Giorgio Agamben refers to a basic problem in the constitution of the modern nation state: the state as a nation implies that “bare life” becomes the foundation of sovereignty. With the loss of their citizenship, refugees lose not only all their rights, but more fundamentally the “right to have rights” (Arendt). This dilemma of modern statehood does not vanish under conditions of European integration; it is rather re‐scaled. Applying a state‐theoretical approach to the European border regime, we will concentrate on the two main techniques by which the EU produces “bare life”: the “camp” and the invisible “police state.” It will become apparent that the institutionalization of “the right of every human being to belong to mankind” is still lacking. Yet, in contrast to Agamben, we do not trace this constellation back to the collapse of the concept of human rights, but to hegemonies and power relations.
This article focuses on Antonio Gramsci's hegemony theory. Hegemony, for Gramsci, is a particular way of living and thinking, a Weltanschauung (world-view), on which the preferences, taste, morality, ethics, and philosophical principles of the majority are based. Social struggles are transformed into legal ones in the course of processes in which juridical intellectuals are organizing hegemony under the special conditions of the legal system. We try to use this concept to contrast it with the prevailing readings of hegemony in international relations and in international law. ‘Hegemonic law’, we argue, is not the law of any superpower, but an asymmetric consensus which relies on a climate of world-society-wide recognition. The concrete form of hegemonic law under particular social conditions depends on the ‘historical bloc’, in which it is coupled with other social praxes. In the post-Westphalian system the historical bloc is fragmented into transnational and colliding legal regimes and law-generating processes in civil society.
ResumoO artigo apresenta a reconstrução da teoria marxista do direito desenvolvida de forma detalhada em Subjetivação e Coesão, para a reconstrução de uma teoria materialista do direito (2007). Para discutir o papel do direito enquanto tecnologia de coesão, o trabalho articula as contribuições da teoria marxista do direito, em que se destacam Eugen Paschukanis, Franz Neumann e Max Horkheimer, da teoria da regulação e da teoria da hegemonia de Antonio Gramsci. A partir de Michel Foucault, a autora trabalha a questão da subjetivação, descrevendo os mecanismos da constituição do sujeito de direito. O processo de reconstrução teórico é permanentemente recortado pela crítica dos estudos feministas e das teorias que questionam a concepção binária de gênero. A partir da metáfora de Marx, a autora demonstra como o direito, enquanto tecnologia de subjetivação e coesão, oferece as condições de possibilidade para que as contradições sociais se movimentem em seu interior: o que significa, ao mesmo tempo, sua dinâmica de controle e seu potencial de emancipação.Palavras--chave: coesão, subjetivação, teoria marxista do direito.
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