A THEORY OF INSURGENT CITIZENSHIP - LIRIAS Resolver

KU Leuven

Humanities and Social Sciences Group

Institute of Philosophy

A THEORY OF INSURGENT

CITIZENSHIP

DEMOCRATIC ACTION BETWEEN EMANCIPATION AND

TRANSFORMATION

Christiaan BOONEN

Dissertation presented in

partial fulfilment of the

requirements for the degree of

Doctor in Philosophy

February 2020

Supervisor:

Prof. Toon Braeckman

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

A. Two Moments in the History of Modern Citizenship 1

B. Research Questions and Arguments 3

C. Overview of the Chapters 13

Part One: On the Ambiguity of Modern Citizenship 17

1. On Modern Citizenship 19

1.1. The Road to Modern Citizenship 19

1.2. The Elements of Modern Citizenship 22

1.3. Modern Citizenship as Right 24

1.4. Modern Citizenship as Community and Identity 29

1.5. Modern Citizenship as Political Participation and Civility 34

2. Modern Citizenship Between Emancipation and Domination 39

2.1. The Janus Face of Modern Citizenship 39

2.2. A Critique of Modern Citizenship II: James Tully 47

2.3. A Critique of Modern Citizenship III: Iris Marion Young 53

2.4. Conclusion 58

3. Étienne Balibar: A Theory of Insurgent Citizenship 60

3.1. Citizen Subject I: Who Comes After the Subject? 60

3.2. Citizen Subject II: The Untimeliness of Modern Citizenship 63

3.3. Citizens as Subjects I: Real Universality and Subjection 70

3.4. Citizens as Subjects II: Imaginary Universality and Subjection 75

3.5. Insurgent Citizenship I: Ideal Universality and the Right to Politics 89

3.6. Insurgent Citizenship II: Between Emancipation and Transformation 96

3.7. Conclusion 108

First Transition: One Antinomy of Progress 111

Part Two: Insurgent Citizenship as Struggle for Rights? 113

4. Limits to the Politics of Demanding Subjective Rights: Reading Marx after Lefort

115

4.1. Introduction 115

4.2. Reading On the Jewish Question Twice Over 116

4.3. Revisiting Marx on Subjective Right 123

4.4. Conclusion 135

5. Right to the Common as Counterright? 136


5.2. Moderate and Radical Traditions of Commoning 137

5.3. The Politics of the Common as Transformation 141

5.4. From Legal Recognition to Legal Strategy 155

5.5. Conclusion 159

Part Three: Insurgent Citizenship as Struggle for Recognition? 161

6. The Wages of Recognition: A Critique of Honneth on Race and Capitalism 163


6.2. Axel Honneth: Modern Citizenship and the Struggle for Recognition 166

6.3. Racism and the Limits to the Struggle for Recognition 176

6.4. Conclusion 192

7. Abolition before Recognition: Fanon on the Anti-Racist Politics of Transformation

194

7.1. Introduction: Anti-Racism and the Recognition-Abolition Dilemma 194

7.2. Nancy Fraser and the Antinomies of Anti-Racist Struggles 195

7.3. Frantz Fanon contra the Politics of Recognition 206

7.4. Conclusion 226

Second Transition: Insurgent Citizenship and the Question of Violence 229

Part Four: (Non)Violent Insurgent Citizenship? 231

8. At the Outer Limits of Democratic Division: On Conflict and Violence in the Works

of Chantal Mouffe and Étienne Balibar 233


8.2. Chantal Mouffe: The Threat of the Untamed Conflict 234

8.3. Étienne Balibar: Civilizing the Insurrection 247

8.4. Conclusion 253

9. Shutdown! On the Right to Riot and the Question of Violence 255


9.2. What is a Riot? Some Preliminary Definitions 255

9.3. On the Political Nature of Riots 258

9.4. On the Right to Riot 262

9.5. Rioting as Disruption 270

9.6. Rioting as Strike 276

9.7. Conclusion 282

Conclusion 285

A. Summary of the Arguments 285

B. Contributions 286

C. Limitations 288

D. Avenues for Further Research 290

Bibliography 291

Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor Toon Braeckman. When I first

started thinking about this PhD-thesis, I had never set foot in the University of

Leuven. Impressed with the work RIPPLE was doing, I sent in a cursory research

proposal. To my great surprise, Toon did not only reply but also helped me fine-tune

the proposal. Every version came back adorned with his meticulous commentary and

suggestions. This generosity is, in my experience, characteristic of his approach to

supervising. This thesis benefited greatly from his sharp eye for vague arguments and

drifting paragraphs, and his extensive knowledge of the philosophical tradition.

I did not start my academic trajectory in the department of philosophy, but in the

‘Global Governance and Democratic Government’-project at the GGS. Here, I shared

an office with my friend and fellow-philosopher Nicolas Brando. With him I talked not

only about philosophy, but also literature, film and just about anything else. I will

treasure these conversations. It was also a privilege to work with such intelligent legal

scholars/political economists as Samuel Cogolati, Rutger Hagen, Linda Hamid, and

Nils Vanstappen. Moreover, in a strange stroke of luck our project-leader, Martin

Deleixhe, happened to be a Balibar-scholar. If I remember correctly, it was Martin who

first pointed out to me the central importance of Balibar’s ‘Three Concepts of Politics’.

The research-group RIPPLE provided both a stimulating and friendly research-

environment. My participation in the ‘critical theory’-reading group was a formative

experience. It is impossible to estimate how much I learned from the many

conversations and discussions with: Guido Barbi, Olga Bashkina, Donald Chinonso

Ude, Tim Christiaens, Dimitris Gakis, Annemarije Hagen, Bas Leijssenaar, Matthias

Lievens, Alessandro Mulieri, Marta Resmini, Liesbeth Schoonheim, Guilel Treiber,

Nora Timmermans, Mathijs van de Sande, and Ben van de Wall. This is still leaving

out all of the other RIPPLE’rs whom I have met, talked to, and hung out with after the

plenary seminars or on RIPPLE-weekends, and who together make up this lively and

close-knit community of scholars. Finally, I would also like to thank the members of

my supervisory committee, Helder De Schutter and Stefan Rummens, for pushing me

to clarify the central ideas in this thesis.

In the past years, I have also had the help of academics outside of RIPPLE. In 2019

I spent four months at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy at the

University of Kingston, London. I want to thank my local supervisor Peter Hallward:

his suggestion that my unformed ideas about abolition-politics sounded a lot like

Fanon, was decisive for the 7th chapter. Étienne Balibar was so kind to let me

participate in his seminars on ‘Derrida and his Others’. Though I didn’t manage to

work my way through the massive syllabus (an abridged version of continental

philosophy’s canon), I did learn a lot from his lectures. Apart from the obvious

intellectual debt I owe him, he also gave me the title to my 9th chapter when he jokingly

remarked that he could not hear at which point I was talking about riots, or talking

about rights. He suggested I should call them ‘riots for rights’; I kept the word play but

shuffled some words around. I should also thank James Tully who generously clarified

his ideas on the commons and non-violent resistance through email and sent me some

of his texts. Finally, a word of thanks for Philip Kupferschmidt who managed to

proofread the whole thesis in a short time-span. Obviously, all remaining mistakes are

my own responsibility.

Finally, we come to the people who have supported me outside of academia. My

parents Anne-Mie and Paul, have been nothing but supportive. They always gave me

the freedom and confidence to pursue my goals. Together with my sisters Bieke and

Heleen, who never fail to make me laugh or make me proud, they provide a warm home

where I can always return to be reminded that there are more things to life than

academia. My family and friends deserve thanks for always helping me put things into

perspective, making me leave the house and take breaks from work. Special shout out

to ‘beamerbuddies’ Frederik, Jeroen, Thomas and Wouter: our nights spent watching

B-grade horror movies and bizarre 80’s action-thrillers have been an invaluable outlet

for me. Last but not least I want to thank my partner, Joke. Not only did she have to

endure my absentmindedness (which, in all honesty, I can only partly attribute to the

PhD), but without her support I could not have finished this thesis. She helped me in

small ways (supplying me with coffee or cleaning up my bibliography) and bigger ways

(taking up ever more domestic work). But more importantly, she was there for me

throughout the project, helping me through its toughest stretches with her kindness,

patience, intelligence, and humour.

Versions of the chapters have been published in the following formats:

- Chapter 4: Boonen, C. (2019). “Limits to the Politics of Subjective Rights:

Reading Marx after Lefort.” In: Law and Critique, 30 (1), p. 179-199.

- Chapter 5 resumes ideas from: Boonen, C. (2018). “A (non-)violent revolution?

Strategies of civility for the politics of the common.” In: S. Cogolati and J. Wouters

(Eds.) The Commons and a New Global Governance. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar

Publishing, p. 57-77. And: Boonen, C. and Brando, N. (2016). “Revisiting the

Common Ownership of the Earth: A Democratic Critique of Global Distributive

Justice Theories.” In: Global Justice: Theory Practice Rhetoric, 9 (2), p. 134-154.

- Chapter 8: Boonen, C. (2019). “De Uiterste Limieten van de Democratische

Verdeeldheid: over Democratie, Conflict en Geweld in het Werk van Chantal Mouffe

en Étienne Balibar.” In: Tijdschrift voor Filosofie, 80 (4), p. 637-670. And: Boonen,

C. (2019). “At the Outer Limits of Democratic Division: On Citizenship, Conflict and

Violence in the Work of Chantal Mouffe and Étienne Balibar.” In: International

Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society (To Appear).

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Introduction

A. Two Moments in the History of Modern Citizenship

I would like to open this introduction with two short vignettes that recount specific

moments in the history of modern citizenship.

The first moment is that of the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1829–1830.

The restriction of the franchise to the propertied classes – as laid down in the

Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 – was the hot-button issue at the centre of this

convention. One recurring argument for universal male suffrage, Judith Shklar notes,

was the “citizen-soldier plea”: this is the argument that if landless men were willing to

die for their country, there was no good reason why they should not get to vote (Shklar

1991: 47). There was, however, an additional, more sinister argument in play. “The

vote was so important to these men,” Shklar writes, “because it meant that they were

citizens, unlike women and slaves, as they repeated over and over again” (Ibid.: 49).

Ultimately, this reasoning became reality: the access of white working-class men to

political rights was established in such a way that it came to depend, both materially

and symbolically, on the subordination of people of colour and women (Glenn 2002: 29-

31). To be more precise: the inclusion of these men into political citizenship was

justified on the ground that they were ‘independent’ actors. Yet this meant that the

exclusion of ‘dependent’ persons, both women and people of colour, was “the other face

and enabling ground of modern civil citizenship” (Fraser and Gordon 1994: 97). The

emancipation of one group of people (white working-class men) came to depend on the

exclusion and subjection of others (women and people of colour).

The second moment is that of the seventy-two days of the 1871 Paris Commune.

This working-class insurrection transformed the city of Paris into an autonomous zone

for wide-ranging experiments with the reorganization of social life (Ross 2015: 1). In

her reconstruction of the period, Kristin Ross describes an episode in which “a certain

Louis Alfred Briosne [,] a feuillagiste,” takes the stage in one of the many meetings

that preceded the insurrection.

“Up until then, orators had begun to speak with the sacramental formula:

‘Mesdames et Mesieurs …’ This speaker, in a clear and sufficiently vibrant

voice cried out an appellation that had been deeply forgotten for a quarter

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century: ‘Citoyennes et citoyens!’ The room erupted in applause. […] By

throwing out his ‘citoyens’ he had evoked – whether purposely or not, who

knows? – a whole world of memories and hopes” (Gustave Lefrançais cited in

Ross 2015: 15-16).

In Ross’s interpretation, the particular force of these words has little to do with the

audience’s nostalgia for the glorious past of their nation. The word “‘citoyen’, in this

instance, does not connote membership in a national body,” she writes, “but rather a

cleavage therein […] a separation of the citoyen from what at that precise moment

becomes its antonym, the now ghostly departed mesdames and messieurs – the

bourgeoisie, les honnêtes gens” (Ibid.: 16). Throughout her study, Ross shows how the

French insurgents borrowed words like ‘citizen’, ‘universal republic’ and ‘commune’

from a revolutionary past, but at the same time gave them new meanings and a new

direction (Ibid.: 29). To act or present oneself as a citoyenne or citoyen could express “a

substantial renunciation of French nationalism” (Ibid.: 36); it involved participation in

the Commune’s “daily workings [which] inverted entrenched hierarchies and divisions”

(Ibid.: 50); it could even entail an attack on “the separation between the state and civil

society” (Ibid.: 78).

These two vignettes, I believe, tell us something about the topic of this study: the

relationship between modern citizenship and emancipation. Upon closer inspection,

they demonstrate that this relationship is not as clear-cut as one would expect. The

predominant idea is that the birth of modern citizenship, during the French and

American democratic revolutions, emancipated feudal subjects. The idea that all are

born free and equal in rights, put an end to this feudal subjection. Initially, the break

occurs in the realm of ideas, but gradually its practical effects are felt as subjected

populations protest their predicament in the name of these same ideals. As Linda

Bosniak notes, the “story of citizenship is often recounted as a tale of progressive

incorporation, with new social classes increasingly demanding, and ultimately

achieving, inclusion as citizens over time” (Bosniak 2006: 29).

I am not unsympathetic to this idea. Hence, it is not my aim to construct a narrative

in reverse – the history of modern citizenship as a story of the expanse of subjection,

domination and exclusion. However, I do believe that the story is more complex. First,

I do so because modern citizenship and subjection are uncomfortably entwined, or at

least more so than is often assumed in the theories (both academic and popular) of

modern citizenship. This is what the first vignette purports to show. The emancipation

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of one group of people, their progressive though sometimes partial inclusion into the

circle of modern citizenship, is more often than political theorists think, achieved

through the reinforcement of others’ subjection.

My second reservation concerns the link between ideal and practice. It is often

assumed that the ideal of modern citizenship gives rise to practices of resistance

against the continued existence of subjection. I share the assumption, but argue that

this ideal can give rise to different and sometimes conflicting forms of political action.

Moreover, these different kinds of resistance maintain a different relation to the ideal

of modern citizenship. This is what the second vignette shows: it upends some ideas

that we have about the practice of ‘realizing’ the ideal of modern citizenship. An

influential account of this practice focusses on the gap between ideal and reality: if we

as a society have declared that all are born free and equal in rights, then the continued

existence of second-class citizens should be remedied. However, I believe that Ross’

account of the Paris Commune shows us a different route. The Parisian insurgents did

not resist the subjection of the many to the few by pointing to some unrealized potential

of modern citizenship. Their actions, though short-lived, ended up transforming this

ideal itself while staying true to some of its central intuitions. For instance: they took

the idea that citizens are equal but put it to work in a complete reorganization of socio-

economic life.

B. Research Questions and Arguments

In order to answer some of these questions, this thesis will be divided in three parts.

In each of these parts, one research question will take centre stage.

i. Research Question 1: How can we explain the ambiguity of modern

citizenship?

In the first section, which includes chapters 1 to 3, we will focus on the question of

modern citizenship’s ambiguity. This ambiguity is interpreted in the following way:

modern citizenship is ambiguous because as an ideal it expresses that all citizens

should be free and equal, but once realized in an historical set of institutions allows for

and even enables internal hierarchies.

This subject matter should not be mistaken for a neighbouring one: the concern that

every historical form of modern citizenship requires boundaries (Seubert 2014). It is

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well-know that this boundedness of national and supranational citizenries creates

forms of exclusion and subjection for vulnerable immigrants, often from countries that

are poor, oppressive, or both (Carens 1987). Most political theorists acknowledge that

territorial exclusiveness has been and still is a more or less enduring aspect of modern

citizenship. The existence of citizenship entails, after all, that there is a community of

citizens. That all forms of modern citizenship exclude non-citizens is thus not seen as

an accidental feature.

I will mainly subject another aspect of modern citizenship to critical scrutiny: its

claim to internal universalism. This is the idea that “[u]niversality is understood to

govern life within the community” (Bosniak 2006: 34). This universality takes the

following form: within the boundaries of the community, modern citizenship is a

“means of removing barriers between citizens and of toppling forms of domination that

subjugate them” (Balibar 2015b: 7). Here, matters are more complex: on the one hand,

political theorists know and acknowledge that all through the history of modern

citizenship, this claim was rarely justified. Different forms of second-class citizenship

have been the rule rather than the exception.

The difference with the territorial exclusiveness question, is that the existence of

second-class citizenships is generally seen as a matter of historical accident rather

than an enduring feature of modern citizenship. If second-class citizenships exist, they

are seen as contingent deviations “from otherwise dominant professed principles of

universal equality [,] as carry-overs of outmoded feudal ideas about natural

hierarchies” (Glenn 2002: 48). Political theorists, Elizabeth Cohen argues, tend to

stress the importance of the normative ideal of equal citizenship but often fail to ask

themselves why second-class citizenship is such a persistent institution in the first

place (Cohen 2008: 3-5).

I will argue that we must search for the persistence of such internal hierarchies in

the ideal and institution of modern citizenship itself. In doing so I borrow from James

Tully and Iris Marion Young who both argue that these hierarchies derive from the

particular way in which the internal universalism of modern citizenship is understood.

This is the idea of universalism as the transcendence of difference (Young 1989: 250).

On the one hand, it can emancipate people by liberating them from their immersion in

particular groups (class, race, gender, …). However, it also allows for the exclusion of

people that ‘fail’ to meet this criterion of universality. Ironically, the notion that one’s

particularities of birth, gender or ethnicity have no bearing on one’s (access to)

citizenship, has been turned against people deemed incapable of transcending their

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particularities. To explain the latter: this ideal of universality requires an idea of

sameness – of a viewpoint, interests and disposition shared by all citizens regardless

of their mutual differences. However, the search for the coordinates of this universality

more often than not raises the characteristics of a particular, dominant group of actors

(e.g. white, propertied men) to the status of the universal. Compared to such an ideal,

certain groups (e.g. women or black people) fall short, which in turn justifies their

exclusion from (certain aspects of) the status of citizenship. For instance: women were

excluded from participation in public life because they lacked the “dispassionate

rationality and independence required of good citizens” (Ibid.: 251-258)

As will become clear, I agree with aspects these ideas, but also believe that they only

tell one part of the story (see chapter 2).In their unsparing critique of the oppressive

aspects of modern citizenship, they fail to appreciate its true ambiguity. Both Tully

and, to a lesser extent, Young tend to forget that (the ideal of) modern citizenship does

not only enable exclusion and subjection, but is also a condition of possibility for their

critique and contestation. This is where Étienne Balibar, the central figure in this

thesis, comes in. Balibar, as Slavoj Žižek once wrote, “accepts universality as the

ultimate horizon of politics, but none the less focuses on the inherent split in the

universal itself” (Žižek 2008: 201). Hence, like Tully and Young, Balibar argues that

all historical forms of modern citizenship bring forth their own second-class citizens.

Equally, he argues that they do so not in spite of their aim to realize internal

universalism, but because they pursue this aim. Nonetheless, he also believes that the

horizon of universalism can and must be salvaged.

This raises the following puzzle: if the universalism of modern citizenship is

responsible for the persistence of internal hierarchies, how can it be a condition of

possibility for their critique? Balibar’s position can be best described as a negative

universalism: “[u]niversality,” James Ingram writes, “is best thought negatively, as the

negation of particular exclusions, inequalities, and false universals” (Ingram 2013: 20).

In his particular reading of the French Revolution, Balibar argues that the ideal of

modern democratic citizenship cannot be understood as a positive ideal. Rather, the

ideals of equality and liberty for all (égaliberté) emerges in the struggle against

absolutism and privileges (Balibar 2014a: 47) (see chapter 3.5.). Thus, while we cannot

know the ideal content and institutional arrangement for these ideals, people – often

those who are excluded or dominated – tend to know when their égaliberté is violated.

However, the only way to address a particular violation of the value of égaliberté, is

to change existing institutions or create new ones. To give an historical example: if the

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working class lacks access to education, this can be seen as a violation of égaliberté.

However, it is impossible to address this injustice without creating new institutions.

In other words: we’re obligated to try to give a concrete form to the ideal of égaliberté,

but every attempt to do so creates new forms of exclusion and internal hierarchies.

To translate these ideas into the language of citizenship: every historical form of

modern citizenship will betray its claim to realize universalism, but this failure is no

excuse to relinquish the language of universalism. On the contrary, for Balibar the

failure of every attempt to give institutional form to this ideal of universal citizenship

is merely the flipside of its unconditional character. “[T]he ‘finitude’ that is proper to

the universal itself,” he writes, “is the ‘finitude’ proper to the infinite or unfinished

character of the process of emancipation whose political name, in fact, is ‘democracy’

or ‘citizenship’” (Balibar 2004b: 314). In other words: it is impossible to institute a form

of modern citizenship that completely coincides with an ideal that is so demanding. It

is, however, possible to universalize modern citizenship. This is the process in which

excluded or subjected people contest the falseness of (the claim to) universalism of a

given historical form of citizenship. In doing this, they force modern citizenship to

become less exclusionary, oppressive or hierarchical, thus pushing it to become an

institution that is (ever) more universal.

The motor of this process is what Balibar calls insurgent citizenship. This concept

encompasses all those practices that have pushed modern citizenship to become more

universal. Such practices need to be insurgent because “[t]he dominant never give up

their privileges or their power voluntarily” (Balibar 2014a: 5). The history of modern

citizenship teaches us that resistance against domination is often met with the force of

the law or even the violence of those in power. However reasonable the demands of the

subjected might seem is retrospect (e.g. women’s suffrage), they are often scorned,

branded unreasonable and dangerous, in the context in which they are made.

Therefore, the democratization of citizenship can only get off the ground when these

subjected people exercise their right to politics, which can be understood both as the

right to demand rights or the right of resistance against domination (see 3.5.). For

Balibar there strictly speaking no difference between the rights of the citizen and

human rights. On the one hand, both the expansion of citizenship rights and human

rights depends of an activity of rights-claiming. On the other hand, “[t]o be a citizen, it

is sufficient simply to be a human being, ohne Eigenschaften” (Balibar 2002a: 4).

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ii. Research Question 2: What are the different modalities of this insurgent

citizenship? What is their relation?

Because modern citizenship tends to relapse into a form of standing, the exercise of an

insurgent citizenship is necessary. However, as I noted above, it is not immediately

clear what such an insurgent citizenship looks like. It can, after all, take different

forms.

In the second and third parts of this thesis, I will examine two different modalities

of insurgent citizenship and their mutual relation. These parts build on an analytical

distinction that Balibar makes in his essay ‘Three Concepts of Politics: Emancipation,

Transformation, Civility’. I argue that emancipation and transformation can be seen

as two dominant modalities of insurgent citizenship.1 The specifics of this distinction

are drawn up and explored in chapter 3.6., but I can already give the reader a rough

idea. In the mode of emancipation, insurgent citizenship is “the real struggle to enjoy

rights which have already been declared [which means that] the battle against the

denial of citizenship is indeed the vital heart of the politics of emancipation” (Balibar

2002a: 6). In the mode of transformation, on the other hand, insurgent citizens

“transgress the limits of the recognized – and artificially separated – political sphere

[to] get back to the ‘non-political’ conditions of that institution [of politics]” in order to

pursue “the internal political transformation of those conditions” (Ibid.: 11).

Two examples might illustrate the distinction. The classic example of the politics of

emancipation is the struggle for political rights. Throughout the history of democracy,

people who have been excluded from this aspect of modern citizenship, fought for their

rights to vote and organize. What makes this an instance of the mode of emancipation,

is that these political rights had already been declared. The critical procedure of the

mode of emancipation is to show that the monopolization of these rights by a particular

class stands in direct contradiction to their supposed universalism. In other words:

emancipation occurs at the moment when the part of society that is excluded from (an

aspect of) citizenship “is capable of presenting its own emancipation as the criterion of

general emancipation” (Ibid.: 6).

