Forms of Authority Beyond the Neoliberal State: Sovereignty, Politics and Aesthetics

Abstract

Critical legal scholarship has recently turned to consider the form, mode and role of law in neoliberal governance. A central theme guiding much of this literature is the importance of understanding neoliberalism as not only a political or economic phenomenon, but also an inherently juridical one. This article builds on these conceptualisations of neoliberalism in turning to explore the wider historical, cultural and sociological contexts which inform the production of neoliberal authority. The papers in this collection were first presented at the symposium 'Forms of authority beyond the neoliberal state', held at the Griffith Law School in December 2017. They consider the role of the corporation, the site of the university, the politics of debt, the genre of prestige television, and the archic sources of state violence, in order to imagine forms of authority which lie beyond neoliberalism as an ideology and a set of practices, and the neoliberal state as an ensemble of institutions. The contributions draw on social theory, philosophy, cultural studies, legal geography and political theology in exploring new possibilities for cultivating judgement through and beyond the sovereign, political and aesthetic terrains of neoliberal governance.

Zombie resistance: Reanimated labour struggles and the legal geographies of authoritarian neoliberalism in Cambodia

“…Curiously, however, recent critiques of legal geography note a lack of engagement with political economy (Orzeck & Hae, 2020, p. 838), with inattentiveness to neoliberalism particularly ‘striking’ (Delaney, 2015, p. 97). These complementary deficiencies across critical subfields of political economy and legal geography beg for dialogue to flesh out the dynamics of neoliberalism as ‘not only a political or economic phenomenon, but also an inherently juridical one’ (Butler & Crawley, 2018, p. 265).…”

“…However, until recently, legal geography has engaged little with political economy, (Orzeck & Hae, 2020, p. 838) and neoliberalism (Delaney, 2015, p. 97) in particular. Bringing the two into dialogue, I interrogate neoliberalism as ‘not only a political or economic phenomenon, but also an inherently juridical one’ (Butler & Crawley, 2018, p. 265), from inception consumed with the fraught politics of re‐regulation.…”