the theory of constructive interpretation lies in a misleading and implausible conception of action that believes that action is raw behavioural data and that therefore we need to ‘impose meaning’, ‘value’ or ‘purpose’ on them. I will defend a more plausible conception of action along the classical tradition that understands practice as originating in agency and deliberation. The outcome is that constructive interpretation and its conception of ‘imposing meaning’ on practice is a theoretical perspective that neglects and misunderstands action and practical reason.

scholarly journals Proceeding the prosecutor’s waiver: between law and reality

2021 ◽  
pp. 6-11
Author(s):  
Tatiana Vizdoaga ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Driving Force ◽  
The State ◽  
Criminal Trial ◽  
Criminal Case ◽  
Criminal Proceedings ◽  
The Law ◽  
Core Issues ◽  
Trial Phase ◽  
Do So

The prosecution is the driving force behind the criminal proceedings. By presenting the prosecution with all his energy, insistence and competence, the prosecutor is obliged to do so only to the extent that the guilt is proven, taking into account the evidence supporting the defendant’s position. The prosecutor himself is obliged to strictly observe the law, to oppose any abuses and violations, regardless of the party whose interests are harmed. For the prosecutor, supporting the accusation is not an end in itself; or, the well-founded waiver of the accusation, as well as the support of the accusation, equally contribute to the achievement of the purpose of the criminal trial. This study discusses certain core issues related to the waiver of the state accuser to charge the trial phase of the criminal case.

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