The 1871 insurrection of the French Commune, recounted above, makes for a good

example of the mode of transformation. The different actors who participated in the

Commune were equally interested in resisting their domination. However, this

resistance did not necessarily take the form of rights-based demands. For example:

1 The third concept of politics, that of civility, is the subject matter of part four.

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according to Kristin Ross, the Women’s Union for the Defence of Paris and Aid to the

Wounded, “the Commune’s largest and most effective organization” (Ross 2015: 27)

enabled and enhanced women’s participation in public life, but “ the Union showed no

trace of interest in parliamentary or rights-based demands” (Ibid.: 28). If the

communards managed to invert “entrenched hierarchies and divisions” (Ibid.: 50) it

was because they politicized and acted upon the ‘non-political’ conditions of politics.

For example: the workplace, which ‘belonged’ to the private sphere, became the basis

for experiments in cooperative and non-market based production. This also translates

into a different attitude towards the values or norms of modern citizenship. As we

indicated in our opening discussion (see A), the communards did not confront those in

power with their own proclaimed ideals. Rather, they freely borrowed from these ideals

while giving them an entirely new direction.

To be clear, this distinction between the modes of emancipation and transformation

is analytical (see chapter 3.7.). This means that we shouldn’t turn it into an ontological

distinction in which real-world instances of insurgent citizenship can be neatly divided

among these categories. The kind of political and social struggles that are illustrative

of the idea of insurgent citizenship, will often show characteristics of both. For

instance: the socio-political struggles that gave rise to the development of social

citizenship exhibited both characteristics of emancipation and transformation. The

demand for social citizenship (universal education, social security, healthcare, etc.) was

often justified on the ground that the equality of civil and political rights could only

become a reality under specific social conditions (e.g. Marshall 1950: 35). Yet, on the

other hand, one should also recognize that the ground for the welfare state was

prepared by mutual aid associations and other forms of workers’ self-organization

(Federici 2019: 88). Balibar himself stresses this aspect of his distinction: he argues

that “[e]ach presupposes the others” which means that there is “no emancipation

without transformation” (and vice versa) (Balibar 2002a: 35). In fact, insofar as both

are modalities of insurgent citizenship, of an insurrection against denials of

equaliberty, they share a common ground which is “an ethics of immanence or self-

emancipation” (Balibar 2014a: 118).

However, these modalities also tend to point to distinct political practices: different

aims, a different attitude towards the boundaries separating the spheres of society,

differing relations to the values of the democratic revolution, etc. (see table 2, p.110).

To put it crudely: whether one chooses to contest one’s domination by formulating a

rights-based demand or by acting on and from within (for instance) economic structures

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leads to different and sometimes conflicting orientations. The example of social

citizenship allows us to clarify the stakes. The struggle for social rights allowed

workers to force the state to incorporate their (social) demands. But on the other hand,

it incorporated the workers into the state, strengthened the legitimacy of the nation-

state thus dealing a blow to internationalist ambitions, and deprived workers of the

kinds of autonomy that they had acquired in the associations they built at a remove

from the state.

Hence, Balibar writes, “there is also a clear discontinuity or persistent tension

between the two concepts of politics” (Ibid.: 118). This entails that “one should always

‘problematize’ how [these concepts] become articulated in different conjunctures”

(Balibar 2015a: xii). Regardless of the common ground that they share, we should thus

insist “on their mutual irreducibility and on the permanent tension between the two”

(Ingram 2015: 222).

My own research builds on Balibar’s idea that we can distinguish two modalities of

insurgent citizenship among which a permanent tension exists. Parts 2 and 3 of this

thesis will be dedicated to the examination of these tensions. Because it is not always

clear how exactly we should understand these tensions, I borrow and repurpose the

concept of an ‘antinomy of progress’. This term refers to those figures of citizenship that

represent “democratic progress, even with certain limits, which for their part

paradoxically prohibit further progression” (Balibar 2014a: 3). Balibar’s own example

of such a figure of citizenship is that of national-social citizenship. What makes it an

antinomy of progress is that the welfare state undeniably constitutes a form of socio-

political progress. However, at the same time it was also a compromise between the

working class and capital, between the former’s demand for the generalization of social

rights and the latter’s imperative that the accumulation of capital would be ensured,

within the boundaries of the nation state (Ibid.: 19). It is as this compromise, that social

citizenship became an obstacle to progress: to ambitious, internationalist projects for

a far-reaching reorganization of social and political life.

I suggest that we can employ this idea of an antinomy of progress to study the

tension and conflicts between the modes of emancipation and transformation. In

particular, I will focus on the ways in which the desire and struggle for emancipation

might come to stand in the way of the politics of transformation. Like we noted, the

central critical procedure in the mode of emancipation is to contest the established

order in the name of its own professed ideals. The limit to this procedure is that this

kind of “protest can […] turn into legitimation since, against the injustice of the

10

established order, [it] appeals not to something heterogeneous to that order, but to

identical principles” (Balibar 2002a: 7; also 2016a: 57).

In choosing to focus on this critique, I bring Balibar’s ideas in contact with a line of

argument that Wendy Brown advances in her States of Injury (Brown 1995). Here,

Brown argues that those who refuse to be discriminated, excluded or subjected on the

basis of their identity, tend to pursue specific ideas of freedom “without transforming

the organization of the activity through which suffering is produced and without

addressing the subject constitution that domination effects” (Ibid.: 7). The problem, she

argues, is that it is dangerous to assume that the political ideals that we desire and

aim for, are unaffected or not formed by their link to “historical configurations of social

powers and institutions” (Ibid.: 12). In the context of our argument, I believe this

entails that we should always ask what we want or expect from historically specific

ideals of modern citizenship. When workers or women challenge their discrimination,

their exclusion from an aspect of citizenship, do they in fact transform those forces that

produce class- or gender-based domination? These actions might mitigate domination,

I argue, but ultimately will not undo them.

Before we can move on, a caveat: I do not suggest that Balibar is only interested in

conflicts between emancipation and transformation, or the way in which the pursuit of

the former can obstruct the latter. These conflicts and tensions can in principle arise

within one mode (e.g. conflicts between rights) (e.g. Balibar 2013c: 21-22); and the

project of transformation can also obstruct the pursuit of emancipation in turn. This

admission might generate the following critical question: why is the obstruction of

transformation such an urgent matter in the first place?

To answer this question, I would start by situating Balibar in the broader tradition

of radical democratic theory. To start with a broad definition: this is, Samuel Chambers

writes, a “tradition in political thought that aligns a Marxist critique of capitalism with

a republican emphasis on participation” (Chambers 2004: 191).2 To this I would add to

three modifications. First, capitalism is not the only structure of domination up for

criticism. Often, critique is extended to racist or patriarchal structures of domination,

and often their mutual relations. Second, I would argue that the republican element in

this tradition does not only concern the question of participation. For some of its

2 Chambers contrasts this broader definition with the more specific one that Ernesto Laclau and Chantal

Mouffe introduced (Chambers 2004: 191-192). I prefer the broader definition, as it allows us to connect

Balibar to a loose family of thinkers that share similar concerns. Examples of the latter are Sheldon Wolin,

Wendy Brown, Nancy Fraser in the US; Miguel Abensour and Jacques Rancière in France; and perhaps

even thinkers that are not always immediately categorized as radical democrats such as Axel Honneth in

Germany (at least in his earlier writings) and Toni Negri in Italy (at least in his later writings).

11

representatives, it also includes the broader ideal of the absence of domination. Third,

the clearest deviation from earlier emancipatory traditions (Marxism, anti-colonialism,

radical feminism) is that most radical democrats, while holding onto the ideal of

emancipation, do not believe that humanity will ever be fully reconciled with itself.

As these points show, the radical democratic tradition inherited elements of the

Marxist tradition: it combines the ideal of emancipation with a critique of structures

of domination. However, as James Ingram notes, it also “emerges out of the critique

and rejection of Marxism – its ‘determinism’, its ‘economism’, and […] its ‘anti-

politicism’” (Ingram 2015: 211). Nevertheless, as Martin Deleixhe notes, this aspect of

radical democracy can take different forms. In some cases, radical democrats end up

rejecting most tenets of Marx’s thought (e.g. the later work of Chantal Mouffe). In other

cases, his ideas are not so much rejected, but attempts are made to indicate

shortcomings, at times by returning to his writings (e.g. the work of Miguel Abensour)

(Deleixhe 2019).

Balibar could be included in the latter category. In the words of Igram: he “arrives

at radical democracy not against Marxism, as an alternative to or replacement for it,

but rather through Marxism, as its logical successor or fulfilment” (Ingram 2015: 211).

This is where we return to the importance of the mode of transformation. I argue that

it is in this idea of transformation that Balibar preserves some of the central insights

of the Marxist tradition. First, it preserves elements of Marx’s critique of the autonomy

politics. This spills over into a complex reckoning with the relations between the

components of (democratic) politics (state, law, nation, citizenship, etc.) and their non-

political conditions.

Second, I will argue that it also salvages another aspect of this tradition: the idea

that there are forms of emancipation that are not completely assimilable to the idea of

a ‘fulfilment’ of the values and institutions of liberal democracy. I want to insist on this

last point. Recently, a growing literature has arisen that uncovers the limits to liberal-

democratic ideals of emancipation, democracy, and citizenship. In addition, it shows

how figures like Karl Marx (Medearis 2015; Roberts 2017; Leipold 2020), W.E.B. Du

Bois (Olson 2004) or Frantz Fanon (Gordon 2014; Coulthard 2014; Ng 2017) developed

critiques of these ideals, transforming them in the process. Given the value of these

perspectives, I believe that we should get a better picture of the conflicts between such

transformative politics and the politics of emancipation.

12

iii. Research Question 3: Is insurgent citizenship necessarily non-violent?

The last research question moves from the question of modalities to that of means.

According to Balibar, there is “a problematic of the ‘tragic’ element from which […] a

politics of emancipation and social transformation cannot be isolated” (m.e.) (Balibar

2015a: xi).3 This tragic element consists in the impossibility to untangle the exercise of

insurgent citizenship, from the possibility of (extreme) violence. To be more precise:

the tragic part is that while the exercise of insurgent citizenship is needed in the sense

that the perpetuation of structures of domination is intolerable, it also risks producing

forms of (extreme) violence that it cannot control.

When it comes to the question of violent resistance under democratic conditions,

Balibar stands at some remove from the usual positions in the politico-theoretical

debate. Often, political theorists reject the use of violence in democratic politics. For

instance, non-coercion is a democratic ideal for deliberative democrats, which means

that they (tend to) condemn citizens’ use of coercive means to realize political goals

(Medearis 2015: 28-29, 39-44). Equally influential is Hannah Arendt’s insistence that

power and political action, on the one hand, and violence, on the other hand, are two

very different things (Arendt 1970: 35-56). Under the influence of Arendt, theorists like

James Tully have constructed a critique of (political) violence and advocate non-violent

practices of resistance (Tully 2019).

Balibar’s position is closer to that of radical and agonistic democrat Chantal Mouffe.

This stance is not a mirror-image of the one above: a defence of democratic violence as

opposed to its critique. It shifts the coordinates of the debate: the proper question is

how to deal with the violence that is an ineliminable element of (democratic) politics

(e.g. Balibar 2018b: 19; Mouffe 1993: 146). This position does not entail that non-violent

strategies of conflict or resistance are untenable; they are often preferable for both

moral and strategic reasons (Balibar 208b: 32). The object of Balibar’s critique is the

stance of nonviolence understood as “the act of turning away, counting oneself out”

(2015a: 24). This is nonviolence taken as a moralistic position that abstracts from and

subtracts itself from a world where violence, power and domination are ever present.

I argue (in chapter 8) that regardless of similarities between their positions, Mouffe

ultimately shies away from the full implications of her position. She acknowledges the

link between democratic politics and violence but oscillates between a condemnation

of and silence on the question of democratizing violence. In turn, I assert that Balibar,

3 The abbreviation (m.e.) stands for ‘my emphasis’.

13

notwithstanding his stated preference for nonviolent strategies, leaves room for violent

forms of insurgent citizenship. For oppressed groups, he writes, violence can be a

“limit-form (forme-limite) of expression” (Balibar 2018b: 63). This means that in certain

situations there is no other option than to take recourse to “anti-institutional violence

that aims to ‘break down the gates’ of the space of citizenship” (Balibar 2015b: 66).

This idea will be developed more concretely in an examination of the riot (in chapter

9). The riot is a recurring phenomenon in democratic societies. Rather than denouncing

it, I believe we should try to understand not only why they take place but also ask

ourselves whether they might be a valid form of insurgent citizenship. As will become

clear in the last chapter, I believe that in certain circumstances, we can say that they

are.

C. Overview of the Chapters

Part 1 is devoted to the question of the ambiguity of modern citizenship. In chapter

1, a literature study, I construct a short prehistory of modern citizenship in order to

show what is ‘modern’ about it. In a second step, I examine the three central elements

of modern citizenship: rights, community and identity, and political participation and

civility. In chapter 2, I then argue through historical and conceptual analysis that

emancipation and domination are intertwined in the institution of modern citizenship.

The main focus is not so much external exclusion (the distinction between national

citizens and non-citizens) but internal hierarchy (the distinction between full citizens

and second-class citizens). Through different historical analyses, I show that modern

citizenship has always created its own second-class citizens. Through an engagement

with James Tully and Iris Marion Young’s critiques of modern citizenship, is show why

this is the case. In the conclusion, I argue that Tully and Young’s critiques nonetheless

fail to capture the emancipatory aspect of modern citizenship.

In response to these failings, I move to Balibar’s theory of citizenship in chapter 3.

The chapter reconstructs his theory of the inherent ambiguity of modern citizenship

and is arguably the centrepiece of this thesis. It starts with the proposition in Balibar’s

essay Citoyen Sujet that the (modern) citizen comes after the feudal subject but

remains a subjected being. The citizen is emancipated from his feudal servitude is in

turn subjected to specifically modern forms of domination. Even more so, I assert that

the institution of modern citizenship does not counteract these modern forms of

domination but helps constitute them. However, Balibar also maintains that the ideal

14

of modern citizenship (which he calls egaliberté) will always exist in excess of the

institutions of citizenship. Therefore, it allows for a permanent return to forms of

resistance against domination. These practices fall under the concept of insurgent

citizenship.

In parts 2 and 3, I build on a distinction that is introduced in chapter 3. Near the

end of this chapter, I show that insurgent citizenship can take on different modalities:

those of emancipation and transformation. In parts 2 and 3, I will focus on the conflicts

between these modalities. Part 2, which includes chapter 4 and 5, will focus on the

question of rights struggles. I argue in chapter 4 that the struggle for subjective rights

can sometimes form an obstacle to transformative politics because the form of these

rights can deform the transformative politics at its basis. In chapter 5, I examine how

one particular transformative project, that of the politics of the common, navigates its

entanglements with the law.

Part three, which includes chapter 6 and 7, will focus on the question of the

struggle for recognition. In chapter 6, I critically examine the relation between the

desire and struggle for recognition and resistance against domination in the work of

Axel Honneth. My argument is that such a struggle can stabilize structures of

domination and does so in part by displacing transformative politics. Chapter 7

continues with the examination of this topic through an engagement with Frantz

Fanon’s arguments against the struggle for recognition. However, I will also propose

an alternative to the politics of recognition. This alternative, which I elabourate

through a comparison between Fanon and Nancy Fraser’s writings on anti-racism, is

the struggle for abolition. Rather than seeking recognition for the identity of the

victims of racism, I argue that they should struggle for the abolition of the political,

social and economic institutions that maintain hierarchies between races. In other

words: the goal of an anti-racist politics should not be the recognition of misrecognized

‘races’ but the abolition of racist domination and therefore the institution and idea of

‘race’ itself.

In part 4, the focus of this thesis moves to the question of violence. In chapter 8, I

argue that the theory of radical democratic citizenship is built on a tension between a

radical, conflictual element and a democratic element. As radical democrats, these

philosophers point to the intimate relation between democracy and the struggle

against domination. But as radical democrats they also propose different methods that

prevent conflict from breaking up the common ground that makes democratic conflict

possible. I look at two philosophers’ way of dealing with this tension: Chantal Mouffe

15

and Étienne Balibar. My claim is that the former ends up overemphasizing the danger

of violence in her later democratic works and is therefore unable to account for more

intense, violent forms of democratic resistance (such as riots). In the work of Balibar,

however, we find a way of dealing with this tension.

Chapter 9 constitutes an addition and response to the former one. In chapter 8, we

argue that Chantal Mouffe leaves no place for the riot within her theory of agonistic

democracy. However, this does not answer the question of why she should do so in the

first place. In this chapter, I set out to provide such an answer. First, I work with an

existing normative literature on riots that allows us to argue that rioting can be a

justified act within certain circumstances. Second, I will also indicate a gap in this

literature: it is assumed that riots are violent but there is little analysis of the different

types of violence used by rioters. Therefore, I will analyse the different forms of violence

involved in these riots.

17

Part One: On the Ambiguity of Modern Citizenship

19

1. On Modern Citizenship

1.1. The Road to Modern Citizenship

In order to come to understand the elements of modern citizenship it pays to take a

brief detour through the history of citizenship. As J.G.A. Pocock famously argued, our

modern formulations of citizenship still owe a great deal to the classical ideal(s) of

citizenship (Pocock 1992). Our discussions concerning its precise content still oscillate

between the poles of the Athenian ‘political’ definition and the (Imperial) Roman ‘legal’

one.

One of the very first definitions of citizenship can be found in Aristotle’s Politics.

The citizen is “someone who is entitled to share in deliberative or judicial office”

(Politics, III.1., 1275b18) and the good citizen, he further specifies, “must have the

knowledge and ability both to be ruled and to rule” (Politics, III.4, 1277b14-15). This

citizen is a political being (zoon politikon) capable of (a) deliberating on the common

good of the community he belongs to and (b) making decisions about common concerns

and judgments in accordance with the laws as an equal to other citizens. This notion

would become one of the dominant patterns for thinking about citizenship. It would

also establish a lasting connection between citizenship and democracy: citizens

together form a democratic polity through the shared activity of ruling and being ruled.

In this process they also discover that political participation is a good in itself (Heater

2004: 24-29).

However, the Athenian form of civic equality, as is well-known, was a highly

exclusive one. Equality was a status granted only to a small subset of human beings.

The citizen was “a male of known genealogy, a patriarch, a warrior, and the master of

the labour of others (normally slaves)” (Pocock 1992: 69). The equality of citizens in the

public realm depended on the domination of others (women, slaves, children) in the

private realm. This exclusivity can also be understood in a geographical sense: in order

for citizens to be able to rule and be ruled in turn, the polis had to be of a geographically

modest size. Ideally, citizens knew each other so that a form of civic friendship –

ensuring cooperation and goodwill – could develop (Heater 2004: 18-19).

In contrast, the (Imperial) Roman conception of citizenship, which shifted its

definition from a political one to a legal one, was more elastic, universalizing and

potentially inclusive (Cohen 1999: 249). Juridical status was a central component of

this Roman citizenship. Roman citizens “took these rights with them wherever they

20

went within the empire” (Cooper 2018: 34). As the scale of political organization

changed and as more and more populations were included in the Roman empire, the

understanding of the institutions of citizenship changed as well. That is, as Rome

granted citizenship to all subjects of the empire, citizenship lost some of its importance

and exclusivity (Walzer 1989: 214). In this context a citizen “was more significantly

someone protected by the law than someone who made and executed the law” (215).

Hence, by introducing a less demanding notion of membership – i.e., as denoting the

attachment to a community of shared law – it became easier to extend citizenship to

previously excluded people (Pocock 1992: 71-75). However, the extension of the status

of citizenship also came at a cost: namely, its depoliticization. When the status of

citizenship came to stand for a legal identity as opposed to a political one, the citizen

came to be equated with the subject. The citizen was no longer an active political actor

but a passive subject of the law and those enforcing it (Pocock 1992: 74; Bellamy 2008:

40). Besides, we should also be wary of overestimating the inclusiveness of this Roman

citizenship. On the one hand, the legal status of citizenship was a differentiated one –

rights were “available or unavailable to many kinds of person for many kinds of reason”

(Pocock 1992: 72; Cooper 2018: 35-36). On the other hand, we should keep in mind that

the same laws that protected some person’s property and freedom to act also allowed

for the definition of others as property.

According to Pocock, we can represent the history of the concept of citizenship in

western political thought as an unfinished dialogue between these two conceptions. As

he himself admits, this narrative involves a certain degree of simplification (Pocock

1992: 77).4 Nonetheless, there is also more than a grain of truth to Pococks central idea.

It is, for one, undeniable that political thinkers kept positioning themselves relative to

these classical ideals, translating them in order to fit modern conditions. Modern

political thinkers kept coming back to these two ideals: a political one which was

exclusivist but within these limits allowed for equal participation and a legal one which

was universalizable but created a passive citizenry.

The two dominant ideologies of modern citizenship positioned themselves

somewhere in between these two poles: whereas the liberal ideologists would adopt the

4 It is, for instance, not true that all Roman concepts of citizenship were apolitical. The Roman Republic

instituted a form of political citizenship that was revered by Niccolò Machiavelli who saw in its ability to

allow for and regulate class conflict the true mark of a political society. Another remarkable gap in Pocock’s

essay is that it purports to sketch the historical evolution of the ideal of citizenship in the Western world,

but largely skips the Middle Ages. This choice can be partly justified as the institution and concept of

citizenship was, as Rogers Smith remarks, eclipsed in this period. It faded into the patchwork of feudal

and religious statuses of medieval Europe. However, it did survive in the status of Burgherdom that

included a range of economic and political powers (Smith 2002: 107; also Riesenberg 1992: 87-202).

21

Roman formula of the legal protection of individual liberties, republican ideologues

endorsed the Greek formula of civic self-rule. However, neither of the two options were

entirely satisfactory in themselves since they tended to reproduce the problems

inherent in the antecedent models. Confronted with this dilemma, the Atlantic

revolutions tried to resolve it by affirming at one and the same time the Rights of Man

and the Rights of the Citizen – the protection of individual liberties and an active

citizenship (Benhabib 2005: 673; Leydet 2006; Bellamy 2008: 42-44). They did not,

however, succeed in dissolving the tension between the two components (Cohen 1999:

250; Mouffe 2005: 1-16, 36-59).

At the same time, the transition to modern citizenship involved as much disruption

as continuity. This break was prepared by the early modern equation of the citizen and

the subject. “[W]hat came to determine citizenship,” Peter Riesenberg writes, “was not

the sum of particular legal capabilities inhering in the individual [as was the case for

the burgher], but the existence of a special personal relationship between the

individual and his monarch” (Riesenberg 1992: 208; Koessler 1946: 60-61; Shklar 1991:

33).5 While medieval citizenship was a rare mark of privilege, the early modern status

of the citizen-subject was extended to all of the male inhabitants of a territory. This

extension created a form of unity: “subject-citizens,” Judith Shklar argues, “are in one

respect alike and equal: all are subjects to a sovereign” (Shklar 1991: 32). In an abstract

sense, then, the citizen-subject prefigured the modern citizen’s individual subjection to

a concentrated and unified authority (Riesenberg 1992: 208-209; Gosewinkel 2001: 28).

Nonetheless, both French and American revolutionaries tore the two terms – citizen

and subject – apart and delegitimized the latter one. The subject was seen as a remnant

of the feudal age: it was associated with inferiority, subjection and subordination, and

therefore incompatible with the reciprocity inherent to modern citizenship (Koessler

1946: 58-61; Gosewinkel 2001: 23-30). Relatedly and perhaps more important, these

modern revolutions also transformed the ideal of political universalism. This political

universalism is primarily internal: as Linda Bosniak writes, it implies that the main

values of modern citizenship – liberty and equality – are meant to be extended to

everybody within the polity (Bosniak 2017: 318). To put it differently, the ideal of

modern citizenship is universalist in the sense that it strives to “turn political

institutions into instruments for universalizing social relationships, a means of

5 The notion of the ‘burgher’ refers to a specific type of medieval citizenship: a burgher was someone who,

depending on his status, enjoyed certain individual privileges in his city.

22

removing barriers between citizens and of toppling forms of domination that subjugate

them” (Balibar 2015b: 7).

This differentiates the modern from a pre-modern concept of citizenship. The pre-

modern concept of citizenship, Balibar explains, subordinates the concept of the citizen

to anthropological differences. Access to the status of citizenship depends on whether

you are a free man or a slave, man or woman, sovereign or subject, etcetera. In the

modern epoch, on the other hand, “the concepts of man and citizen are virtually

identified, opening the right to politics to all humans” (Balibar 1994a: 59). Modern

citizenship, hence, does not only reintroduce the norm of reciprocity but also professes

to extend citizenship to all humans. It is this modern concept of citizenship that will

be the topic of this study.

1.2. The Elements of Modern Citizenship

The notion of modern citizenship is, like all political concepts of such importance,

notoriously difficult to pin down. This is so for a few different reasons: first, the

different modern political ideologies have all tried to define the concept in ways that

suited them best. Every ideology plays down certain aspects of modern citizenship and

foregrounds others in order to put its stamp on one of the central terms of modern

political discourse. Liberalism stresses citizenship’s existence as a status protecting

the liberty of moderns and foregrounds civic rights; republicanism emphasizes the

importance of public virtues and political participation, positing citizenship as a public

identity and a means of orientation in the public sphere; communitarians place the

citizen in a substantial community noting the importance of citizen identity; social

democrats underline the necessity of social rights, arguing that the exercise of civic

and political rights depends on a guaranteed standard of living.

Another reason for modern citizenship’s equivocality is that it does not only exist as

an abstract ideal but knows many concrete existences. As comparative historical

overviews of modern citizenship show, the trajectories of a single ideal can diverge in

different national contexts (Gosewinkel 2001). To give an example: the Brazilian

constitutions of 1824 and 1891 were modelled after the 1789 French Declaration,

sometimes copying articles – like the one on citizen rights – verbatim. However, they

did so selectively, understanding that “the French constitution had entangled a liberal

understanding of equality with a democratic one they wanted to avoid” (Holston 2008:

29). Abstract citizenship ideals find themselves confronted with particular socio-

23

political realities, and relations of power that have a determinate impact on the

concrete form that they will take (Mann 1987; Turner 1990).

Finally, modern citizenship is hard to pin down because it is a historical ideal and

institution. Since its initial formulations at the end of the eighteenth century, it has

gone through a few decisive transformations and has been adapted to changing

circumstances. Property qualifications in electoral laws have been removed in response

to the growing importance and organization of the labour force, and new rights have

been claimed by 20th century social movements. Even nationality has been partly

relativized by the construction of a transnational citizenship in the European union.

In short, we have good reasons to believe that the modern citizenship does not exist.

Instead we have different modern citizenships. However, as Michael Lister argues,

while “citizenship is not a simple, one-size-fits-all category,” we could say that it is “a

contingent set of accommodations of the underlying principle of equality of status”

(Lister 2005: 474). This entails that citizenship “should not be seen as a unitary

concept, but as a unified one” (Ibid.). In other words, the fact that modern citizenship

has many faces, does not necessarily mean that we cannot formulate the principle of

modern citizenship and its distinct components. We simply need to keep in mind that

when we use the concept of ‘modern citizenship’ this involves a high degree of

idealization and abstraction. It involves idealization because we foreground norms that

are not always perfectly realized in political reality and abstraction because the

general characteristics of modern citizenship are accentuated at the expense of the

singularity of the different existent citizenships.

In the literature on modern citizenship there is a general agreement that it can be

divided in at least three distinctive components: the element of legal status and the

rights; the component of belonging and identity; and a component of participation and

civic virtue (Walzer 1989; Leca 1992; Cohen 1999; Bosniak 2000: 455; Leydet 2006;

Bellamy 2004; Bellamy 2008; Tully 2008b: 249-256). The citizen is someone who has

certain rights; is a member of a political community which gives her or him an identity;

and can and is (sometimes) expected to exercise civic virtue and participate in the

practice of decision-making for the political body he or she belongs to.

As I noted above, it is often assumed that political traditions focus on one of these

elements. However, as Richard Bellamy argues, “even if these models give precedence

to one of these components, each of them includes aspects of all three” (Bellamy 2004:

7; also Honohan 2017). For example: liberal conceptions of citizenship often include

some notion of political participation; communitarian conceptions of citizenship include

24

certain rights; and republican conceptions of citizenship often include the idea that

freedom is realized within a self-governing political community.

In the following section I will give an overview of these three elements. Out of

necessity, I will paint with a broad brush. The goal here is not to advocate a strong

position on what modern citizenship is or should be. My main aim is to give an overview

of what are generally taken to be the main elements of modern citizenship, while also

highlighting some of the more important debates concerning these elements.

1.3. Modern Citizenship as Right

Like most accounts of rights-based citizenship do, I propose to start with the

sociologist T.H. Marshall’s Citizenship and Social Class, a founding document of

citizenship studies if there ever was one. In this work, based on two 1949 lectures,

Marshall develops a historical account of modern citizenship as developing through the

medium of rights. Modern British citizenship, he argues, can be divided into three

elements – civil, political and social rights – that were added to the status of citizenship

in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century respectively (Marshall 1950: 10,

14). The second important claim that Marshall makes, is that this development is

driven by the tension between the ideal of “basic equality” (Ibid.: 9) that inheres in

modern citizenship and the realities of class inequality under modern capitalism. In

feudal society there was no such thing as “a principle of equality to set against the

principle of the inequality of classes” (Ibid.: 12). However, once human equality is

recognized, certain inequalities (though not all) are no longer deemed acceptable (Ibid.:

8).

Marshall’s story starts with the British ‘long’ eighteenth century, a formative period

for civil rights that stretches from the late-seventeenth century Habeas Corpus Act

(1679) and Toleration Act (1688) to the early-nineteenth century Roman Catholic Relief

Act (1829) (Ibid.: 14-15). The first rights that characterize modern citizenship are civil

rights: “liberty of the person, freedom of speech, thought and faith, the right to own

property and to conclude valid contracts, and the right to justice” (Ibid.: 10). Gradually

these rights added up to a status that guaranteed the individual freedom of all male

members of the community. This was the moment, Marshall writes, “[w]hen freedom

became universal [and] citizenship grew from a local into a national institution” (Ibid.:

18).

25

Subsequently, in the nineteenth century, a political component was added to the

status of modern citizenship. However, as Marshall notes, it is not quite accurate to

speak of the creation of new political rights. After all, some already possessed these

rights “to participate in the exercise of power, as a member of a body invested with

political authority or as an elector of the members of such a body” (Ibid.:11). Hence,

while the nineteenth century was a formative period for political rights, this was

because “old rights” were granted “to new sections of the population” (Ibid.: 19). Again,

this was part of a slow process in which the barriers to the political franchise – both

economic and gender-based – were gradually removed through successive Reform Acts.

The true focus of Marshall’s theory, however, is the formation of social rights and

social citizenship in the twentieth century. His work on social citizenship, is the reason

why he is widely regarded as one of the foremost theorists of the welfare state (e.g.

Holmwood 2000; Moyn 2018: 41-43). Social rights were not entirely new entities. They

had already existed in the form of benefits received from membership in local

communities which were eventually codified in the sixteenth-century Poor Laws

alongside a system of wage regulation. However, in the eighteenth century these pre-

modern forms of social rights petered away.

To begin with, the system of wage regulation went under in a clash with the new

civil rights because they conflicted with the “individualist principle of the free contract

of employment” (Marshall 1950: 21-22, cit. 22). The system of Poor Law, in turn, was

gradually hollowed out. As Marshall writes, “the Poor Law was the last remains of a

system which tried to adjust real income to the social needs and status of the citizen

and not solely to the market value of his labour” (Ibid.: 23). By the beginning of the

nineteenth century the Poor Law was no longer allowed to exercise this function and

was prohibited from interfering with free market forces. All that remained, were

minimal social rights for the paupers, the old and the sick. As a result, Marshall

remarks, the Poor Law lost all ties to the status of citizenship: its claimants in effect

ceased to be citizens – possessors of civil and political rights – once they received help

(Ibid.: 24).

However, this lack of a social component to modern citizenship would be remedied

in the twentieth century. This can be explained by focussing on the conflict between

citizenship as a status that safeguards the equality of all full members of a community,

and the inequalities produced by social class. The nature of this conflict, however,

needs more explaining. The conflict between modern citizenship and the feudal notion

of estate is self-evident. There is a clear conflict between the value of equality and the

26

existence of a legally codified status-hierarchy. However, after the collapse of feudal

society, class came in its stead. Class, Marshal writes, is “not so much an institution

in its own rights as a by-product of other institutions” (Ibid.: 31). Class inequalities

were a by-product, that is, of the institutions central to the capitalist social formation.

Initially, citizenship was not in conflict with these class inequalities. Since the first

form of modern citizenship was at its core “composed of civil rights [and] civil rights

were indispensable to a competitive market economy”, we could even say that it was

“necessary to the maintenance of that particular form of inequality” (Ibid.: 33; also

Wood 2016 [1995]: 208-213).

Nonetheless, the relation between modern citizenship and capitalism was not free

of friction. First of all, it became clear that formal equality of civil rights did not in

itself produce the conditions under which these rights could be exercised. The “right to

freedom of speech,” Marshall writes, “has little real substance if, from lack of education,

you have nothing to say that is worth saying, and no means of making yourself heard

if you say it” (Ibid.: 35). Second, economic growth also allowed for “social integration to

spread from the sphere of sentiment and patriotism into that of material enjoyment”

(Ibid.: 47). In other words: according to Marshall, over time socio-economic inequality

diminished and rather than tempering the demand for social rights, it strengthened it.

Hence, towards the end of the nineteenth century, Marshall suggests, we see a

movement towards the incorporation of social rights in the status of citizenship. This

creates “a universal right to real income which is not proportionate to the market value

of the claimant” (Ibid.).

What is important about this transformation is that social rights are no longer seen

as standing outside the status of citizenship – a way of dealing with the ‘disturbances’

caused by an underclass excluded from all social and political life. From this point on,

social rights – social insurance, pensions, health care and the rights to education – are

seen as an integral part of modern citizenship. Social citizenship, that is, is seen as a

material condition for the realization of citizenship’s egalitarian principle (Ibid.: 46-

47).

Marshall’s historical reconstruction of the institution of modern citizenship was and

still is very influential. Nonetheless, it has also been subjected to a host of criticisms.

Some of these fail to hit their mark: for instance, some have taken him to task for his

supposed optimism, but these criticisms are largely unconvincing as Marshall was well

aware of the fragility of these rights and the possibility of their dismantling (Turner

1990: 192-193). Another common criticism of Marshall’s theory is that it limits modern

27

citizenship to a tripartite bundle of rights that was surpassed by the introduction of

minority rights, sexual rights and ecological rights. However, this criticism seems to

affirm rather than undermine the central intuition of his theory: viz. that citizenship’s

egalitarian principle can be enriched through the introduction of new rights (Bellamy

2008: 50).

Even so, other criticisms are more substantial. The most important critique of

Marshall – which I will further develop in section 3 – is that he is blind to the deep

ambiguity of modern citizenship. As argued above, he recognizes that modern

citizenship was initially implicated in the forms of exclusion and domination produced

by an eighteenth-century competitive liberal capitalism. However, he still

underestimates the deep implication of modern citizenship in forms of exclusion,

oppression and domination. As Nancy Fraser and Linda Gordon argue, Marshall

assumes all too easily that exclusion and domination are only incidentally related to

modern citizenship and are eventually overcome through the further development of

political and social citizenship. By focusing on the gradual emancipation of white

working men, he also fails to see how this emancipation was constitutively linked to

the exclusion, exploitation and domination of women and people of colour (Fraser and

Gordon 1994: 93, 97). Relatedly, he fails to establish the connection between the

possibility of the British welfare state and the existence of the British empire – between

British social citizenship and the domination and oppression of non-white subjects of

the British Commonwealth (Isin 2015: 274; Sadiq 2017: 180-183; Moyn 2018: 43;

Cooper 2018: 58-62, 96-104). These omissions are further accentuated by the fact that

his essay makes no reference to the notion of second-class citizens (Heater 1999: 20;

Mezzadra and Neilson 2013: 249-250).

A second criticism points out that the idea of modern citizenship as a status made

up of civil, political and social rights is not universal but a more local phenomenon

(Clarke, Coll, Dagnino and Neveu 2014: 35-36). For instance, American citizenship

never included a strong notion of social rights. The civil rights aspect of citizenship

remained dominant while social rights never stopped being identified with charity

(Fraser and Gordon 1994: 101-105). American social citizenship, hence, is strongly

contractualized: a matter of “quid pro quo market exchange” rather than an

unconditional right to real income (Somer 2008: 2). Michael Mann, in turn, takes

exception to the arrangement of Marshall’s historical narrative: the manner in which

political rights developed out of civil rights, and social rights out of civil and political

ones, he argues, might be specific to Great Britain. There are many different ways in

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which citizenship rights can be instituted and all of them depend on – what Mann calls

– ruling class strategies (Mann 1987). To give an example: in many countries social

rights were granted before political rights. In fact, political elites would sometimes offer

social rights precisely to undermine the demand for the right to political participation

(Bellamy 2008: 49). Again, Marshall’s thesis of a gradual development of modern

citizenship is put into perspective.

Finally, it could be said that Marshall’s analysis loses some of its relevance because

citizenship is less and less of a purely national status. Globalization, Jean Cohen

argues, has led to a geographical disaggregation and re-institutionalization of the

bundle of citizenship rights. For instance, civil rights are now to a certain extent

defended by “international agreements, supranational courts [and] transnational

institutions” (Cohen 1999: 259; Linklater 1996; Bosniak 2000: 463-470; Seubert 2014).

Moreover, in the European Union citizens are able to exercise political rights not only

on the national level but also the transnational one. In other words, our rights are no

longer exclusively secured by the institutions of the nation state.

These critiques do not entirely resist a conditional defence of the Marshallian

concept of modern citizenship as legal status. As Derek Heater argues, some of his

claims are still clarifying in their simplicity, as with his claim that the ideal of modern

citizenship is a bundle of three rights and that social rights are a condition of possibility

for the exercise of the other two (Heater 1999: 18; also Lister 2005). It remains an

accurate description of the Western- and Northern-European ideal and institution of

modern citizenship. Some arrangement of these rights – perhaps supplemented with

minority rights – is still seen as an essential part of modern citizenship (Tully 2008b:

249-256).

As Axel Honneth argues, it also provides a historical reconstruction of “the manner

in which the successive expansion of basic individual rights remained linked to the

normative principle that was there from the start as its guiding idea” (Honneth 1995a:

117). In other words: Marshall shows how the status of modern citizenship – initially

a bourgeois institution – is gradually enriched as disadvantaged groups push for the

extension and material realization of an egalitarian principle already present at its

origin (Ibid.: 117-118). Hence, as Richard Bellamy argues, most critiques of the

specifics of Marshall’s narrative often end up reaffirming its main thrust: modern

citizenship evolves as new rights are added to the status of citizenship in response to

its shortcomings (Bellamy 2008: 50; also Sassen 2006: 277).

29

1.4. Modern Citizenship as Community and Identity

The legal aspect of modern citizenship is essential, but few would claim that it is

exclusively a legal status. It also includes a sense of belonging to a community and a

form of identity. Even the liberal tradition, which is sometimes taken to task for

overemphasizing the legal aspect of citizenship (e.g. Mouffe 1993: 62), generally

includes some notion of modern citizenship as community and belonging (Kymlicka

and Norman 1994: 369; Bellamy 2004: 7-8). I would argue that this aspect can be

divided into three sub-elements: (a) social closure; (b) a shared (political) culture; and

(c) the political transcendence of particularity and difference.

“The state,” Rogers Brubaker writes, “claims to be the state of, and for, a particular,

bounded citizenry [which] is usually conceived of as a nation – as something more

cohesive than a mere aggregate of persons who happen legally to belong to the state”

(Brubaker 2009: 21). From this point of view, modern citizenship is “both an

instrument and an object of closure” (Ibid.: 23; also Tilly 1995: 10; Balibar 2002aa: 108).

Brubaker clarifies this point using Max Weber’s analysis of open and closed social

relationships. Whereas open social relationships allow participation to those who

might wish to do so, closed ones can deny it for a variety of reasons (such as tradition,

material interest, value-rational reasons, etc.) (Weber 1978: 43-46). Hence, as a social

relation, the community of citizens is unlike, for instance, the market: it is not open to

all comers and excludes outsiders (in casu non-citizens) or restricts their participation.

This closure can occur both on the threshold of interaction (e.g., by preventing non-

citizens from entering the territory) and inside interaction (e.g., by preventing non-

citizens from remaining on the territory for too long, from voting or enjoying certain

rights) (Brubaker 2009: 23-24).

The closed aspect of citizenship has regularly been criticized on normative grounds

(Carens 1987) and on the ground that the main institution of closure, the border, is

more heterogeneous than is often assumed (Balibar 2002aa: 75-86; Mezzadra and

Neilson 2013). However, while we can point out the arbitrariness and heterogeneity of

the boundaries of citizenship, it is equally true that there is no such thing as a

community of citizens without boundaries. As Sandra Seubert writes, “democracy

itself, as an institutionally embodied achievement of collective self-determination,

requires closure in order to be enduring” (Seubert 2014: 552). However, a democratic

community of citizens – certainly those that adhere to universal human rights – cannot

justify closure through an arbitrary rule of exclusion. Therefore, it is required to

30

continuously reflect on its justifications for practices of inclusion and exclusion (Van

Gunsteren 1998: 93-101; Benhabib 2004; Benhabib 2005; Balibar 2004a: 176-177;

Seubert 2014: 552; Gündoğdu 2015: 25-54).

The dominant form that this community of citizens has taken since the French

Revolution is that of a nation state (Habermas 1998: 109; Heater 1999: 97-99; Balibar

2014c: 204). Regardless of attempts to theorize citizenship beyond the nation state and

irrespective of critiques of the concept of the national citizenship, there is no denying

that modern citizenship has been and still is chiefly organized along national borders.

As a result, even critical observers of national citizenship grant that citizenship and

nationality are regularly coupled or even equated (Balibar 2002aa: 107; Brubaker

2009: 28; Clarke, Coll, Dagnino and Neveu 2014: 16-17; Balibar 2015b: 34).

Historically, the ‘indivisible’ nation was wielded as a weapon in the battle against

local privileges – “the provincial Estates and parlements and […] the ancient Estates-

General” (Heater 1999: 101; also Kymlicka and Norman 1994: 370). As Jürgen

Habermas points out, the secularization of political power and the disintegration of the

corporative ties of feudal society produced a legitimation problem. The nation state

“responded to both of these challenges by politically mobilizing its citizens [by

generating] a new level of legally mediated solidarity via the status of citizenship while

providing the state with a secular source of legitimation” (Habermas 1998: 112; Gans

2017: 109). In addition, the idea of the nation also served a mobilizing function as it

provided an affective supplement to more abstract ideas of political autonomy and

constitutionalism (Habermas 1998: 113; Rosanvallon 2013: 44).

These last two elements also return in contemporary justifications of the national

welfare-state. As Richard Bellamy writes, arguments for a national citizenship usually

point to the role that a common identity plays in the cultivation of feelings of trust and

solidarity. These arguments mix sociological, normative and functional elements: (a) a

common nationality is important because people trust those whom they regard as

similar; (b) democratic practice demands a high degree of reciprocity that can only be

established in a national context; and (c) a shared language and political traditions

facilitate communication and decision-making (Bellamy 2008: 70-71; Leydet 2006:

Section 2.2.).

However, in itself this does not fully answer the question of why and in which way

the nation is a breeding ground for a shared political culture and a sense of common

identity. Generally, this link has been justified on either ‘ethnic’ or ‘civic’ grounds

(Heater 1999: 106; Bourdieu 2012: 552-555; Cooper 2018: 14). The former, Jürgen

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Habermas writes, derives a common identity from pre-political ethnic and cultural

properties, whereas the latter does so from “the praxis of citizens who actively exercise

their civil rights” (Habermas 1994: 22-23; also Leca 1992: 21; Gans 2017: 110-111).

These respective models, Pierre Bourdieu clarifies, give rise to two models of

citizenship and its acquisition: a ‘German’ model of jus sanguinis and a ‘French’ model

of jus soli. In the romantic German model, citizenship derives from belonging to and

descending from an ethnic and cultural community; in the French juridico-political

model, citizenship derives from being born into a (legally defined) territory (Bourdieu

2012: 555; FitzGerald 2017: 135-141).6

Ethnic or Völkisch nationalism, though it never truly disappeared, is constantly and

to an increasing extent confronted with the multicultural character of modern societies

which thwarts the process of “constituting the people as a fictively ethnic unity”

(Balibar and Wallerstein 1991: 96). In addition, the particularism of a community

united by a shared history, language and culture sits awkwardly with the universalism

of citizenship’s legal egalitarian principle (Habermas 1998: 115; Cohen 1999: 253).

Therefore, the ‘civic’ tradition seems more attractive. However, this tradition has the

potential to undo the link between nation and citizenship. After all, if the defining

element of the community of citizens is praxis rather than culture or language, it is not

impossible to institute it beyond the level of the nation state (Habermas 1994: 24). Yet,

this – in turn – raises the question of what sustains the cohesion of the community of

citizens. As critics of this civic tradition note, it is unclear whether a common adherence

to abstract principles like the rule of law or the constitution can perform this function

(Canovan 1996: 83-100).

The oeuvre of Dominique Schnapper constitutes a third position in the debate. Her

approach is particular in that she distinguishes the democratic nation from ethnic

groups but refuses to sever the link between the two. Ethnic groups, she argues, are

not politically organized and are simply heirs to a historical and cultural community

that they wish to maintain, whereas the nation is politically constituted. It is not

necessarily the case that ethnies are more natural than nations. What distinguishes

them is the “nature of the tie which unites humans” and in the case of the nation this

tie is expressly political (Schnapper 1998: 18). Nonetheless, she maintains that the

6 This distinction between two ideal-typical models hides some of the overlap between French and German

models of citizenship. As Rogers Brubaker notes, throughout Continental Europe – also in France –

citizenship is granted on the basis of jus sanguinis. The difference between French and German models of

citizenship is that the former incorporates more elements of jus soli (Brubaker 2009: 81). Others, like

David Scott FitzGerald, question whether the distinction between a French and German model can still

be made as both nations eventually converged toward a mixed system in the 1990s (FitzGerald 2017: 136).

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political praxis of citizens works both with and on a material that can be called ethnic

(Schnapper 2000: 259). The democratic nation, she specifies, “is constituted by

transcending particular roots [yet] nonetheless maintains itself by cultivating and

developing emotions, immediately given in the ethnie by familial socialization, but

which must be formed in the case of the nation, in order to create those sentiments of

belonging and of participation according to which the nation can perpetuate itself as a

collectivity” (Schnapper 1998: 112).

Schnapper’s second argument is that the importance of the modern nation “lies in

the integration of all populations into one community of citizens and in the legitimation

of the action of the state, which is its instrument, by this community” (Ibid.: 35). In

particular, and this is the heart of Schnapper’s argument, this entails that “[t]he nation

is defined by its ambition of transcending particular belongings by means of

citizenship” (Ibid.). The nation, that is, is intimately linked to modern individualism as

it constructs a political unity beginning from the citizen-individual. It “rests on the

idea that this citizen-individual has the capacity to break away, at least partially, from

his particular roots and to enter, by law, into communication with all the others” (Ibid.

73). This is the primary value of the nation: it liberates the citizen-individual from

predetermined roles and local communities (Ibid.). It is through the internalization of

the norms of national society – through public education – that individuals escape their

particular place in a familial or statutory group (Ibid.: 85).

Clearly, this theory does not escape the tension between the universal thrust of

citizenship’s egalitarian principle and the particularism of the nation. However, to

assuage such worries, Schnapper contends that any political organization is

characterized by an inclusion/exclusion relation. The nation undoubtedly excludes, but

this is simply the unfortunate (yet legitimate) flip side of its unique capacity to include,

integrate and emancipate citizen-individuals (Ibid.: 85). Moreover, she argues, a

constitutional patriotism, like the one that Habermas proposes, can never perform this

function. Such a position, that is, assumes that we can simply eliminate the ethnic

element of the nation and keep the civic one. However, any democratic society is

erected on particular, historical and local practices “which one could describe as ethnic”

and we cannot simply eliminate these (Schnapper 2000: 259). Hence, this theory of

modern citizenship exhibits, as Étienne Balibar argues, a strong belief in the nation

state’s ability to attenuate the tension between the exclusiveness of national belonging

and the universality of citizenship (Balibar 2004a: 52-56).

33

Whichever side we choose in this debate, there is an underlying idea on which both

positions seem to agree. Namely, that modern citizenship politically trumps all other

social ties. The “emergence of the modern citizen,” Bryan Turner notes, “requires the

constitution of an abstract political subject no longer formally confined by the

particularities of birth, ethnicity, or gender” (Turner 1990: 194; Rosanvallon 2013: 35).

However, as critics of modern citizenship argue (see infra), the knife cuts both ways:

as modern citizens we are no longer beholden to these particularities, but we are also

expected not to politicize our particular identities. This idea is expressed most strongly

in the work of Rousseau. As Judith Shklar writes, for him “[t]he political participation

that liberty and equality demand is not a matter of self-expression. The citizens are

not meant to bring their private interests, hopes, and opinions to bear upon public

affairs” (Shklar 1969: 18; also Shklar 1991: 35; Walzer 1989: 211-212). Tellingly,

Rousseau took inspiration from the Spartan citizen-army. “In the citizen-army,” Shklar

notes, “the moi humain really is crushed by the moi commun. And this is the very

essence of the psychological transformation of man into a citizen” (Ibid.: 15). Without

this transformation, it is impossible for men to be free (Ibid.: 155; Wolin 2004: 332).

Of course, not all theories of modern citizenship take an equally radical position.

But a more relaxed version still lives on in French civic republicanism and liberal

political theories (Bellamy 2008: 74). What these otherwise distinct ideologies share, is

the idea that the public role of the citizen must be separated from the particulars of his

or her private life (Pateman 1975; Pateman 1989; Young 1989; Schnapper 2000: 27,

233; Leydet 2006: s. 1.3.; Somers 2008: 158; Honohan 2017: 94-98). The universalism

characteristic of modern citizenship, Étienne Balibar specifies, “does not signify that

differences are irrelevant in the lives of individuals or collectivities; but it does seem

to require that they be repressed into the sphere of ‘particularity’ that politics, as such,

seeks to neutralize (Balibar 2017a: 275-276).

Hence, proponents of the modern concept of citizenship have been suspicious of

political movements organized around some ‘particular’ characteristic – be it class,

race, or gender. Similarly, they mistrust demands for special minority rights.

Schnapper, for instance, argues that these demands are problematic as they risk

locking people into the particular groups from which citizenship is supposed to liberate

them and – once granted – might undermine the project of social integration. If people

turn to their particular groups, the reasoning goes, there will no longer be anything

holding different groups in society together (Schnapper 2000: 237-238; also Walzer

1970: 212; Kymlicka and Norman 1994: 371-372; Lefebvre 2010: 25). This is one of the

34

challenges that modern citizenship is confronted with then: how to balance demands

for differentiation with the project of maintaining the civic unity of the community of

citizens (Hall and Held 2013 [1989]: 174-175; Van Gunsteren 1998: 59-61; Heater 1999:

113).

1.5. Modern Citizenship as Political Participation and Civility

Finally, modern citizenship includes a participatory element: citizens are not merely

subjects of the state but also have a part to play in the political process. The origins of

this idea go back to the Aristotelian definition that we mentioned at the beginning of

this chapter: democratic citizens are men who rule and are ruled in turn (Cohen 1999:

248). But modern citizenship principally developed out of Rousseau’s notion of

collective self-determination (Walzer 1989: 212; Habermas 1994: 23-24; Habermas

1998: 112). Its essence can be captured in two of Rousseau’s claims. First, that “[t]he

people, being subject to the laws, must create them” (Rousseau 1994: 75). Second, that

“sovereignty, being only the exercise of the general will, can never be transferred […];

power can be delegated but the will cannot” (Ibid.: 63). Taken together, these ideas add

up to – what Balibar calls – a “reduction of verticality”: the relation between citizen

and sovereign is no longer a vertical one in which the former is subjected to the latter.

Instead, the distance between the citizenry and the sovereign is (ideally) reduced to

the point where they coincide (Balibar 2004a: 151).

However attractive this ideal is, its translation into practice was never truly

accomplished. Without pretending to be exhaustive, explanations tend to go two ways:

either it was never accomplished as a result of its inherent impracticality; or it was

actively prevented from being realized as it clashed with the interests of ruling classes.7

To start with the first set of theories: if taken to its logical conclusion, Rousseau’s

philosophy entails a form of participatory democracy (Pateman 1985: 150-159) that has

as of yet never been realized. According to some this can be explained on account of its

bad fit with the demands imposed by complex modern societies and the large-scale

political and social organizations they require (Wolin 2004: 336; Bellamy 2008: 100).

In such societies it is more convenient to make the citizenry a source of political

7 There is also a third option: namely, that theory itself was riddled with antinomies and paradoxes from

the start. For instance, it is impossible to determine whether the creation of a general will starts with

good laws or a good citizenry. However, for these thinkers, Rousseau’s antinomies and paradoxes do not

prove his redundancy, but expose the paradoxical or antinomic nature of democracy itself (Honig 2007;

Balibar 2000).

35

legitimacy, while letting it exercise its will through representation and delegation.

Here, the will of the people is not exercised directly but is mediated by different

intermediary institutions: elections, parliament, parties and civil society organizations

(Schnapper 2000: 34). Moreover, as Michael Walzer submits, one could also argue that

the Rousseauian ideal of citizenship is simply too demanding for modern subjects.

“[M]odern civil society,” he writes, “does not breed citizens” (Walzer 1989: 213). On the

one hand, in a capitalist society people are more likely to make decisions in view of the

imperatives of the market (as opposed to a hypothetical general will) (Ibid.: 213; Walzer

1991: 2). On the other hand, social acceleration – the combined effect of technological

acceleration and the speeding up of social processes and everyday life – clashes with

the temporality of participatory citizenship which is time-consuming (Scheuerman

2009). Raymond Geuss – channelling Constant – even suggests that modern subjects

are simply more interested in their private affairs than in politics (Geuss 2001: 121).

It is possible, however, to approach the question from a different angle. Some have

proposed that the failure to realize this model of collective self-determination has less

to do with its supposed impracticality than with the dangers it presents to the liberal

tradition. The principle of collective self-determination was and is, under this

interpretation, purposefully subordinated to the liberal principles of the rule of law and

parliamentary representation (e.g. Pateman 1975; Hardt and Negri 2009: 8-15;

Hallward 2017: 9-12). Ellen Meiksins Wood, for instance, argues that whereas ancient

democracies produced an active but exclusive form of citizenship, modern liberal

democracies gradually extended citizenship to new populations while restricting its

powers. Liberal democracy thus produced “an inclusive but largely passive citizen

body” (Wood 2016: 208). This circumscription of the powers and domain of citizenship

was not accidental – at least not in the United States. The Founding Fathers, she

argues, defined democratic citizenship in such a way that it contained “anti-democratic

principles” (Ibid.: 214). The Federalists had to find a way to have the popular multitude

legitimate propertied oligarchs through elections while at the same time restricting its

actual political power (Ibid.). Here, democratic citizenship has little to do with

collective self-determination or a sharing in political power. On the contrary, it is

mainly experienced as the “passive enjoyment of constitutional and procedural

safeguards and rights” (Ibid.: 219, cit. 227).

There is, however, a version of modern citizenship – one that has become dominant

in western democracies – that tries to balance the rule of law and collective self-

determination. It is defended, among others, by Jürgen Habermas who maintains that

36

classical liberties must be co-original with the citizenry’s practice of self-

determination. This means that rights cannot be imposed on a passive citizenry: the

citizens themselves have to be able to see themselves as authors of the laws they are

subjected to. However, co-originality also entails that if citizens exercise their right to

collective self-determination, they must do so “as legal subjects [and] in the medium of

law itself” (Habermas 1998: 260). The rationale for this thesis of co-originality, James

Tully clarifies, is that an overemphasis on the rule of law leads to juridification and a

democratic deficit. While collective self-determination unbounded by constitutional

principles is in danger of devolving into a tyranny of the majority or even worse (e.g.

totalitarianism) (Tully 2008b: 95).

Regardless of the preferred degree of citizen participation, an extra – and last –

element is needed. This is the element of civic virtue, duty and civility: in order to have

citizens participate in political and social life, they must develop certain habits of

acting (e.g. active participation in public life) and political and moral qualities (e.g.

being tolerant, restraining oneself from harming political opponents in word or deed,

etc.) (Shklar 1991: 5-7; Leca 1992: 18; Kymlicka and Norman 1994: 359-369; Van

Gunsteren 1998: 24-25; Rosanvallon 2013: 57-59). The idea that citizens must exercise

civic virtues and duties is particularly strong in the republican political tradition. In

the early modern republican writings of Machiavelli these duties were seen as military

ones: a virtuous citizen was prepared to fight and die for the republic. In the modern

writings of Rousseau and Tocqueville more emphasis was placed on political duties

such as participation in political and juridical matters (Heater 1999: 59-65). However,

there is a central idea underlying these different formulations: the idea that political

life is superior to life lived in the private sphere, that a failure to participate in politics

makes your life incomplete (Kymlicka and Norman 1994: 362).

As we already noted, modern citizens often cannot or do not want to meet this

demanding standard of civic duty. Nonetheless, both political theory and public

discourse on modern citizenship regularly invoke the significance of civic duties. This

is the case because a purely passive citizenship would be untenable: after all, “the

passive enjoyment of citizenship requires,” as Walzer notes, “at least intermittently,

the activist politics of citizens” (Walzer 1989: 217). In other words: the cultivation and

exercise of civic virtues and duties is a necessary condition for the enjoyment of

individual private liberties. The exercise of these duties creates and maintains a form

of public freedom that makes individual freedom possible (Mouffe 1993: 63). In the end,

even liberals – who are usually wary of strong notions of active citizenship – recognize

37

the need for virtues such as a willingness to listen to the views of others and law-

abidingness (Kymlicka and Norman 1994: 365-368).

This bring us to the notion of civility: if civic virtues or duties are praised or their

absence lamented, civility is often mentioned in the same breath (Walzer 1974: 593;

Turner 1990: 203). However, the relation between the two is not self-evident. Part of

the confusion goes back to the origin of the word ‘civility’ in the Latin civilitas. The

word refers both to “everything that has to do with the city, civitas, and the citizen”

(Pons 2014: 139). But “the word also designates a certain kind of relationship, gentle

and ennobled, among people” – a meaning that is further emphasized in the eighteenth

century where it become synonymous with ‘politeness’ (Ibid.). Liberal theories of

democracy, Teresa Bejan argues, often combine elements of both senses: somehow the

two – public virtue and private manners – are joined in a citizenship geared towards

dialogue and political and social harmony (Bejan 2017: 8-9, 146-149; also Isin 2002:

202-207; Honohan 2017: 92). Mark Kingwell, for instance, claims that civil constraints

are a necessary condition for the “negotiation of moral difference by public means”

(Kingwell 1993: 135). This kind of civility has two aspects: on the one hand, citizens

refrain from saying certain (hurtful or irrelevant) things – even those they consider

true – in a public dialogue; and on the other hand, they are sensitive and charitable to

the public claims of others. Here, Kingwell argues, a just citizenship resides not in a

particular agreement that is reached but in the continuation of the dialogue among

citizens. Civility is the political virtue that allows for the continuation of this dialogue

(Ibid.: 134-138).

However, others – such as Michael Walzer – have more doubts about the

compatibility of civic virtues and civility. For one, a lot depends on what exactly is

included in the group of political virtues. If law-abidingness or politeness are seen as

primary civic virtues, then civility could indeed be seen as a well-suited supplement.

However, in the early modern period, republicanism – and the set of civic virtues it

promoted – was often criticized on account of the tumult and disorder it caused.

Conversely, as citizens became more civil – e.g. became less likely to physically attack

political opponents – they were also less likely to feel and display intense political

passions. For Walzer, then, civic virtue and civility are two different beasts. Civility,

as exemplified in a tolerance for the opinions and lifestyles of others, tends to flourish

where political passions lay dormant. On the other hand, if citizens exercise civic

duties, if they join parties, movements, meetings or demonstrations, if they become

invested in political causes for which they are willing to make sacrifices, a loss of

38

civility can be expected. After all, if political activity is on the rise this means that

significant issues are at stake and these will likely give rise to more intense

confrontations. For instance, the civil rights movement and the opposition to the

Vietnam War both demonstrated a rise in civic activity but also upped the political

stakes and therefore undermined the kind of disinterestedness that allows for an

effortless toleration. The ideal of citizenship, Walzer concludes, pulls in different

directions: virtues like patriotism and political activism require “a kind of zeal”, while

“[c]ivility and toleration serve to reduce the tension, but do so by undercutting

commitment” (Walzer 1974, cit. 606; also Murard and Tassin 2006: 22-25).

39

2. Modern Citizenship Between Emancipation and Domination

2.1. The Janus Face of Modern Citizenship

Citizenship has become one of those political concepts – like ‘justice’ – that are seen as

unambiguous goods. This is the case, Linda Bosniak explains, because it is associated

with the ethos of internal universality: the idea that all of its aspects – rights,

recognition and participation – are desirable and must be extended to everyone in a

given society (Bosniak 2017: 317-318; Cohen 2009: 3). The hidden assumption, I would

add, being that the granting of rights, recognition and participation emancipates the

grantee from a state of subjection. Hence, the ideal of universal citizenship has, as Iris

Marion Young states, been a driving factor in modern emancipatory movements. It was

wielded, first, as an instrument against aristocratic privileges and later against

institutions or groups of persons that denied the equal moral worth of all persons

(Young 1989: 250; also Balibar 2015b: 7). It is for this same reason that the expansion

of citizenship – its gradual extension to former non-citizens – is seen as a form of

progress (Hindess 2004: 306). For most political theorists, the story of modern

citizenship is that of an “expanding […] circle of belonging” (Kenneth Karst cited in

Bosniak 2006: 29).

Nonetheless, as Peter Riesenberg notes, “just a bit of reflection will lead to the

conclusion that citizenship has been an ambiguous institution throughout history […]

it is no exaggeration to say that one of its principal functions has been as an agent or

principle discrimination. It has been undemocratic in basic ways until and after 1789”

(Riesenberg 1992: xvi-xvii; Canning and Rose 2001: 429-430; Smith 2002: 109; Glenn

2002: 23-26; Holston 2008: 22). Even more so, we could argue with Engin Isin that

citizenship does not only exclude but is constituted by exclusion. It is not the case that

categories of non-citizens – like women, slaves, peasants or refugees – preexisted a

citizenship that “once defined […] excluded them” (Isin 2002: 3; Mezzadra 2007).

Rather, these non-citizens made citizenship possible: “citizenship and its alterity

always emerged simultaneously in a dialogical manner and constituted each other”

(Ibid.: 4).

These others of citizenship, Isin clarifies, can be divided into two categories:

transitive (or distant) others and immanent others. To start with the first: citizenship

has always marked off the spaces of citizenship from those of barbarians, aliens and

distant others. These relations are characterized by a mutual externality – the

40

barbarian, alien or distant other is external to and excluded from the community of

citizens. On the other hand, the different historical forms of citizenship have always

emerged simultaneously with immanent others – social agents that were not

considered to be political subjects or even fully human but were nonetheless included

in the community of citizens (Ibid.: 4, 29-33).

In this section and this thesis as a whole, I will mainly focus on the latter category.

Obviously, I do not focus on immanent others because the question of the transitive

other is unimportant. It is clear to me that few things are more terrifying than the loss

of your citizenship. The status of citizenship is intimately tied up with our legal

personhood which allows us to appear in public and make claims on others without

“the pervasive fear of being subjected to arbitrary violence” (Gündoğdu 2015: 98-107,

cit. 106). Neither am I unaware of the difficulties involved in the attempt to strictly

distinguish immanent others from transitive ones (or, the internal borders of

citizenship operating within the nation state from the ones that demarcate its outer

reaches) (Balibar 1988: 727). It is unclear, for instance, whether undocumented

migrant workers are strictly speaking transitive others (Bosniak 2006; Somers 2008:

21-22; Mezzadra and Neilson 2013; De Genova 2013). I focus on immanent others to

highlight the fact that inclusion in the community of citizens does not automatically

entail gaining equal freedom with all citizens within this community. Modern

citizenship is not only constituted by the existence of ‘status non-citizens’ (the

stateless) but also by the existence of internal non- and second-class citizens (e.g.

Cohen 2009: 53).

Every form of citizenship created and creates its own internal others: men and

women that were or are subjects rather than citizens – slaves, strangers, women,

proletarians, non-white people, the mentally unfit, etcetera. However, as we noted in

the first section of this chapter, somewhere along the way something changed in this

relation between the citizen and its others. Most premodern philosophers could assume

that the difference between citizen and the subject was a natural one: slaves, for

instance, were not fully human and hence undeserving of citizenship; women, to give

another example, were deemed unfit to participate in the activity of ruling and being

ruled. The fit between a hierarchical natural universe and an equally ordered moral-

political one anchored the distinction between citizen and subject. In this sense, it

wouldn’t make sense to try to ‘uncover’ the forms of exclusion and domination in pre-

modern forms of citizenship since it was precisely the point of the institution of

citizenship to codify political and social hierarchies. The status of citizenship basically

41

granted privileges to some (e.g. the Greek free, male citizen) and denied them to others

(Riesenberg 1992: 3-200).8

However, the moment this moral universe came under attack and the first political

actors, philosophers and scholars started arguing for the natural equality of all human

beings, this binary lost some of its self-evidence. If all humans are equal, then all

should be citizens and not a single one a subject. This is why a dominant narrative

asserts that with the arrival of modern universal citizenship, the subject was gradually

erased from its history. Or, to be more precise, with the institution of different forms

of modern citizenship, subjects were emancipated from their state of subjection as they

acquired the status of full citizenship (e.g. Smith 2002: 107; Bellamy 2008: 54-75).

Obviously, this transition from subjecthood for most to citizenship for all did not

happen overnight. In many liberal or republican narratives – T.H. Marshall’s one being

both the most prominent one and their template – it is acknowledged that the advent

of modern citizenship did not result in the instant removal of internal exclusions. Still,

these same narratives also point towards the completion of this transition. They

suggest that in time all human beings will be included in the community of citizens

were they would share in the equality and liberty of all. In the remaining part of this

section, I will put forward a short counter-history to challenge this narrative. I will

review a few episodes in the history of modern citizenship in which regardless of

proclamations of internal universality, it has been constitutively entwined with non-

and second-class citizenships.

The obvious place to start is where the ideal of modern citizenship clashed most

visibly with its denial in practice: the United States. Here, Judith Shklar writes,

“[f]rom the first the most radical claims for freedom and political equality were played

out in counterpoint to chattel slavery, the most extreme form of servitude” (Shklar

1991: 1). Even more so, as Evelyn Nakao Glenn further specifies, the figures of the

modern US citizen and the noncitizen were interdependent constructions. The citizen

was rhetorically defined and gained meaning in contrast to noncitizens (aliens, slaves

and women). But their interdependence was also material: the autonomy and freedom

of citizens was dependent on the involuntary labour of unfree “wives, slaves, children,

servants and employees” (Glenn 2002: 20). Initially, then, some of the major groups

8 As was already indicated in the first section of this chapter, the Middle Ages and Renaissance complicate

this narrative. After all, the status of citizenship initially disappeared into a mesh of feudal and religious

statuses. Later – between the 14th and 18th century – citizenship and subjecthood converged: citizenship

entailed that one was subjected to a prince or monarch. Nonetheless, in some form the distinction citizen-

subject survived this convergence: as Jean Bodin noted, every citizen might be a subject, but not all

subjects are citizens (Riesenberg 1992: 222).

42

within the US (workers, women, slaves and Native Americans) were excluded from the

status of citizenship. This exclusion was justified on the ground that these groups were

dependent: in order to be a citizen and to participate politically, one had to be

independent. In particular, one had to have property and personal freedom, and be

‘productive’ (Ibid.: 21-24; Olson 2004: 40; Englert 2016).

The line separating citizens from noncitizens became an object of struggles as

noncitizens contested their exclusion. However, Glenn notes that the history of the

extension of citizenship was hardly a straight line. On the contrary, “it has been jagged

at best” (Ibid.: 24). Periods of hard-won progress were often followed by periods of

regress. For instance, in the first quarter-century after the Revolution, black men could

vote on the same terms as white men. Yet, after this period their status deteriorated

rapidly. Similarly, during Reconstruction – the period following the Civil War – black

citizenship expanded, only to revert into a form of second-class citizenship in the Jim

Crow era of racial segregation (Ibid.: 32-40; Glenn 2011: 3; Smith 2002: 110). At other

times, progress in one respect was related to regress in another. The emancipation of

white workers provides an example of this phenomenon. Originally, a significant

proportion of American white men was excluded from suffrage as they failed to meet

the property qualifications. In other words: they failed to prove their independence.

However, universal manhood suffrage was quickly introduced in some states and was

realized in all by the middle of the nineteenth century. In order to warrant this

extension, Glenn argues, two rhetorical revisions had to occur: first, white men had to

be seen as potential property owners and, second, the dependence inherent in wage

work had to be “transmuted into ‘independence’ by being contrasted with slavery and

indentured servitude” (Ibid.: 28-29; Shklar 1991: 63-101). This period in the history of

US democracy – also known as the Jacksonian era – saw black people becoming not

only noncitizens but also anticitizens. Rather than being seen as an embarrassment to

the ideal of citizenship, the enslavement of black people was seen as central to and

constitutive of independent citizenship (or, white citizenship) (Olson 2004: 40-47). “The

vote,” Judith Shklar clarifies, “was so important to these men because it meant that

they were citizens, unlike women and slaves, as they repeated over and over again”

(Shklar 1991: 49). This example shows how the progressive extension of the status of

citizenship in one particular respect, can be achieved by linking it to a reinforcement

of its exclusionary aspects in others (Fraser and Gordon 1994: 97-98; Glenn 2000: 8;

Singh 2004: 24).

43

This darker aspect of modern citizenship is, however, not unique to the US. The

French universalist model of citizenship is similarly caught between its professed

ideals and the realities of exclusion, subjection and domination. In the first place, this

tension was made visible in the ‘problem of the colonies’, as Silyane Larcher points out

(Larcher 2015: 192). Once the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was

proclaimed within the French Nation, the question arose whether these principles

applied to the subjects of the French Empire. This question became politically urgent

as the white plantation owners of its richest colony – Saint Domingue – demanded not

only rights of citizenship but also the right to govern ‘their’ colony. The question

became critical as a delegation of gens de couleur arrived in Paris to demand citizenship

as well. “The assemblies in Paris,” Frederic Cooper recounts, “could not make up their

mind about these demands” (Cooper 2018: 67; Larcher 2015: 196-197). The 1791 Saint

Domingue slave revolt, however, forcefully put the abolition of slavery and the

extension of citizenship on the table. In a process unfolding between 1792 and 1794,

slavery was eventually abolished and citizenship was granted to all, regardless of color.

However, this short-lived victory of the ideal of universal citizenship was terminated

by Napoleon Bonaparte who re-established slavery in 1802. The coexistence of

citizenship for the French and subjecthood and slavery for non-white colonized would

survive until 1848 (Larcher 2015: 67-68; Cooper 2018: 67-69).

Citizenship was exclusionary within the French nation as well. Here, citizenship

was differentiated through the creation of two categories of citizens. In a report

announced on 20th and 21st July 1789, Siéyès “proposed a distinction between passive

and active rights, between passive and active citizens” (Wallerstein 2003: 651; also

Pateman 1992: 16; Lefebvre 2010: 19, 23). Passive citizens such as women, foreigners

and children, held rights protecting their person, property and liberty but did not have

rights to political participation (Ibid.). What was unique about the nineteenth-century

conception of citizenship, Immanuel Wallerstein argues, is the theoretical production

of justifications that limited “the degree to which the proclaimed equality of all citizens

was in fact realized” (Ibid.: 652). One of the central discursive strategies for the

limitation of citizenship was the invocation of virtue. The French Declaration had, as

we noted, made human nature into a criterion for citizenship, but this included every

single human being. Therefore, virtue was appealed to as it was only a potential

characteristic of human beings. The mantel of virtue allowed white middle classes (and

men specifically) to justify their privileges and monopolize first-class citizenship (Ibid.:

656; also Shklar 1991: 59-60). This distinction between active and passive citizens gave

44

rise to struggles over in- and exclusion. However, the idea of a one-class citizenship

was, as Wallerstein notes, rarely entertained. For instance, worker movements

struggling for citizen rights were wary of similar demands made by women. In turn,

feminist movements struggling for the rights of active citizenship, seldom accepted the

claims of anti-racist movements. In other words: the idea that citizenship is like a ship

that might sink should it accommodate every single human being within the polity

remained active throughout the nineteenth century (Ibid.: 669).

Confronted with these historical reflections, defenders of the narrative of

progressive modern citizenship could respond that de jure subjection and exclusion

have been – given a few setbacks – eliminated over time. Yet this response is

problematic for a host of different reasons. First of all, it presupposes that there is a

telos to the status of citizenship and this telos is simply not there. It is true that the

nineteenth and twentieth century saw great advances in both the inclusion in the

status of citizenship and expansion of citizenship rights. However, right “now [we] see

a loss of rights and entitlements” (Sassen 2006: 291).

Bryan Turner, for one, argues that we are witnessing the erosion of modern

citizenship as the classic roads to citizenship entitlements – work, war and

reproduction – are being closed off as a result of structural transformations of society.

In the ‘golden era’ of social citizenship, access to citizenship rights depended on one’s

contributions to society, whether through labour, wartime service or the formation and

reproduction of families (Turner 2001). This model, however, has been eroded through

“[p]rivatization, tax cuts, the reduction or cancellations of pension rights, market-

driven policies, the rolling back of the state [and] the casualization of the labour force”

(Turner 2016: 680). The result, he argues, is that citizenship has begun to approximate

denizenship, a status generally reserved for migrant workers that includes legal right

of residence but excludes political and social rights. Once social citizenship has been

eroded, most citizens become, what Turner calls, Type 2 Denizens. For them it becomes

harder to exercise and claim all the rights included in the Marshallian model of

citizenship (Ibid.: 682-686). In a similar vein, Margaret Somers contends that market

fundamentalism has launched an assault on all the citizenship rights that T.H.

Marshall thought fundamental to modern citizenship (Somers 2008: 149; also Clarke,

Coll, Dagnino and Neveu 2014: 170-171). Wendy Brown goes one step further and

argues that citizenship has not merely been eroded but also transformed under the

influence of neoliberalism. Citizens are not only expected to live without the protection

of certain rights, they are also expected to sacrifice themselves for the ‘greater good’ of

45

competitiveness without requiring personal benefit in return. As the status of

citizenship is eroded, a perverted sense of civic duty – of ‘personal sacrifice for the

nation’ – is advanced in its stead (Brown 2016).

These insights into the fragility of citizenship rights also open out to a wider

discussion on the limitations of a purely legal definition of citizenship. It highlights the

important distinction between having rights and being able to exercise rights. To once

again return to the US: the subjection of coloured people and women also persisted

after they acquired the formal legal status of citizenship. In other words: they remained

second-class citizens despite being de jure equals (Binder 1995; Glenn 2002: 52-53;

Roman 2006: 589-602; Glenn 2011: 3-5). In the most extreme cases, citizens were

violently prevented from exercising their rights. In the post-Reconstruction US South,

for instance, white vigilantes terrorized black citizens both violating their rights and

stopping them from exercising their rights (Kirkpatrick 2008: 62-90; Blackburn 2017:

46-47). In other cases, more ‘indirect’ means were or are used. To give an example:

Angela Y. Davis has documented the ways in which the US penal system inordinately

targeted black men depriving them of their civil and political rights (Davis 1998).

Recently, Michelle Alexander similarly revealed how mass incarceration in the US

creates a situation that is similar to the Jim Crow system as ex-felons – again,

principally black men – are subjected to political disenfranchisement and exclusion

from juries (Alexander 2010: 190-200).

Even those who are not actively prevented from exercising their rights, might still

not be able to do so. A second strand of critiques of the formal equality of citizenship

points to the effect that structural forms of domination have on our ability to exercise

our rights and – more broadly – act as citizens. The blueprint for this particular critique

has been provided by Karl Marx who, in On the Jewish Question, exposed the

“contradiction which exists […] between the member of civil society and his political

lion’s skin” (Marx 1992 [1843]: 221). The argument boils down to the following: in a

capitalist society the acquisition of formal citizenship does not in itself abolish the

structural forms of domination within civil society that might and often do stop its

members from properly exercising their citizenship. We will return to this critique in

later chapters, but we can already note that this critical procedure set a pattern for

later critiques of modern citizenship.

For instance, feminist political thinkers likewise point out that the formal equality

that women won, often coexists with their subjection in the private sphere. The fact

that women bear the brunt of reproductive labour (such as cooking, cleaning and taking

46

care of the children) impacts their ability to participate as equal citizens in civil society

and the public sphere (Pateman 1992). Others, like Jeffrey Green, similarly argue that

second-class citizenship is the rule rather than the exception in liberal democracies.

However, Green leaves aside the question of the relation between the subjection of

specific groups – such as women or certain ethnic minorities – and second-class

citizenships. Instead, he focuses on the experience that all ordinary citizens have of

their citizenship. Ordinary citizens, he argues, “cannot be expected to understand

themselves simply as free and equal co-participants in a shared political life, because

their experience of politics necessarily will be shaped by certain second-class civic

structures” (Green 2016: 29). These structures are those of ‘remove’, ‘manyness’, and

‘plutocracy’: ordinary citizens are not able to see themselves as equal citizens as they

realize that (a) they will never (be able to) occupy a position of power; (b) they are only

able to express themselves politically as part of a mass of like-minded others; (c)

socioeconomic status has a strong effect on the opportunities for civic engagement.

These structures, Green argues, produce an experience of political powerlessness that

is the primary way of civic life for most in liberal democracies regardless of the fact

that an undifferentiated and equal citizenship is the norm in these democracies (Ibid.:

29-66).

The above shows that the institution of modern citizenship is, at the very least, an

ambiguous institution. It is without a doubt emancipatory in some respects but it can

also be oppressive and exclusionary. It can best be described as a ‘Janus-faced’

relationship: it has the ability to “empower and discipline, liberate and oppress, endow

with rights and burden with responsibilities” (Clarke, Coll, Dagnino and Neveu 2014:

176). This aspect of modern citizenship has, however, rarely been fully captured by

political theory. The assumption that the central function of modern citizenship is to

make citizens equal, Elizabeth Cohen argues, occludes the fact that it has also always

been differentiated. Political theorists are so focused on criticizing the injustice of

second-class citizenships (or, ‘semi-citizenships’) that they have failed to asks

themselves why such citizenships exist in the first place (Cohen 2008: 3-5). Moreover,

if historians, social scientist or political theorists do consider this question, they tend

to treat it as a deviation “from otherwise dominant professed principles of universal

equality [,] as carry-overs of outmoded feudal ideas about natural hierarchies” (Glenn

2002: 48).

This blind spot, Cohen argues, is caused by the ‘myth of full citizenship’: political

theorists start with a normative account of what citizenship should be without

47

considering how it actually exists. Given such a view, Cohen continues, semi-

citizenships can only look like exceptions or accidents (Cohen 2008: 14). The second

assumption inherent to the ‘myth of full citizenship’ is that is a unitary status: either

one has citizenship, or one doesn’t have it. But citizenship is a “gradient category”: in

between the citizen and the non-citizen there exists a multitude of different semi-

citizenships that “are inevitable and permanent products of any version of political

membership that might be instituted in a liberal democratic state” (Ibid.: 35-36, cit.

50).

In the following sections, I will look at two attempts that circumvent this problem

and do show how and why modern citizenship produces second-class citizenships. I will

argue that the theories of James Tully and Iris Marion Young provide acute analyses

that undermine the ‘myth of full citizenship’ underlying the thinking on modern

citizenship.

2.2. A Critique of Modern Citizenship II: James Tully

James Tully’s work on modern civil citizenship is part of his broader project of public

philosophy. This public philosophy is an alternative to a philosophical tradition that

aims to formulate universal theories of justice, freedom, democracy and citizenship.

Tully’s goal, Bonnie Honig clarifies, is to get us to “look past the abstractions and grand

narratives that often bedazzle us [and focus on] the startlingly diverse array of

freedom-oriented practices on the ‘rough ground’ of politics” (Honig 2014: 71). He

historicizes universalisms that present themselves as transcendent, transhistorical

and rational; and uncovers their historical character, contingent nature and the fact

that they are contested and the object of political struggles (Tully 2008a: 25-36;

Armitage 2011; Honig 2014: 72; Honig and Stear 2014). In turn, he encourages us to

pay attention to the plurality of civic practices of political freedom. In his own words:

he upholds “Arendt’s turn away from the routines, institutions, condition, explanations

and theories of politics to the activity or game of politics itself – what citizens do and

the way they do it” (Tully 2008a: 136).

Modern citizenship is one of the universals that he subjects to such criticism. He

distinguishes this mode of ‘modern civil citizenship’ from that of a ‘diverse civic

citizenship’. Given the aim of this section, we will mainly focus on the former.

According to Tully, the mode of modern civil citizenship can be divided into two

components. First, it is a juridical status consisting of four kinds of rights which are

48

realized in specific institutions. Second, it is marked by its universalism: it is seen as

a universal institution in the sense that it is the political telos towards which all human

societies should strive – if necessary, under the tutelage of Western nations (Tully

2008b: 268; 2014a: 8). To start with the first, modern civil citizenship is composed of

four tiers of rights: civil rights, political rights, social rights and minority rights.

Barring the addition of minority rights, we could say that Tully’s reconstruction of the

status of modern citizenship corresponds to that of T.H. Marshall. However, the former

is much more critical of this status.

First of all, Tully sees little harmony between these rights: as his use of the word

‘tiers’ shows, the second, third and fourth tier rights are subjected to first tier civil

rights. The concern with negative liberties is at the centre of modern citizenship. This

includes the freedoms of speech, thought and religion and equality before the law. But

Tully maintains that market liberties outweigh them all: the primary goal of the

institutions of modern citizenship is to guarantee the absence of external interference

in the private economic sphere (Tully 2008b: 251; 2010: 6). Hence, the other tiers of

rights are circumscribed by these civil rights and especially market liberties. For

instance, rights to political participation cannot encroach on civil rights: the former

“cannot be extended and exercised in the private sphere (as in economic democracy in

the workplace) for this would interfere with tier one liberties” (Tully 2008b: 253).

Equally, social and minority rights are fragile since they are only upheld as long as

they do not conflict with the primacy of the negative liberties of the individual legal

subject (Ibid.: 254).

Tully’s second critique focuses on the link between this status and its assumed

universalism. Since it is perceived to be the universal form of citizenship it is related

“to a set of historical processes of modernisation that bring [it] about” (Tully 2010: 5).

He calls the latter ‘processes of civilization’: the tiers of rights that make up the status

of modern citizenship together amount to a formal legal order – a rule of law – that

must be enforced by a coercive authority, embodied in institutions and imposed on

subjects at home and abroad. The aim is to subject the masses to the “‘civilising’,

pacifying or socializing force of the rule of law [which works on the] subjectivity (self-

awareness and self-formation) of those who are constrained to obey over time” (Tully

2008b: 250). To the defenders of modern citizenship, he argues, there is no such thing

as citizenship outside the rule of law (Tully 2010: 5).

Tully believes that modern citizenship is unacceptable for a number of reasons.

First, the imposition of modern civil citizenship both in Europe (during the

49

consolidation of the modern nation state) and abroad (during the age of imperialism)

was accompanied by violent processes of dispossession. The imposition of civil rights

and its attendant institutions of private property, markets in labour, corporations and

contract law, was realized through the enclosure of commons at home and the

dispossession of Indigenous lands and resources abroad (Tully 1995: 70-81; 2008b: 255,

259; 2010: 10-12). Second, the ‘civilizing’ force of modern citizenship also entailed a

second ‘enclosure’: “the dispossession of people from access to political power through

pre-existing local forms of citizenship and the channelling of democratic citizenship

into participation in the official public sphere of modern representative governments”

(Tully 2008b: 253; 2010: 6). Third, ‘civilization’ also involves a reduction of cultural

diversity through “modernising processes of discipline, rationalisation and state

building […] designed to create in practice the cultural and institutional uniformity

identified as modern in theory” (Tully 1995: 82; 2008a: 171).

To further specify why exactly these characteristics are problematic, however, we

have to outline some of the characteristics of Tully’s preferred mode of diverse civic

citizenship. First, the spirit of civic citizenship is that of extensive participation:

citizens should be able to “‘have a say’ and ‘negotiate’ how power is exercised and who

exercises it” (Tully 2008a: 145). If this is not the case – if power is exercised behind

their backs through non-democratic forms of governance by market and bureaucratic

organisations – the members of the polity remain ‘subjects’ (Ibid.: 147). This

participation is extensive as it is not restricted to the classical institutions of modern

citizenship such as voting in a representative democracy, participation in the labour

market or the exercise of public reason in the public sphere to reform existing laws

(Tully 2009: 10-11; 2010: 15). The praxis of diverse civic citizens comes before

institutions: “[i]nstitutionalisation is seen and analysed as coming into being in

unpredictable and open-ended ways out of, and interaction with, the praxis of citizens”

(Tully 2008b: 269). Here, Tully’s Arendtianism is revealed: politics is that activity in

which citizens act together in the true sense of the word, they bring something new or

unpredictable into this world (Tully 2008a: 136).

Democratic participation is extensive in the three following senses: it includes the

option of modifying and renegotiating techniques of government and relations of

governance; citizens do not only participate according to the rules of the political game

but must also be able to call into question and modify these rules; and it extends into

‘non-political’ spheres (Tully 2008a: 135-148; 2008b: 57, 65-72). Finally, civic

citizenship also operates with a specific view on the nature of power: Tully insists that

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it is not brought into this world by coercion. The actions of citizens cannot be seen as

duties enforced by a coercive authority (Tully 2008b: 272). In other words, civic

citizenship is not created through the exercise of power-over, that is, coercion or

domination. On the contrary, power exists in between citizens as they exercise their

freedom of participation: civic citizenship thus constitutes a form of power-with (Tully

2019). Compared to these characteristics, the modern mode of citizenship (as

reconstructed by Tully) is found wanting. Under this mode, democracy has a passive

and limited character (Tully 2009: 14; 2013: 224-227). This means that most modern

citizens remain subjects: “if citizenship is only a status,” he writes, “then citizens tend

to become either servile subordinates or arbitrary bosses in the vast sea of non-

democratic, hierarchical relationships in which they find themselves for most of their

lives” (Tully 2014a: 52; also 1993: 242-261).

Second, Tully has throughout his oeuvre insisted on the values of diversity and

pluralism: diverse citizens always “keep the multiplicity of games of citizenship in

view” (Tully 2008b: 270). Modern citizenship, on the other hand, suppresses this

variety of practices of citizenship (Tully 2010: 16, 22). It does this in the following way:

on the one hand, it purports to be impartial and indifferent to identity-related

differences. Modern citizens are supposed to see themselves from a universal

standpoint that abstract from their particular characteristics (Tully 2008a: 171; 2008b:

250). During the process of the centralisation and consolidation of the nation state, this

worldview materialized as “[g]enerations of ‘locals’ were gradually socialised by

education, urbanisation, military duty, industrialisation and techniques of

citizenisation to see themselves first and foremost as members of an abstract and

disembedded imaginary community” (Tully 2008b: 255).

On the other hand, this difference-blindness is deceptive: it is partial to the

identities of the dominant (Tully 2008b: 171). In colonial America, for example, white

culture was passed off as universal, while African American, Hispanic American and

Aboriginal identities were degraded (Tully 1995: 90). Moreover, if these latter groups

contest this false universalism by demanding recognition for their cultural, religious,

linguistic or Indigenous practices, these claims are passed off as ‘particular’ claims or

claims for a minority status (Tully 2008a: 304). This is thus a second way in which

modern citizenship constitutes a form of domination. Oppressed groups are confronted

with the fact that “the forms of recognition under which they [have] to act in order to

be acknowledged as ‘citizens’ place arbitrary constraints on the diverse, identity-

related forms of thought and action that matter to them [emphasis added]” (Ibid.: 149).

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Therefore, the forms of recognition that are possible under the modern mode of

citizenship “are experienced as ‘structures of domination’” (Ibid.).

These are Tully’s two critiques of modern citizenship: it is a top-down, coercive

institution that robs the majority of citizens of their capacity for political action; and it

purports to be universalistic and difference-blind but favours dominant identities and

misrecognises those of minorities. These formulations go some way towards

undermining the myth of full citizenship. However, this analysis comes up short in a

few different ways. First off, Tully fails to capture the ambiguity of modern citizenship

by presenting it as irredeemable. As Aletta Norval notes, modern civil citizenship is

presented as uncritical and passive, while the historical struggles over the extension

of citizenship rights or for inclusion in the status of modern civil citizenship are framed

as falling outside of this modern tradition (Norval 2014: 166). However, this

argumentative strategy conflicts with Tully’s methodological insistence on the

contingency and contestedness of political concepts. After all, he himself insists that

“the history of citizens and citizenship is not the unfolding of some transhistorical

definition” (Tully 2014a: 6). It is thus strange that his reconstruction of the tradition

of modern citizenship disregards struggles that are inarguably a part of this same

tradition. It is not that Tully overlooks struggles, resistance and contestation. He

simply reserves these practices for the tradition of diverse civic citizenship. We can

doubt whether this is a valid argumentative move: after all, some elements that are

constitutive of the tradition of modern citizenship – such as subjective rights – were

and are won through intense struggles, disobedience and rebellions (Norval 2014: 174-

178). Even more so, David Armitage argues that Tully himself cannot escape the

modern tradition as he tends to make claims in support of Indigenous peoples using

the language of rights, self-determination and sovereignty (Armitage 2011: 127).

This partial view of modern citizenship is also due to methodological issues, as

Andrew Mason shows. Tully reserves his method of critical enquiry for the modern

tradition, whereas the diverse tradition receives a more ideal-theoretic treatment. The

modern tradition “is characterized warts and all, so much so that it looks […]

inseparable, both in principle and in practice, from tyranny” (Mason 2014: 230). The

diverse tradition, in contrast, is treated in a positive light. Tully cherry-picks examples,

depicting them in such a way that their democratic, peaceful, non-oppressive and non-

exploitative characteristics are brought to the fore (Ibid.). This is not only problematic

because it fails to pick up on the emancipatory aspects of modern citizenship. It is also

problematic as it blinds Tully to the oppressive, exclusionary or exploitative aspects of

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diverse civic citizenship. The likelihood of the latter presents him with a problem.

Either he would have to acknowledge that diverse citizenship can be Janus-faced as

well. Or he would have to admit that it is simply an ideal but this would go counter to

his methodological precept to scrutinize ideals, abstractions and their historical

implementation.

Finally, Tully’s notion – and consequently also his critique – of universalism is one-

sided. He mainly focuses on exposing false universals: the particular interests, cultures

or identities of the dominant parading as universal notions. For example: in the

introduction to his essay on global citizenship he states his aim to ‘provincialize’

modern citizenship and its language of universalism (Tully 2014a: 10). Here, Tully

invokes Dipesh Chakrabarty’s program for the provincialization of Europe and

European notions of modernity and universalism. However, Tully pays less attention

to his insistence that he is “not against the idea of universals as such” (Chakrabarty

2007: xiii). And that concepts such as citizenship and democracy that “entail an

unavoidable – and in a sense indispensable – universal and secular vision of the human

[that] has historically proved a strong foundation on which to erect – both in Europe

and outside – critiques of socially unjust practices” (Ibid.: 4; also 42-43). Hence, by

giving up on universalism, Tully denies himself a powerful weapon in the battle against

the forms of domination he exposes.

Similarly, I am not convinced that diversity, the value that he opposes to

universalism, has a critical force of its own. There is nothing inherently good or bad

about difference, as James Ingram notes. It is only in terms of relations like equality

and inequality, or freedom and domination that differences become normatively

pertinent (Ingram 2013: 149). The difficulty that Tully faces when he is confronted

with ‘bad’ forms of civic citizenship stems from his reluctance towards political

universalism. To give an example: one of his preferred examples of civic citizenship is

the commons-movement which groups different forms of communal and democratic

control over resources such as land and nature that operate beyond state and market

(Tully 2013; 2014a: 90-94). However, as Silvia Federici remarks, it is certainly not the

case that commons are always egalitarian. Throughout history and even to this day,

many commons are exclusive and internally hierarchical. It is often women that tend

to bear the brunt of the labour in commons (Federici 2014). Confronted with examples

of problematic aspects of civic citizenship, Tully tends to invoke notions like

participation and inclusion to discriminate between real practices of civic citizenship

and false ones (Tully 2014b: 321; also 2008a: 304). However, this amounts to a

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reintroduction of universal norms: diversity is only attractive as long as it includes and

guarantees the equal participation and inclusion of all.

In short: Tully cannot avoid invoking universalist notions like the moral equality of

all human beings when he criticizes false universals. The problem is that he fails to

properly acknowledge this and therefore cannot pinpoint what it is that makes a

universal either problematic or worth pursuing. Therefore, we will move to Iris Marion

Young who has a more sophisticated theory of the ambiguous universalisms that

underpin modern citizenship.

2.3. A Critique of Modern Citizenship III: Iris Marion Young

Whereas Tully targets the mode of modern civil citizenship, Iris Marion Young pursues

a critique of the ‘ideal of universal citizenship’. Young’s analysis lacks the historical

richness of Tully’s account but makes up for this in analytical precision when it comes

to both the problematic and redeemable aspects of the universalism of modern

citizenship. The question she asks herself is similar to our own: why has the extension

of universal citizenship – which promises emancipation – not eliminated oppression?

Why does the ideal of universal citizenship coexist with the continued existence of

second-class citizenships? The reason for this failure, she suggests, are two dominant

meanings of the ‘universal’ in universal citizenship: “(a) universality defined as general

in opposition to particular; what citizens have in common as opposed to how they differ;

and (b) universality in the sense of laws and rules that say the same for all and apply

to all in the same way; laws and rules that are blind to individual and group

differences” (Young 1989: 250). The first is called ‘universality as generality’ and the

latter ‘universality as equal treatment’. According to Young these notions of

universality help to maintain inequalities and oppression. Therefore, she argues, we

require a third meaning of universality as ‘inclusion and participation’ to counteract

these tendencies. In other words, Young detects a tension within the ideal of universal

citizenship: she argues that universal citizenship is made up of no less than three

notions of universalism of which one exists in tension with the other two (Ibid.: 251).

Young’s critique of universal citizenship overlaps with her criticism of the ideal of

impartiality in Justice and the Politics of Difference. The idea that underpins both of

these critiques is that universal citizenship operates with a strict distinction between

“universal and particular, public and private, reason and passion” (Young 1990: 97).

Its problematic nature is fourfold: universal citizenship expresses a logic of identity in

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which difference is reduced to unity; it pretends to operate impartially and therefore

denies “situation, feeling, affiliation and point of view”; this ideal of impartiality is

impossible; and it serves ideological functions (Ibid.). The basis of this analysis is the

critique of the logic of identity (a notion she borrows from Theodor Adorno). This logic

commands that the prime operation of reason is to reduce concrete particulars to unity,

to a single principle or law that underlies them. However, this operation must fail as

the identification of something, thus also a universal principle or law, cannot but

presuppose something that is differentiated from it. “Because the totalizing movement

always leaves a remainder,” Young writes, “the project of reducing particulars to unity

must fail” (Ibid.: 98). Applied to the political realm, this logic requires that we look for

a moral view ‘from nowhere’ that abstracts from particulars. The ideal of impartiality

embodies this logic: it treats all situations according to the same moral rules, it

eliminates particulars such as feeling and the body, and it requires political subjects

to adopt a point of view that all rational subjects can adopt regardless of the

particularities that individualize them (Ibid.: 99-102).

Still, this tells us little about the nefarious political effects of the ideal of

impartiality. The political problem is that this ideal can only be put into practice by

“expelling those aspects of the different things that do not fit into the category” (Ibid.:

102). “Difference,” she argues, “thus becomes a hierarchical opposition between what

lies inside and what lies outside the category, valuing more what lies inside than what

lies outside” (Ibid.). This results in the following: the concrete interests, needs, desires

and feelings of persons are expelled from the moral realm into an untheorized private

realm. Not only is this ideal impossible (after all, political actors are unable to fully

discard their interests, needs, desire and feelings) but it also serves to exclude those

deemed unable to meet this ideal. As we already noted at the beginning of this section,

certain groups have been excluded from the political sphere on the ground that they

are unable to transcend their particularity and thus do not fit the model of the rational

citizen. “The universal citizen,” Young specifies, “is disembodied, dispassionate (male)

reason [and] is also white and bourgeois” (Ibid.: 110). It is on these grounds, for

example, that Rousseau excluded women – who were bound by their desires, bodily

needs, and tenderness – from the public realm of citizenship (Young 1989: 254).

Even when the de jure exclusion of certain groups has been abolished, the distinction

between public reason and private interest, desire or feeling continues to exclude.

“Though in many respects the law is now blind to group differences,” Young writes,

“society is not, and some groups continue to be marked as deviant and as the other”

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(Ibid.: 268). In such a society, the ideal of impartiality functions as an ideology since

“belief in it helps reproduce relations of domination or oppression by justifying them or

by obscuring possibly more emancipatory social relations” (Young 1990: 112). On the

one hand, this ideal masks the fact that the state, which is supposed to stand above

the particular interests of civil society, is not neutral. Here, the ideal of impartiality

conceals the fact that “[l]egislators, government administrators, and other government

officials […] develop a partial view of social life” (Ibid.: 114). While the law may apply

equally to all, laws are made and translated into policy by people with particular

interests and worldviews. On the other hand, ‘impartial’ or ‘universal’ views tend to be

universalizations of the particular views of the dominant, whereas the views,

experiences and values of the oppressed are seen as less valuable and particularistic.

Thus, impartiality covers up the fact that ‘neutral’ laws, rules or norms “tend to be

biased in favor of the privileged groups” (Young 1989: 269). Moreover, it allows

privileged groups to ignore the particularity of their views and norms. In this case, it

allows these groups to justify their cultural imperialism – the practice of forcing their

views on others (Young 1990: 165).

Hence, like James Tully, Young is engaged in a project of uncovering the oppressive

elements of political universals. However, she does not drop the ideal of political

universalism. She maintains that “Enlightenment ideals of liberty and political

equality did and do inspire movements against oppression and domination.” (Ibid.: 157;

also Young 1989: 250). In other words, these ideals are valuable regardless of their

limits or ideological character. However, she also claims that their emancipatory

potential has run its course and that another meaning of universality must be

introduced in order to counteract their problematic tendencies. This is, as we noted

above, universalism as participation and inclusion. In order to realize this ideal, we

should allow group affiliation, needs and interests to play a role in public life.

“[E]quality as the participation and inclusion of all groups,” Young writes, “sometimes

requires different treatment for oppressed or disadvantaged groups” (Young 1990:

158). Since universal citizenship is inextricable from the production of second-class

citizenships, a group-differentiated citizenship must be instituted in order to realize

true equality of participation and inclusion for all.

This group-differentiated citizenship is established through two mechanisms: group

representation and special rights. The first requires that oppressed or disadvantaged

groups, such as women, indigenous peoples, or minoritarian ethnicities, are able to

voice their position on a given policy as a group and might even veto specific policies

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that affect them specifically (e.g. women would have veto power regarding abortion

policies) (Young 1989: 261-262). This mechanism strengthens the voice of oppressed

groups and protects them against top-down decisions that inordinately affect them.

The second implies that rather than have the law apply equally to all, some laws or

policies could grant special treatment. To give an example: affirmative action programs

that set criteria for jobs or school admissions violate equal treatment but could help

redress the disadvantages that minorities face (Ibid.: 271). Such a group-differentiated

citizenship, Young insists, does not contradict the ideal of universalism understood as

equal participation and inclusion for all but is rather its fullest realization (Ibid.: 273-

274). It allows us to move beyond unduly abstract dichotomies between the universal

and the particular (Young 1998: 39-40).

From the above, it should be clear that Young’s critique of universal citizenship

constitutes another step in the subversion of the myth of full citizenship. In its early

historical forms, second-class citizenships “were not accidental, nor were they

inconsistent with the ideal of universal citizenship” (Ibid.: 255); and even nowadays,

“[t]he attempt to realize an ideal of universal citizenship […] will tend to exclude or to

put at a disadvantage some groups, even if they have formally equal citizenship status”

(Ibid.: 256-257). In other words: there is an internal link between the ideal of universal

citizenship and the persistence of second-class citizenships. However convincing this

analysis may be, it suffers some of the same defects as Tully’s.

First, it employs a similar asymmetry in its respective approaches to universal

citizenship and group-differentiated citizenship. Universal citizenship gets the critical-

theoretical treatment, while group-differentiated citizenship is presented in its ideal

form. This means that this theory fails to undermine the myth of full citizenship as the

hopes for a full citizenship are transferred to the ideal of group-differentiated

citizenship. It is fundamentally unable, as Elizabeth Cohen argues, to acknowledge the

fact that “semi-citizenships are inevitable and permanent products of any version of

political membership that might be instituted in a liberal democratic state [emphasis

added]” (Cohen 2009: 50).

Indeed, one of the recurring critiques of group-differentiated citizenship is that it is

no less susceptible to forms of exclusion and domination. We can grant oppressed

groups special rights and group representation in order to safeguard ‘their’ interests

but that will not prevent intra-group elites (e.g. a labour aristocracy, upper-class white

women, or a black bourgeoisie) from monopolizing the role of formulating these

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interests. The disadvantage and exclusion of some will simply be displaced from the

“general category of citizens to the various sub-groups of citizens” (Guzmàn 2013: 33).

Other critiques question whether group-differentiated citizenship is up to the task

of emancipating second-class citizens. Chantal Mouffe, for instance, argues that the

notion of group-differentiated citizenship establishes “an ultimately essentialist notion

of ‘group’” (Mouffe 1993: 86). Young assumes that the interests of a group are already

given, which only leaves the task of determining how these interests will be taken into

account and satisfied. However, the goal of emancipation might require oppressed

groups to transform existing subject positions which would allow them to form

coalitions with other oppressed groups around a shared emancipatory project (Ibid.).

In a similar vein, Wendy Brown warns against the unintended side-effects of group

rights. The danger of claiming special rights or representation for oppressed groups is

that once granted such claims tend to naturalize subordinated identities and thus

occlude their contingency (Brown 1995: 99). For example: women could demand special

rights to compensate for the ‘fact’ they are more bound by their role of caretaker (as do

pregnancy rights). However, the unintended risk is that such laws “reiterate rather

than repeal this identity” (Ibid.: 131). The notion that women are prime caretakers

could become a means of their subjection. Such a group-differentiated citizenship could

thus displace more radical feminist proposals that aim to transform a society that puts

inordinate caretaking burdens on women.

Finally, despite Young’s insistence on the importance of a combative and activist

citizenship (Young 1990: 66-95; Young 2001), her theory of differentiated citizenship

has a fairly limited concept of political conflict. In fact, the notion of conflict seems to

be wholly absent in the theory of differentiated citizenship. “[H]ers is a kind of

Habermasian version of interest-group pluralism,” Mouffe argues, “[in which] politics

[is] still conceived as a process of dealing with already constituted interests and

identities” (Mouffe 1993: 86). This excludes the possibility of another kind of conflict in

which the excluded do not seek to promote ‘their interests’ or ‘their identity’ but contest

the way in which the political world and its conflicts are organized. This is political

conflict in the sense that Jacques Rancière gives to the word. In his own phrasing: it

“is the demonstration (manifestation) of a gap in the sensible itself. Political

demonstration makes visible that which had no reason to be seen; it places one world

in another – for instance, the world where the factory is a public space in that where it

is considered private, the world where workers speak, and speak the community, in

that where their voices are mere cries expressing pain” (Rancière 2010: 38). The reason

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why this kind of conflict is important relates to the foregoing points. Internal group

hierarchies, exclusion and conflicts can be covered up through the invocation of a

shared group interest or identity. For this reason it is important that these notions and

identities themselves are up for contestation by those that remain excluded or

oppressed within and despite of the existence of a group-differentiated citizenship.

2.4. Conclusion

Both Tully and Young skilfully dismantle the universalist pretensions of modern

citizenship. They show that and how modern citizenship is constitutive of second-class

citizenships not despite but precisely because of its universalist pretensions. In

addition, they’re both emancipatory thinkers in the sense that they believe that

exclusion, subjection, and domination are intolerable. For this reason they are not

merely content to denounce modern citizenship but propose alternative theories of

citizenship. The problem is that they both fail to construct a truly critical theory of

modern citizenship. The production of second-class citizenships is relegated to modern

citizenship, while a more ideal (non-exclusive, non-oppressive) diverse citizenship is

offered as an alternative. The ambiguities, tensions and antinomies of this other mode

of citizenship, however, remain untheorized. It is as if the myth of full citizenship is

simply transferred to these new, more ideal modes of citizenship.

In other words: we still haven’t managed to do justice to the ambiguous character of

modern citizenship. This task will require us to somehow hold on to two conflicting

ideas: that the project of modern or universal citizenship is hierarchical, exclusionary

and oppressive; and that “to abandon citizenship as a universalist project […] is also

to abandon its ‘emancipatory potential’” (Lister 1997: 13). Rather than attempting to

solve this tension, however, I believe that it should be embraced. Modern or universal

citizenship is not inherently emancipatory or oppressive, democratic or undemocratic,

a true universal or false universal. It is the historical ideal and institution around

which struggles between processes of emancipation and oppression, democratization

and de-democratization, universalization and de-universalization are waged. This

process is unending: after every moment of insurrection in which the excluded and

oppressed contest the hierarchical nature of modern citizenship (thus ‘democratizing’

citizenship), comes a moment of institution and constitution in which these democratic

gains find form. It is at this moment, however, that new exclusions and forms of

oppression arise which, in turn, lead to new demands for the democratization of

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citizenship. In order to fully theorize such a concept of modern citizenship, we should

turn to Étienne Balibar.

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3. Étienne Balibar: A Theory of Insurgent Citizenship

3.1. Citizen Subject I: Who Comes After the Subject?

Our point of entry into Balibar’s theory of modern citizenship is the dense but rich

essay ‘Citizen Subject’. This piece was – as its subtitle ‘A Reponse to Jean-Luc Nancy’s

question ‘Who Comes After the Subject’?’ attests – written in response to a specific

debate. The problem at hand here is the status of the sovereign subject of the

Enlightenment after its critique in the philosophies of Nietzsche, Marx, Heidegger and

Foucault (Balibar 2017a: 2; Montag 2018: 40). In the following section, we’re mainly

interested in the political analysis opened up by Balibar’s enigmatic answer. The latter

goes as follows: after the subject comes the citizen, but the citizen remains a subject

(Balibar 2017a: 30; 1995: 152-153).

To start with the first half of the statement: the citizen comes after the subject in

the sense that “the citizen (defined by his rights and duties) is that ‘non-subject’ […]

whose constitution and recognition put an end (in principle) to the subjection of the

subject” (Balibar 2017a: 24). The word ‘subject’ has a specific meaning in this context.

It does not refer to the neutral subjectum being “the agent of individual properties”

(Balibar 2003b: 15; also 1994c: 8); the Rechtssubjekt being “a subject by right or with

rights” (Balibar et al. 2014: 1087); the subject as “the man who, at least virtually,

‘makes the Law’” (Balibar 1994c: 11); or the Kantian Subjekt (Balibar 2017a: 25). In

short: it refers neither to the neutral subject to which predicates can be attributed, nor

to the sovereign Enlightenment subject (Ibid.: 46). Rather, it denotes the subjectus as

the one “subjugated to law or power” (Balibar 2003b: 15) or the subditus as “the

individual submitted […] to the sovereign authority of a prince” (Balibar 2017a: 22).

Thus, Balibar reiterates a claim that is not immediately controversial: that the onset

of the modern revolutions declared all men citizens and put an end to their subjection

to a prince. The citizen of an absolute monarchy is first and foremost a subditus, a loyal

subject owing unquestioning obedience to his sovereign or prince (e.g. Bodin 1576: 49-

87). The French Revolution, in contrast, “destroys the ‘subject’ of the prince, in order

to replace him with the republican citizen” (Balibar 2017a: 25; also 1994b: 104; 2000:

106). To be more specific, an ‘irreversible truth’ is discovered in the revolutionary

struggle of 1789. This truth is ‘la proposition de l’égaliberté’ (the proposition of

equaliberty). The Declaration of ’89 asserts that all men are citizens (Balibar 2010d:

70; 2014a: 48-49). Therefore, it shatters the ideological basis of the institution of feudal

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subjection; it breaks with the idea “that men by nature are subject to transcendent […]

authorities” (Balibar 1994b: 104). We will discuss the proposition of égaliberté in more

detail below but what counts at this point is that it introduces the idea that the citizen

and the subject are separable. It is the same distinction that will later return when the

(free and autonomous) citizen of the metropole is contrasted to the subordinated

subject of the colonies (Balibar 1992a: 62n19; 2015b: 81; also Cooper 2018: 110).

The second part of the statement, however, undermines this distinction at once. The

relation between subject and citizen, Balibar claims, “cannot be conceived as a linear

succession or teleological transformation” (Balibar 2017a: 4; also 1994c: 13; 2003b: 19).

This claim includes but certainly cannot be reduced to the notion that the modern

revolutions arrive with a delay or lag, or that old forms of oppression (‘feudal remains’)

are stubborn and refuse to give way to the new ideals of equality and liberty (Balibar

2014b: 7; also Lampert 2009; Walker 2012; Toscano 2014a: 765). Balibar goes much

further: he argues that subjection continually returns in the heart of modern

citizenship. It does so not merely (or even primarily) as a feudal remnant but in new

forms and new places (Balibar 2014a: 42).9 First, it returns “because the modalities of

subjection are multiple, tenacious, plastic, and irreducible to a single model or

institution” (Balibar 2017a: 4; also 1995: 153). Here, Balibar remains faithful to a

model of power and domination that goes beyond the juridical model of power. In

principle, the subject of right or with rights is protected against the arbitrary exercise

of state power. But it might still be subjected through the domination of capital (Marx)

or subjected to disciplines or biopower (Foucault) (Balibar 1992b: 50-51; also Isin and

Ruppert 2015: 21-22).

Second, the return of the subjectus can also be “considered […] as arising from the

universal itself” (Balibar 2012a: 208; 2015b: 78-79). This aspect of Balibar’s thought

(i.e. his commitment to the elaboration of universalism’s antinomies) is somewhat more

difficult to grasp and will have to be worked out in the following sections (see (3.5)).

Briefly: in order to partake in the universal (to access and exercise rights, to participate

9 The concept of the citizen subject is, to my knowledge, unique to Balibar’s thought. There are a few

neighbouring conceptualizations, however, in the literature on citizenship. The first, is that of the ‘citizen-

subject’ (hyphenated) of Barbara Cruikshank. Though neither Balibar nor Cruikshank really engage with

one another, there is some overlap between their theories. In particular, in their insistence on the mutual

implication of autonomy and subjection in citizenship (Cruikshank 1999: 19-42). I would argue that, at

least for my purposes, Balibar’s concept is more useful, as it pays more attention to the insurgent

universalism characteristic of modern citizenship. Cruikshank’s approach, on the other hand, keeps closer

to a Foucauldian framework that is more distrustful of invocations of the universal. The second approach

is that of Anna Yeatman who argues that “citizenship makes no sense without an account of the subject

of citizenship” (Yeatman 2007: 105). Yeatman, however, downplays the subjection constitutive of the

citizen subject. That is, the subject of citizenship refers to an ethos of autonomous individualism.

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in the public sphere and the creation of laws, or to enter into contracts and own

property) citizens must become subjects again by going through a process of

‘subjectivation’. Political universalism cannot exist in an unmediated form: universal

values must be realized in concrete institutions, communities and representations. In

order to participate in these institutions and thus acquire the “capacities to relate to

other and perform universal actions”, in order to become a modern subject, citizens

have to go through processes of socialization (Balibar 2012a; 2017a: 14). It is at this

point that figures of subjection are reintroduced: the unavoidable socialization of

citizens entails “the subjection of individuals to norms imposed by the state” (Ingram

2015: 208). The state emancipates citizens, or lifts them from a state of subjection,

through an “educative process, which wrests the individual from the immediacy of the

family tie” (Balibar 2015a: 113). But the cost of this process is that it “includes a

restrictive or even repressive condition, normality [which entails] a process of

normalization” (Ibid.). On top of that, this process of normalization is accompanied by

a correlated production of “anomalies, deviances, inferiorities, minorities and

incapacities” (Balibar 1995: 143; also Montag 2018: 45). Thus, the institution of

political universalism does not only require ‘normal’ or ‘normalized’ citizens but also

brings forth a host of second-class citizenships and non-citizenships for those that fail

to meet these standards.

The introduction of another one of Balibar’s concepts, that of ‘anthropological

differences’ (see (3.5)), can help us develop the foregoing or get to a similar insight

through a different route. One of the central tensions within political modernity is that

between the introduction of equaliberty (or civic universalism) and “the project of

classifying human beings precisely in terms of their [anthropological] differences”

(Balibar 2017a: 276). The first tends to the equation of man and citizen: not a single

human being can (in a normative sense) be excluded from citizenship. The second,

however, gravitates towards the subdivision of mankind: the project of itemizing all

manner of human variation. This second tendency can inflect the former once the

classification of human differences leads to a differential valuation of certain traits.

After all, if there is such a thing as a ‘lesser’ human being, then the equation of man

and citizen can be turned against such ‘lesser’ people. If it is your humanity that

guarantees access to citizenship, then being an abnormal or lesser human being will

lead to a (partial) exclusion from citizenship. Conversely, Balibar argues, “the human

being cannot be denied access to citizenship, unless contradictorily, he is also excised

from humanity” (Balibar’s emphasis) (Ibid.: cit. 15, 276).

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The third and final reason brings the problematic of the citizen-subject closer to

Althusser’s concept of ‘interpellation’. The theory of the interpellated subject exploits

the equivocality of the word ‘sujet’ in the French language (Balibar 2017a: 49). On the

one hand, the subject is a free subject: the author of his actions and therefore

responsible for them. On the other hand, the subject denotes a being subjected to a

higher authority. The theory of interpellation upholds the idea that the former (i.e. free

subject) is conditioned by the latter. Individuals are interpellated as free subjects so

that they can freely accept their own subjection. Hence, “the modern notion of the

subject […] is caught in a circle of subjection: when it seeks the foundations of its

freedom and self-determination within itself, the subject discovers the trace of the

other who confers upon it its autonomy” (Montag and Elsayed 2017: 2-5, cit. 5; also

Douzinas 2000: 226; Balibar 2003a: 17; Montag 2012). This constitutes a third way in

which the citizen remains a subject: the freedom of the modern citizen replacing the

feudal subject is an imputed freedom. It is the result of a prior subjection to the

authority of the modern state.

Balibar thus presents us with the following enigma: “with the revolutionary event

the subjectus irreversibly cedes his place to the citizen” (Balibar 1995: 152). “Still,

nothing changes (or very little)” (Ibid.: 153). In a later essay, he nuances this idea: the

modern revolutions constitute an irreversible break because the idea that all men are

citizens can no longer be suppressed once it is unleashed. Yet at the same, this break

provides little guarantees: it is – for reasons we summed up above – “unfinished,

precarious, and insufficient” (Balibar 2017a: 4; also Balibar 2015c: 44). Here, we have

an initial (but crude) formula that expresses the ambiguity of modern citizenship.

Modern citizenship is caught between two antithetical movements: the “becoming-

citizen of the subject” (“devenir citoyen du sujet”) and the “becoming-subject of the

citizen” (“devenir sujet du citoyen”) which “never cease to succeed one another, but also,

more profoundly, to precede and condition one another” (Balibar 2017a: 4; 2011c: 7;

also Isin and Ruppert 2015: 21). It is our intention to unpack this idea in the following

sections.

3.2. Citizen Subject II: The Untimeliness of Modern Citizenship

First, I want to explore the temporal logic of this idea. The first thing that is noticeable

about the idea of the citizen subject is that it undermines the belief that modern

citizenship has a telos. This assumed telos looks as follows: modern citizenship is a

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given ideal embodied in a given set of institutions (e.g. rights, parliamentary

representation, etc.) that should be extended to all human beings. Its history is a

teleological process in which people who have been somehow excluded from it, for

reasons external to its form, are included. This telos is lacking in Balibar’s thought and

its absence can be partly attributed to his ideas about the time and historicity of

politics.

Without wanting to reduce these ideas to their forebears, we should start with an

outline of Althusser’s critique of the Hegelian concept of historical time.10 This critique

is initiated in two texts: ‘Contradiction and Overdetermination’ (1962) and ‘On the

Marxist Dialectic’ (1963). The central question concerns the relation between Hegel

and Marx: what does it mean to claim that Marx ‘inverted’ Hegel? One influential

position, which Althusser opposes, is that Marx simply extracted the dialectic from

Hegel’s system and applied it “to life rather than to the Idea” (Alhusser 2005: 91). In

contrast, Althusser upholds the position that the structure of the Marxist dialectic is

very different from the Hegelian one. The crucial notion that allows us to understand

this difference is that of ‘overdetermination’: the Marxist dialectic is overdetermined

whereas the Hegelian one is not (Morfino 2015: 89).11 The latter develops through

simple contradictions: in Hegel’s Philosophy of History we encounter “historical

societies constituted of an infinity of concrete determinations, from political laws to

religion via customs, habits, financial, commercial and economic regimes” (Ibid.: 102).

Nevertheless, these determinations have little autonomy, “not only because together

they constitute an organic totality, but also and above all because this totality is

reflected in a unique internal principle, which is the truth of all those concrete

determinations” (Ibid.; also 204). The transition of one historical society to another is

neither more nor less than the result of a contradiction within such a unique internal

principle (e.g. the principle of abstract legal personality in Roman society) giving rise

to a new internal principle that both supersedes and preserves it (Ibid.: 115).

It would be a mistake, Althusser argues, to transpose this scheme to the theory of

historical materialism, presenting history as developing through a simple

10 In what follows I will bracket the question of the correctness of Althusser’s representation of Hegel’s

philosophy. I’m more interested in the concepts and ideas that he produces as a result of this critical

engagement with Hegel. This does not mean, however, that I accept Althusser’s interpretation of Hegel’s

philosophy of history as the last word on the matter. After all, as Balibar notes, this philosophy is far from

univocal. Hegel, he suggests, is “simultaneously the author of a philosophy of history which might stand

as the most complete dogmatic construction, and the organiser of a critical subversion of all philosophies

of history, in as much as they are based on ‘finalistic’ representations of progress” (Balibar 1985: 2). 11 The concept of overdetermination is borrowed from Freud who, in Die Traumdeutung, suggested that

dream images were caused by multiple aspects (hence, overdetermined) of a dreamer’s life which the

dream images either displaced or condensed (Ben Brewster in Althusser 2005: 252-253).

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contradiction between forces and relations of production. He writes: “we can no longer

talk of the sole, unique power of the general ‘contradiction’” (Ibid.: 100). Contradictions

are “always specified by the historically concrete forms and circumstances in which it

is exercised” and thus “always overdetermined” (Ibid.: 106). This entails that this

contradiction can never manifest itself in its ‘pure’ form. It does not only determine the

other ‘levels’ or instances of the social formation (the State, legal system, political

organizations, religion, etc.) but is equally determined by these instances (Ibid.: 101).

Moreover, it is governed by the historical situation as well: both the internal one (e.g.

the survival of feudal remains, national traditions and customs, etc.) and external ones

(e.g. the competition between capitalist nations, the exigencies of imperialism and

colonialism, etc.) (Ibid.: 106, 112).

In developing this notion of overdetermination, Althusser does a few things. In the

first place, he undermines the economistic interpretation of Marx which accords the

forces of production the privilege of determining history in the last instance (Ibid.: 213).

The “lonely hour of this ‘last instance’,” he writes, “never comes” (Ibid.: 113). In

contrast, historical transformations tend to take place as “a vast accumulation of

‘contradictions’ comes into play in the same court, some of which are radically

heterogeneous […] but which nevertheless ‘merge’ into ruptural unity” (Ibid.: 100). For

instance, the Russian Revolution did not merely occur as a result of the contradiction

between forces and relations of production. Other contradictions (e.g. the conflict

between city and countryside, conflicts within the ruling class) combined with some

exceptional international circumstances (e.g. the Anglo-French bourgeoisie supporting

the Bolsheviks) did as much to make this revolution possible (Ibid.: 95-97). This

theoretical intervention is important as it will allow him (and Balibar) to develop the

concept of the ‘social formation’ (Balibar and Laclau 2010: 93) (see infra). This enables

them to move away from an orthodox Marxism myopically focused on the mode of

production to an enlarged Marxism that studies the relations between economic,

political and ideological practices (see Balibar and Wallerstein 1991: 2-3; Lievens 2007:

243; Deleixhe 2014: 30; Chambers 2014).

Second, the concept of overdetermination also plays a role in the critique of the

Hegelian concept of time. The acceptance of overdetermination is incompatible with

the idea that a historical period is animated by a single internal principle which

expresses itself at once in its different (cultural, political, legal, etc.) elements

(Althusser 2005: 213). In overdetermined social formations unevenness reigns: not only

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between the different levels (ideological, political, economic) of the social formation but

also between different historical temporalities (Ibid.: 205, 212).

To further explain the latter, however, we must move to Reading Capital (1965). In

particular, I want to focus on Althusser’s chapter on historical time. Here, he continues

his critique of Hegel who “consciously proclaims that historical time is merely the

reflection in the continuity of time of the internal essence of the historical totality

incarnating a moment of the development of the concept” (Althusser et al. 2015: 240).

Once more, Althusser attacks the assumption that all elements of a given historical

society immediately express the internal essence of this period. However, this time it

leads to a critique of the Hegelian concept of time.

This concept has two characteristics. First, historical time is represented as a

homogeneous continuity: it is “the continuum in which the dialectical continuity of the

process of the development of the Idea is manifest” (Ibid.). This continuum allows one

to divide historical time into different historical periods that express the different

“moments of the Idea” (Ibid.). The second characteristic is that of the contemporaneity

of time: the idea that at any given moment “all elements of the whole always coexist in

one and the same time” (Ibid.: 241). This entails that one could pick a moment in

history and make an incision (‘coup d’essence’) in the historical fabric “such that all the

elements of the whole revealed by this section are in an immediate relationship with

one another, a relationship that immediately expresses their internal essence” (Ibid.).

Together, these characteristics add up to a teleological concept of historical time in the

sense that economic, political, cultural or religious events can be brought back to or

derived from the “inner essence of the whole” which they – at any given moment in time

– express (Ibid.: 342).

Marxism, Althusser concludes, must discard this concept of history (see Balibar

2007: 193, 196, 201-202). Instead, the different levels of the social formation must each

be assigned “a peculiar time, relatively autonomous and hence relatively independent,

even in its dependence, of the ‘times’ of the other levels” (Ibid.: 247; also Chambers

2014: 147-156; Morfino 2015: 103-105). In other words: Marxism must become a theory

of the conjuncture. In Ben Brewster’s definition, the conjuncture “denotes the exact

balance of forces, state of overdetermination […] of the contradictions at any given

moment to which political tactics must be applied” (Ben Brewster in Althusser 2005:

250). To focus on the conjuncture, Jason Read further specifies, is not the same as

seeking to capture the zeitgeist or spirit of a given present. In fact, it is quite the

opposite: an attempt to come to grips with a historical and political context “riddled

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with contradictions and conflicts that reflect its historical tension” (Read 2004; also

Hewlett 2007: 121; Morfino 2015: 106).

Throughout his oeuvre, Balibar builds on these theses, in particular holding on to

the notion of the conjuncture. In his own contribution to Reading Capital, he already

argues that there is no place for “a line of progress with a logic akin to a destiny” within

the Marxist theory of history (Althusser et. al. 2015: 387; also Balibar 2017b: 100-101).

Later, he will push this idea further as he takes aim not only at teleological

understandings of history but also at a certain image of the ‘structure’ in

‘structuralism’. Taken to its logical conclusion, he argues, the idea of

overdetermination makes it impossible to separate conjuncture from structure. It is no

longer possible to isolate the invariant basis (structure) from surface variations (the

conjunctures) (Balibar 1996: 115). In a later text, adding that “there is no other use of

the category ‘structure’ than forming a concept of the intrinsic complexity of a

conjuncture, a historical ‘actual moment’ where some tendencies are prevalent over

others, and some forces are dominant in a relationship that could become reversed”

(Balibar 2017c: 105; also Morfino 2015: 106).

By insisting on the inseparability of conjuncture and structure, Balibar

accomplishes two things at once. On the one hand, he moves beyond a concept of

structure as immutable, continuously reproducing itself without transforming itself

(Balibar 2004a: 21; also Toscano 2014a: 767). But, on the other hand, he also manages

to alter our conception of the conjuncture: allowing us, as Warren Montag writes, to

think of it “not as the negativity of indeterminacy, as the random encounter of primary

elements that themselves require no further explanation than the positing of their

irreducibility” (Montag 2013: 93). The conjuncture is unpredictable but also structured

by dominant tendencies. It is neither deterministic, nor indeterminate. It is, rather,

subject to processes of determination understood “as the setting of limits and the

exertion of pressures” (Marks 2009: 8).

To be fair, all of this remains rather abstract. How does this notion of the

conjuncture – so central to the philosophy of Balibar – influence his political thinking?

What does it mean to study a concept like modern democratic citizenship in the

conjuncture? In what follows, I will argue that it involves three tenets: (a) that modern

citizenship is non-contemporaneous; (b) that it does not have a telos; and (c) that it

must be studied within a social formation. First, modern citizenship is non-

contemporaneous: the different historical forms of citizenship “succeed or engender one

another [but] do not supplant one another like the stages of a play [;] [they are] all still

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present in a disunified totality, a non-contemporaneity that is the very structure of the

current moment” (Balibar 2014a: 65; also Read 2016: 98-99). Thus, ‘old’ forms of

domination and exclusion continue to persist longer after the declaration of the

universal rights of man. And ‘new’ challenges for the institution of citizenship already

present themselves long before everyone has been formally included in modern

citizenship. The ‘golden age’ of West- and North-European social citizenship (circa

1950-1973) is an interesting example of the non-contemporaneity of modern

citizenship. On the one hand, the most ‘modern’ forms of social citizenship co-existed

with and depended on forms of second-class citizenship for ‘dependent’ housewives and

forms of subjecthood in the peripheries of the world-system. On the other hand, it is

also possible to detect the beginnings of the resistance to an undifferentiated and

universalist model of citizenship as new social movements demanded recognition for

the plurality of cultural identities. In other words: in such a conjuncture, we find that

different historical forms of citizenship exist in uneasy tension.

Second, modern citizenship does not have a telos. History, Balibar writes, “is not

convergence toward some predictable end: it is continuous divergence from any pre-

established orientation” (1996: 116). To understand the full implications of this

position, we should return to a concept quickly introduced above: that of equaliberty.

The core of the founding statements of the French Revolution, Balibar notes, resides

in a double identification: that of man and citizen, and that of (universal) equality and

liberty. The first identification (that all men are citizens), he adds, will only be fulfilled

once the second identification (that of freedom and equality for all) is realized. As long

as this is not the case, as long as we see the persistence of conditions in which people’s

freedoms or equality are suppressed, we cannot truly say that all men are citizens

(Balibar 2014a: 43-49). The question then is if this does not introduce a telos for modern

citizenship. I want to argue that this is not the case.

For one, the proposition of equaliberty is a negative universal. Its truth is proven

negatively: we know that “the (de-facto) historical conditions of freedom are exactly the

same as the (de-facto) historical conditions of equality” because any given historical

situation in which freedoms are suppressed limit equality, and vice versa (Ibid.: 48-

49). We might not know which set of institutions will perfectly realize freedom and

equality for all but we do know that situations in which either of the two are suppressed

are intolerable. In addition, the practical consequences of this statement are

indeterminate as they “depend entirely on relations of forces and their evolution within

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the conjuncture” (Ibid.: 50).12 It is one thing to state the proposition of equaliberty but

the institutionalization of this truth depends on a set of historical circumstances and

relations of power that exist in tension with its hyperbolic nature. In other words: given

the negative and indeterminate character of equaliberty, we have no idea of what its

telos or ideal end-state is.

This lack of telos is also apparent in Balibar’s invocation of the conceptual pairs of

‘the becoming-citizen of the subject and becoming-subject of the citizen’, and

‘democratization and de-democratization’. There is no such thing, he writes, as “a

simplicity, or univocity of democratization, that would allow one to reduce it to a single

process” (m.t.) (Balibar 2016c: 138; also 2012b: 446).13 Instead, modern citizenship is

the unsteady and conflictual equilibrium between processes of democratization or

becoming-citizen (in which the freedom and equality of citizens are increased) and

processes of de-democratization or becoming-subject (in which the opposite happens)

that clash in determinate historical circumstances (Balibar 2018b: 29-30; also 1988:

724; 2001: 211). To give an example: democratic rights “fluctuate considerably […] in

space and time, that is, they are conquered, lost, and reconquered to a greater or lesser

extent” (Balibar 1994a: 210; also 2012d: 303; De France and Verzeroli 2017: 52-53).

These moments of conquest and loss can take place within the same conjuncture as

certain rights are lost around the time that others are won.

However, it is not only that moments of progress are interspersed with moments of

regress, or that the two movements cross each other. Balibar’s claims, I believe, go

further: it is already within certain moments of democratization that we can find

countervailing tendencies. These are, what he calls, antinomies of progress: there are

historical forms of modern citizenship that represent democratic progress but which

“for their part paradoxically prohibit further progression” (Balibar 2014a: cit. 3; 2010b:

8; 2012b: 439). The creation of social citizenship is such an antinomy, at once increasing

the democratic substance of citizenship and locking the claims and goals of the labour

movement into a particularistic national framework that inhibits a further

universalization of citizenship (see infra (3.4.)) (Ibid.: 19).

Third, to study modern citizenship within the conjuncture is to see it as an element

of a social formation. In our discussion of Althusser, we emphasized that the concept

of the social formation was, at least partly, introduced to remedy economistic

12 I want to emphasize that it is the proposition of equaliberty that is indeterminate, not the conjuncture.

The latter is, as we noted above, structured by certain tendencies. 13 (m.t.) stands for ‘my translation’

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tendencies within the Marxist tradition. But the concept can also be used the other

way around: approaches that posit the autonomy of the political or cultural sphere can

be modified as well (Chambers 2014: 51-82). In relation to the study of modern

citizenship this entails that one shouldn’t approach it as a pure political phenomenon

(as a status, or set of rights, duties, or virtues) but with attention to the complex

relations between the political, the economic, and the cultural. I hope that this idea

will become clearer in the next two sections.

3.3. Citizens as Subjects I: Real Universality and Subjection

In the previous section, we established that modern citizenship has no telos but is

rather an unstable equilibrium between processes of democratization and de-

democratization, of subjects becoming citizens and of citizens becoming subjects again.

But this, in itself, does not explain the how or why of these processes. In the current

and following sections, I want to focus on the processes of subjection and de-

democratization. In the earlier section (3.2), we suggested that Balibar operates with

a non-juridical model of power. Under this interpretation, the persistence of subjection

after the break introduced by modern revolutions, can be explained (at least in part)

by the fact that modern forms of domination and subjection are multiple and their

problematic not confinable to the juridical framework of the state.

The concept of ‘real universality’ is one entryway into Balibar’s analysis of these

forms of domination and subjection. Universality, James Ingram argues, is not only a

matter of norms or values but also has an objective sense when it refers to the “brute

fact” of global interdependence (Ingram 2013: 205). The concept of real universality

does exactly this: it stands for “an actual interdependency between the various ‘units’

which, together, build what we call the world” (Balibar 2002a: 147; also 2004a: 101-

103; 2016d: 39). This interdependence has both extensive and intensive aspects: the

outer reaches of the world have by now been discovered, explored and mapped, but

interdependence also intensifies as “more aspects of the life of the constitutive units

are dependent on what other units have been doing in the past, or are currently doing”

(Balibar 2002a: 147). Real universality, Balibar never ceases to stress, is by now a

brute fact in the sense that it has reached a threshold which makes it irreversible; it

is no longer possible to withdraw from this worldwide system.14

14 It is not immediately clear at what point this threshold was reached. On the hand, Balibar admits, we

could say that the modern world-system was globalized from the start. Or, rather, that capitalism was a

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Yet real universality is also a brute fact in another sense: “far from representing a

situation of mutual recognition, it actually coincides with a generalized pattern of

conflicts, hierarchies and exclusion” (Ibid.: 154-155). Historical capitalism is the main

driving force behind this unification of the world as it draws it together by imperial

and colonial conquest, global trade, or both. But in the process, it produces forms of

domination, subjection, exclusion and violence (Balibar 2017d: 933; also Ingram 207;

Arruza 2017: 9). The modern revolutionaries declare that no single person shall be a

subject to transcendent authorities but modern socio-economic processes knit a

worldwide, intricate and uneven mesh of relations of domination and subjection. Real

universality (or capitalist globalization) is therefore at once a realization and

perversion of cosmopolitan utopias: it “achieves the goal which was conceived as ‘the

unification of mankind’, albeit certainly without implementing most of the moral (or

‘humanistic’) values” (Balibar 2002a: 148-149).

Before we explore the specifics of this real universality, however, a disclaimer is in

order. In what follows, we will mainly stress the oppressive nature of the process that

creates the capitalist world-system. Yet, the structures of this world-system “cannot be

considered in each case simple structures of domination [as] [t]hey combine possibility

and impossibility in a confused historical pattern” (Balibar 2011a: 208; also 2004a:

102). The drawing together of the world does not only produce forms of domination, it

also creates new opportunities for a transnational citizenship as political action and

resistance cross the borders of nation states (Balibar 2006a: 42).

But back to the structures of domination: although Balibar’s analysis of the

capitalist world-system is indebted to Marx, he does not accept all of its tenets. For

one, Marx associates capitalism’s world-making abilities with “the establishment of a

single ‘division of labour’ and a process of ‘commodification’ of all social relations,”

which in turn causes “a ‘radical simplification’ of social structures, a withering away of

traditional forms of domination [….] leading to the final antagonism between

individuality and capitalism all over the world” (Balibar 2002a: 149). The spread of the

global market, drawing people all over the world into wage labour and making them

dependent on the global market for consumption, would simultaneously homogenize

the living conditions of wage labourers (both within nations and across the globe) and

force of globalization from the start. On the other hand, he also argues that it became a “structurally

irreversible process only in a determinate political conjuncture” (Balibar 2004a: 103). He highlights three

aspects of this conjuncture: (a) the appearance of multinational corporations that overshadow the power

of most nation-states; (b) the collapse of the Soviet system which ended the division of the world into two

blocs; and (c) the intensification of the technological (a worldwide communications network) and ecological

interconnectedness of the world (Ibid.: 103-105).

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heighten and illuminate the central antagonism of global capitalism: that between

labour and capital. This is not, however, what happened: the “Marxian-Hegelian

schema of growing antagonism between symmetrical forces” is an inaccurate

conceptualization of antagonism in the world-system (Ibid.; also Balibar and

Wallerstein 1991: 163, 167). We see, Cinzia Arruza argues, that a growing

proletarianization takes place, though not quite as Marx in his more optimistic

moments might have expected. People are, indeed, increasingly dependent on

capitalism and the market for survival. But this homogenizing tendency is nonetheless

crossed by an opposite one as global capitalism exploits social differences in the sphere

of production and reproduction (Arruza 2017: 11). Labourers, for one, are not subjected

to the same kinds of exploitation and neither are they exploited to an equal extent.

Balibar’s thought, through its insistence on thinking within the conjuncture, is

attuned to the uneven and differentiated nature of the capitalist world-system. “The

internationalization of capital,” he writes, “has co-existed from the beginning with an

irreducible plurality of strategies of exploitation and domination” (Balibar and

Wallerstein 1991: 176). The “valorization of capital in the world-economy,” he adds,

“implies that practically all historical forms of exploitation should be used

simultaneously, from the most ‘archaic’ (including unpaid child labour as in Moroccan

or Turkish carpet factories) to the most ‘up-to-date’ (including job ‘restructuring’ in the

latest computerized industries), the most violent (including agricultural serfdom in

Brazilian sugar plantations), or the most civilized” (Ibid.: 177).

This explains why, as he argues in a later article, it is so difficult to pin down the

Marxist notion of exploitation, or to provide an unequivocal definition. In the broadest

sense, it refers to a state of affairs where a dominant party draws on someone’s (or a

group of people’s) material, economic or moral resources to his or her own benefit

(Balibar 2018c: 133). Under capitalism, the Marxist argument goes, exploitation takes

the form of the appropriation of surplus-value. What is exploited is the worker’s labour-

power as the capitalist tries to extract as much surplus-labour as possible within the

fixed timeframe of the working day (Ibid.: 133-134; also Roberts 2017: 104-145).

However, this exploitation is not evenly distributed over all labourers. At times,

there is a “local conversion of violence into socially more ‘advanced’ forms of

exploitation – more civilized and possibly more ‘productive’ [; but] this comes at the

price of its displacement and delocalization” (Balibar 2015a: 86). The intensity of

exploitation might diminish in one location (e.g. in the core of the capitalist world-

system) but be maintained or even amplified in other ones (e.g. in sweatshops in

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‘developing’ countries). Or, to give another example: in certain contexts, the ‘normal’

exploitation of skilled labourers depends on the superexploitation (surexploitation) of

‘unskilled’ migrant workers (Balibar and Wallerstein 1991: 224; Balibar 1992a: 52-53).

The boundary between ‘normal’ exploitation and superexploitation is, to be clear,

“impossible to pinpoint” (Balibar 2015a: 85). In capitalism there is after all a constant

tendency towards superexploitation. The capitalist will always attempt to appropriate

more surplus-value, or as much as possible given the balance of power between capital

and labour. Therefore, the temporary stabilization of the boundary between ‘normal’

exploitation and ‘superexploitation’ is the posthumous effect of a balance of power

resulting from class struggles (Balibar and Wallerstein 1991: 177; Balibar 2015a: 85).

The concept of exploitation is not only hard to pin down because the rate of

exploitation is unevenly distributed. It is also equivocal since historical capitalism

necessitates different kinds of labour (and thus also different kinds of exploitation).

Not all forms of exploitation under capitalism take place within the context of wage

labour. In Nancy Fraser’s useful formulation, we should look for more hidden abodes

behind Marx’s hidden abode of production. Marx encourages us to look beyond the

sphere of the market in which equals meet each other to exchange products, towards

the sphere of production where one class of citizens, the wage labourers, is exploited.

However, Fraser notes, the hidden abode of production has its own conditions of

possibility. It depends on the work of social reproduction that is, at least initially,

separated from the sphere of production. No waged work, that is, without the

reproduction (through housework, care work, education or affective labour) of human

beings (Fraser 2014). Marx’s theory, Balibar argues, should thus include “a patriarchic

structure of domination, and a domestic form of exploitation [in its] typology [with] a

historicity and temporality that completely differ from the class structures described

by Marx” (Balibar2018c: 138).

To this increasingly complex taxonomy of types of exploitation, we should add one

more classification: that of superfluous populations. This is a group of people that is

technically speaking not integrated in the world-market but expulsed from it. It

includes those that have become superfluous on the world market and are redundant

from its point of view since they cannot be “productively used or exploited” (Balibar

2001: 128; also 2002a: 142; 2015a: 56). This category should not be mistaken for Marx’s

industrial reserve army: that part of the population that can be drawn in or forced out

of the workforce relative to the state of the economy and the needs of capital. Rather,

it is an absolute surplus population: a population that lives in slums, is homeless and

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living in the streets, or (just as often) in and out of incarceration and therefore – in

crude terms – (treated as) disposable (Balibar 2015a: 69; also Balibar 2016b: 13;

Balibar 2020a: 274; Sassen 2014).

How do these categories help us think about modern citizenship? In the first place,

in Balibar’s own words, it entails that “[l]ess than ever are citizens in modern society

equal in respect of the arduous nature of their everyday lives, their own autonomy or

dependency, the security they enjoy in their lifetime or the dignity they have in death

[and] more than ever these different ‘social’ dimensions of citizenship are coupled with

collective inequality with regard to political power and decision-making” (Balibar and

Wallerstein 1991: 180). But this critique, however justified, does not yet reveal the

internal relation between modern citizenship and domination. What is asserted here,

is that economic processes bring forth conditions in which different groups have a

differential access to a full citizenship. Taken in itself, it seems to me, this critique is

not that different from T.H. Marshall’s to the effect that certain social conditions have

to be met before the ideal of modern citizenship can be realized. Balibar’s claims, I

would argue, go further: the ideals, institutions and representations of modern

citizenship are not simply contradicted by unequal social conditions and relations of

domination but can also help maintain or stabilize relations of domination, or even

produce new relations of domination.

In order to understand this dynamic, we must return to the relation between the

economic, on the one hand, and the political and ideological, on the other. For Balibar,

the economic and the political constantly short-circuit each other: there is no such thing

as a pure logic of class in which positions within the division of labour immediately

determine the construction of political identities (Balibar 2009c: 329). For one, he

argues, there is “no ‘pure’ process of exploitation: there is always some domination

involved” (Balibar 1994a: 140). One cannot simply consume labour power but must also

manage the conflicts produced by the differences between skilled and unskilled

labourers, male and female labourers, resident and migrant workers (Ibid.: 146). The

capitalist division of labour itself is unstable: its internal inequalities bring forth

intense conflicts.

In this sense, we could say that the capitalist division of labour destroys (rather than

constitutes) the stability and unity of societies. Or at least, Balibar adds, they would

do so if it were not the case that “other social practices, which are equally material, but

irreducible to the behavior of homo oeconomicus […] did not set limits to the

imperialism of the relation of production and transform it from within” (Ibid.: 7-8). The

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history of capitalism thus encompasses not only the “simple ‘logic’ of the extended

reproduction of capital,” but also “the reactions of the complex of ‘non-economic’ social

relations, which are the binding agent of a historical collectivity of individuals, to the

de-structuring with which the expansion of the value form threatens them” (Ibid.: 8).

Yet these formulae are still one-sided and thus fall short of the radical implications

of the concept of the conjuncture. The economy, that is, still figures as the principal

moving force in history. However, as Balibar argues, “the determining factor, the cause

is always at work on the other scene – that is, it intervenes through the mediation of

its opposite [:] economic effects never themselves have economic causes, no more than

symbolic effects have symbolic or ideological cause” (Balibar 2004a: 19; also 1995: 160;

2010c: 51). Therefore, all talk of the political or ideological ‘management’ of (intra-

)class conflicts, or ‘non-economic reactions’ to the expansion of the value form, still

undersell the mutual determinations of the economic and political.

The determination of politics by the economy, Jason Read explains, is not unilateral.

Rather “its relations and contradictions require a representation, a simplification of

their unstable meanings into […] a dominant imaginary” (Read 2016: 90). This is why

class, for instance, is neither a pure product of the market, nor of the state but formed

at the intersection of and conflict between the two (Balibar 1999: 40; also 1994a: 138;

2020a: 218, 223). In other words: political positions are not immediate expressions of

the division of labour as the state is itself “by means of institutions, its mediating or

administrative functions, its ideals and discourse” always present in the constitution

of classes (Balibar and Wallerstein 1991: 171). The collective role of politics, the state

and ideology are not reactive or passive – reduced to a ‘mirroring of’ or ‘reacting to’

economic forces – but active. Shifts in political and ideological relations of power shape

classes and therefore also give form to ‘economic’ relations of domination and the

struggles against them (Balibar 2002b: 30; 2016e: 54). This brings us to the concepts

and problems of the next section: those concerning fictive or imaginary universalisms.

3.4. Citizens as Subjects II: Imaginary Universality and Subjection

In the foregoing section, I suggested that real universality (or, the capitalist world-

system) is constitutive of relations of domination. But we also pointed out that these

relations are mediated by politics, ideology and the state. This brings us within the

realm of, what Balibar calls, fictive universals. If we call them fictive or imaginary, and

this should be stressed, we are not saying that they are non-existent, or that they are

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‘ideal’ as opposed to ‘material’. On the contrary, it includes “very effective processes,

above all institutions and representations” (Balibar 2002a: 155). Hence, the fictions that

we will talk about are those fictive constructs that are firmly rooted in reality and have

material effects – the prime examples being the world religions (such as the Christian

church) and the nation state. If we call these universals imaginary, I suggest, we do so

because they are not natural. Neither the nation, nor the Christian community are

natural or organic entities (Balibar 2004a: 17). To address the nation: ‘nations’ or

‘peoples’, Balibar argues, “do not exist naturally any more than ‘races’ do [but] they do

have to institute in real […] time their imaginary unity against other possible unities”

(Balibar and Wallerstein 1991: cit. 49, 96).

This, in turn, might raise the question of what makes fictive universals universal.

If we talk about institutions and representations, aren’t we already in the realm of the

particular? In the first place, Balibar takes the position that the particularizing of the

universal is in some sense inevitable. This process already starts at the enunciation

(l’énonciation) of the universal. Once we determine what we are talking about when

we are talking about the universal – once we determine its properties and finalities –

we have already reduced it to a particular discourse (Balibar 2016a: 43-44; 2017a: 164).

This is certainly the case with political universals: not only must we determine their

content but we also have to give them institutional forms and do so in a determinate

historical and geographical context (Ibid.: 9, 41; also 2012d: 302).

However, this will not quell the aforementioned doubts. If universals are necessarily

particularized, it is no longer clear what distinguishes them from other particulars.

Why is the nation state or the Christian church a fictive universal and, say, a linguistic

community not? What the different fictive universalities share, Balibar argues, is the

aim of transcending primary identities (class, linguistic group, ethnicity) in the name

of a ‘more universal’ identification (e.g. that of the Christian, Muslim, or national

citizen). “The true universalistic element,” he writes, “lies in the internal process of

individualization: virtual deconstruction and reconstruction of primary identities”

(Balibar 2002a: 160; also 2004a: 25-30). It should be noted that this de- and

reconstruction of primary identities, or their transcendence, does not amount to their

elimination. Fictive universals are “pluralistic by nature”: the individuals that it

‘liberates’ are still allowed to practice and inhabit their primary memberships (Balibar

2002a: 157). However, these particular identities are “relativized, and become

mediations for the realization of a superior and more abstract goal” (Ibid.).

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This process of becoming a fictive universal is not without its conflicts. Although we

could say that the nation state has become a dominant fictive universal in the modern

era, it only became so after and through a struggle with the church which, in its own

way, could also lay claim to this ‘title’. Both could offer, as James Ingram notes, a total

worldview including a set of institutions, values, ideals and identities (Ingram 2013:

208). Moreover, both could in their own way claim to encompass and therefore

transcend the other: world religions claim to create peace among nations within a

supra-national religious community, while nation states claim to create peace or

tolerance among religions “in the name of citizenship and legal order” (Balibar 2002a:

159). This clash of claims also explains why even at moments in which the nation state

has become hegemonic, its claim to embody the universal is rarely uncontested. If

secular nation states and world religions clash, Balibar argues, it is therefore more

appropriate to speak of “conflicts among universalisms” (m.t.) than of a conflict

between the secular state as a universal, neutral arbiter and particularistic religions

(Balibar 2012e: 42; also 2014a: 224; Toscano 2014b).

The dominance of a fictive universal, however, is not only determined by changing

relations of power with other fictive universals. Its force is also determined by the

degree to which it succeeds in integrating dominant and dominated groups in a shared

ideological world (Balibar 2002a: 161). What binds these groups, however, is not the

ideology of the ruling class. In this respect, Balibar claims, Marx got it wrong: the

dominant ideas can never be only those of the dominant class (Balibar 2002a: 7, 164).

In “every dominant and thus ‘universal’ ideology,” that is, “should reside a more or less

active kernel of subaltern and dominated values” (m.t.) (Balibar 2016a: 56). If a set of

institutions, norms, values, and identities represents the particular interests of a

dominant class, it won’t find root in and will not be accepted by the masses (Balibar

1993: 12-13). On the contrary, a fictive universal “is effective as a means of integration

[…] because it leads dominated groups to struggle against discrimination or inequality

in the very name of the superior values of the community: the legal and ethical values

of the state itself” (Balibar 2002a: 161). Its capacity to allow for these kinds of internal

conflicts is what strengthens its legitimacy and the authority of its institutions, norms

and values.

It also shows, as James Ingram argues, that fictive universals are at once genuinely

normative and ideological. They are ideological in the sense that they integrate

individuals and groups into a given set of institutions, norms and values that “are

creatures of, and serve the purposes of, a particular order” (Ingram 2013: 208).

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However, fictive universals can, as we just demonstrated, only be “normalizing because

they are normative” (Ibid.: 209). The masses accept them because there is an

emancipatory aspect to them and they allow for the critique of a particular order in the

name of its own principles.

This is where we return to the topic of modern citizenship: modern national

citizenship is perhaps the most successful recent example of a fictive universal. On the

one hand it is, as we will see, ideological in the sense that it tends to reinforce

hierarchies both within the world-system and within nation states. On the other hand,

as James Ingram notes, it is also normative as it is “a genuine achievement for which

generations have struggled, one that opens up indefinite new possibilities for

advancing freedom and equality” (Ibid.: 208). Here, we can pick up where we left of in

the previous section. How do the institutions and representations of modern national

citizenship relate to the hierarchies produced in the capitalist world system? This

relation, we suggested, is not merely one of contradiction: a mismatch between

emancipatory ideals and the realities of hierarchy, domination and exclusion. Neither,

we added, is it simply a reflection of these economic hierarchies. Ideological and

political relations of power shape these economic relations as much as the latter shape

them.

Balibar’s theory concerning the genesis of nation social citizenship can illuminate

the relation between national citizenship (imaginary universality) and the capitalist

world system (real universality). The existence of relations of exploitation and

expulsion, we argued, gives rise to antagonisms. But these antagonisms are

overdetermined by politics and ideology. This entails that class struggles and conflict

often play out as struggles over modern national citizenship. “[C]lasses,” Balibar

writes, “meet as actors upon the social stage and their members meet as subjects – that

is, citizens identified with their convergent or antagonistic roles (for example, as

bearers of mutually incompatible conceptions of the ‘national interest’)” (Balibar

2004a: 21; also 1992a: 161).

In part, Balibar argues, this nationalization of class struggles arose out of a need to

control class struggles. They had to be subjected to a durable notion of the general

interest. Discourses and institutions had to be invented to transform antagonistic class

struggles into less intense conflicts over shared institutions and values in a common

ideological world. National citizenship – both its values and institutions – came to

occupy this place during the 19th and far into the 20th century (Balibar and Wallerstein

1991: 92; Balibar 2004a: 18). It could only do so, however, by becoming rooted in the

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masses. To become universal it had to integrate their demands and values. This is the

process so skilfully captured by T.H. Marshall: the long and tumultuous road towards

the integration of the masses into the institutions of modern citizenship, culminating

in 20th century (national) social citizenship.

For Balibar, however, the achievements of this process are ambiguous, exhibiting

both universalizing tendencies and their opposites. He captures these conflicting

tendencies under the ‘theorem of Machiavelli’. This theorem is inspired by the work of

political scientist Georges Lavau who argued that the role of the communist party and

worker movements in the modern state is comparable to that of the plebeian tribune

in Machiavelli’s writings. This means that it both forced the state to transform itself,

to become more democratic, and allowed the state to partially integrate the masses.

Therefore, the role of this tribunal function (function tribunitienne) is two-faced. On

the one hand, it forces the state to take into account the demands of the masses, and it

introduces the unstable balance of power between classes into the state. But on the

other hand, it “gives class struggles […] the function of reproducing the political unity,

and not of destroying it or even weakening it” (Balibar 2005a: 126). This is the essence

of the theorem: the struggle of the masses can, if channelled, strengthen the political

unity and legitimacy of the state. They do so by forcing the state to introduce

institutional innovations. If this transformation is successful, it ultimately increases

the legitimacy of the state (Ibid.: 126-127; also Lievens 2007: 245; Balibar 2010c: 59-

62).

The national-social state is such an institutional innovation, Balibar argues, and

illustrates the theorem. Social citizenship was granted as a result of class struggles.

The institutionalization of social citizenship also transforms the nature of the state

and the law. It introduces a material element into the constitution because social

rights, their nature and extent, are the object of a constant struggle between labour

and capital and thus (more than civil and political rights) dependent upon an unstable

balance of forces (Balibar 1992a: 157; 2010b: 7; 2015b: 52). However, once it

materializes, the existence of a social citizenship also strengthens and legitimizes the

nation state.

In what sense exactly can we then say that modern citizenship reinforces forms of

domination? First, we should start with what happens to class struggles. Insofar as

they become regulated by the nation state, Balibar argues, class struggles are

displaced. Class struggles are attenuated within the nation state as the masses become

part of a nation which they share with the ruling classes. “The denial of class identity

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and the affirmation of national identity,” Balibar writes, “go hand in hand, at least as

principles of political legitimation” (Balibar 1988: 726). This means that classes

themselves and the inequality among classes continue to exist. The existence of classes

ceases to be a question and other questions, though important in themselves, take its

place (e.g. those concerning the nature and extent of social arrangements such as public

health, education, etc.) (Balibar and Wallerstein 1991: 92; Balibar 2015b: 54).

Second, social citizenship becomes identified with national citizenship. Therefore,

only those belonging to the nation can claim social rights (Balibar 2014a: 157; 2015b:

59). Social citizenship in its national form thus exemplifies the tension between, what

Balibar calls, intensive and extensive universalities. The latter refers to universality

in its all-encompassing sense. The prime example is that of human rights: these rights

are in principle applicable to the whole of humanity. Intensive universalism, on the

other hand, “corresponds to the absence of internal discrimination and the equal

freedom of nationals” (Balibar 2014a: 170). It refers to the elimination of status-based

and social differences between citizens within a polity (Balibar 2014a: 106, 157; 2015b:

7).

These two modalities of universality, Balibar remarks, stand in an uneasy tension:

progress in the realm of intensive universality does not automatically lead to progress

in the realm of extensive universality. It might even signify regress in this respect: as

citizens become more equal within a given community, they might and sometimes do

become more exclusionary towards those outside of it. This dynamic is demonstrated

in the politics of the welfare state, or – in Balibar’s provocative formulation – the social-

national state. The cost of this great reduction in social inequalities is its realization

within a national and thus, in terms of extensive universality, limited frame (Balibar

2002b: 105-106). This is compounded by the existence of a “material correlation

between the development of the nation-form […] and the dominant position occupied

in the world-economy by the nations in the course of formation (Balibar 2004a: 57). The

advance of intensive universality within the nation states in the core of the capitalist

world-system is supported by “relations of unequal exchange and domination” with the

nation states of the periphery (Balibar and Wallerstein 1991: 89; Balibar 2004a: 18).

This explains how citizenship is implicated in, or at the least dependent on, the

domination of citizens in the periphery of the world system. But we miss the elements

to explain how it reinforces hierarchies within nations – how “the condition of

foreignness is projected within a political space […] to create an inadmissible alterity”

(Balibar 2015b: 69). The first element is the relation between the nation state,

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nationalism and racism. Nation states, Balibar argues, cannot exist without

nationalism because “[a]ny structural combination of state institutions and social

forces presupposes an organic ideology” (Balibar 2004a: 23). The constitutional state,

the pure rule of law, lacks an affective drive allowing it to become rooted in the masses.

The ideologies of nationalism, and in particular the idea of belonging to a ‘chosen

nation’, provide such an affective drive (Balibar 1992a: 94; also Lentin 2004: 44;

Lievens 2007: 245). Nationalism thus gives a specific substance to the nation state form

that lacks it (Deleixhe 2014: 37). To go about it a different way: there is no such thing

as a nation state without a people and nationalism is the organic ideology that produces

the people – interpellating each individual subject of the constitutional state as homo

nationalis (Balibar and Wallerstein 1991: 93-94; Balibar 2000: 111).

The step from nationalism to racism is more controversial. The defenders of

nationalism like to think that nationalism as a ‘normal’ ideology can be distinguished

from racism as an ‘excessive’ ideology (Ibid.: 46). Balibar, on the contrary, argues that

while racism is not equally present in all historical forms of nationalism, it “always

represents a necessary tendency in their constitution” (Balibar and Wallerstein 1991:

cit. 48; Balibar 1994a: 194). Racism continues to haunt nationalism because the people

as such does not exist: “[n]o nation possesses an ethnic base naturally” (Ibid.: 96).

Therefore, this ethnic base must be fabricated and continuously reaffirmed (Balibar

1992a: 94, 157). This can be done through the organization and creation of a national

language – the fabrication of a linguistic community through the public schooling

system. But as language is a supple medium, constantly open to changes and

transformations, the nation needs another supplement. It needs a principle of closure

which justifies exclusion from or “at least unequal (‘preferential’) access to particular

goods and rights depending on whether one is a national or a foreigner, or belongs to

the community or not” (Balibar 2004a: 23). Racial identity provides such a principle: it

provides a “schema of genealogy [–] the idea that the filiation of individuals transmits

from generation to generation a substance both biological and spiritual” (Balibar and

Wallerstein 1991: 97-100, cit. 100; also Lentin 2008: 492-493).

Racist excesses emerge in particular out of the impossibility of these processes, out

of their inevitable failures and breakdowns. There are always processes that escape,

frustrate or obstruct the attempt to create the people. Class struggles threaten to

undermine the phantasm of a shared national interest (Balibar 1992a: 164);

immigration and increasing ethno-cultural diversity challenge the fantasy of the

biological and spiritual continuity of the historical nation (Balibar 1992a: 119; also

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Lentin 2004: 44); processes of political and economic globalization make it more

difficult to believe that the nation is autarkical (Balibar 2014a: 205; 2013b). Yet, rather

than loosening its grip, these challenges bring about an intensification of nationalism

and its racist undercurrent.

The crisis of the national-social state illustrates how these processes come together.

The trans-nationalization of economics and the increasing dominance of finance capital

put a strain on the social compact between labour and capital, threatening the

institution of national-social citizenship. This, in turn, leads to a weakening of the

national-social state which is caught in a vicious circle, failing both to assert its control

over a global economy and to control internal struggles as the social compact breaks

down. It is a this point that the dark side of national-social citizenship surfaces: to

reassure the citizenry, the importance of national belonging must be affirmed. Internal

antagonisms, that is, must be displaced onto an antagonism towards non-nationals.

The nation state itself takes a leading, active role in this process. Balibar calls this

phenomenon the ‘impotence of the omnipotent’ (l’impuissance de Tout-puissant). In

order to hide its relative lack of power in the capitalist world-system, its inability to

control global flows of capital, the nation-state must exercise a visible force over the

immigrant population thus ‘proving’ that it can control its borders (Balibar 2002b: 109-

113; 2004a: 36; 2016d: 14; Lievens 2007: 246-247). “[N]ational citizens can be

persuaded that their rights do in fact exist,” Balibar writes, “if they see that the rights

of foreigners are inferior, precarious, or conditioned on repeated manifestations of

allegiance” (Balibar 2004a: 36). In other words: the creation of a differentiated social

citizenship, in which migrant workers lack certain political or social rights, is proposed

as a ‘solution’ to the crisis of the national-social state.

The nationalization of modern citizenship, however, is not the sole reason for the

persistence of its internal hierarchies. Though the creation of a European citizenship

makes the institution of modern citizenship more universal in certain respects (e.g.

granting the right to free movement of persons to European citizens), it does not

automatically create an undifferentiated citizenship. In fact, in its current form,

European citizenship tends not towards the overcoming but rather the reproduction of

national citizenship’s mechanisms of exclusion and domination (Balibar 2002a: 40-55;

2006b: 4; also Mezzadra 2006). Ideas of ‘Europeanness’, for instance, operate –

similarly to those of ‘national belonging’ – as principles of exclusion (Balibar 2001a: 43-

44; Lentin 2008; also Balibar 2009d: 4-9). Thus, Balibar writes, “European citizenship

is presented as the mechanism that includes some of the populations historically

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present in the space of the community while rejecting others” (Balibar 2004a: 171).

Those perceived as strangers are treated as second-class citizens “whose residence and

activities are the object of particular surveillance” (Ibid.).

Recognizing that citizenship is differentiated along the lines of belonging and

nonbelonging, however, does not yet account for all of the ways in which it has been

and still is divided internally. In terms of its official creed, modern citizenship is

internally opposed to distinctions of status: all citizens within a given community share

the same de jure status. However, Balibar writes, status distinctions are always

reintroduced in modern citizenship, “not only externally […] but also internally”

(Balibar 2002a: 114; also 1992a: 113). Here, we should move to the issue of

anthropological differences (see supra (4.2)). It covers Balibar’s unsettling two-step

argument that, one, the political declaration of universal rights and the (social and

scientific) project of classifying human beings are the movements characteristic of

political modernity; and that, two, these schemes affect each other in practice, however

opposed they might seem in theory (Balibar 2017a: 13, 275-276).

This thesis, he argues, has a weak and a strong version. The weak one involves the

idea that “universalism was used in a Machiavellian way to cover up and implement

racist policies” (Balibar 1994a: 195). Under this interpretation, racist, sexist, or classist

ideologies, practices and institutions need to be given a patina of universalist

legitimacy. In this version: universalism and the hierarchizing of mankind are

externally linked in the sense that the relation depends on strategic considerations.

The strong version of the argument, on the other hand, interrogates “the notions of

universalism, universality, or universal with respect to their internal constitutions and

their implications” (my emphasis) (Ibid.). Under this version, the relation between

universalism and hierarchies becomes internal (Balibar 2016a: 142-143; Balibar

2020b: 2).

Balibar subscribes to this latter, strong version, examining the relations between

bourgeois civic universalism and its internal exclusions (Balibar 2017a: 281). His

analysis is rooted in Marx’s critique of bourgeois civic universalism and Foucault’s

work on the ‘empirico-transcendental doublet’ (Balibar 2012a: 209n3; 2015d: 62-69;

2016a: 160). He borrows from them the idea that the citizen, the central figure of this

universalism, is an amalgam of “on the one side, the formal deduction of his egalitarian

essence; on the other, the historical description of all the ‘natural’ characteristics […]

that form either the condition or the obstacle to individuals identifying themselves in

practice as being subjects of this type” (Balibar 2017a: 39). The modern citizen, in order

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to become truly universal, must become a man without qualities but is in reality a

determinate human being (e.g. the bourgeois) who imagines that his or her qualities

and social conditions are those of mankind in the abstract (Balibar 2017a: 277).

There are, however, not only ‘natural’ characteristics that support access to

universal citizenship but also ones that form obstacles to it. This is where the concept

of anthropological differences comes in. Not all differences that can be observed among

human beings deserve this name. It only encompasses, Balibar writes, “certain specific

differences, which [,] in the modern era, serve as the pre-eminent means of ‘governing’

the humanity of men (l’humanité des hommes) and their unequal access to citizenship”

(m.t.) (Balibar 2016a: 147). Hence, an anthropological difference “in the strong sense

is a difference whose naturalization universally creates a relationship of domination or

exclusion” (Balibar 2020b: 5).

These differences have two other characteristics: they cannot be escaped and they

cannot be located (Balibar 2017d: 930). Sexual differences, racial differences, and the

difference between the normal and the abnormal are some of the main anthropological

differences of the modern era (Ibid.; also 2014a: 128, 2015b: 15, 80; 2017a: 282). What

makes these differences inescapable is the fact that, throughout the modern era, they

have been the main dividing lines traversing the definitions of mankind (Balibar

2020b: 5-6). Anthropological differences at once cross mankind by setting up internal

borders (e.g. between the male and the female) and purport to tell us something about

the nature of mankind (e.g. that humans are sexed). However, they are also

unlocatable: the line or boundary that they are supposed to establish is impossible to

draw. Thus, we can try to draw a hard line between men and women, normal

sexualities and abnormal ones, or between ‘races’, but such attempts will always fail.

There are always persons that identify, behave, or orient themselves in ways that

unsettle these boundaries (Balibar 2016a: 149).

Bourgeois civic universalism, Balibar argues, has an equivocal relationship with

these anthropological differences. On the one hand, “anthropological differences are

[…] disqualified as justifications for discrimination at the level of the fundamental

rights of ‘human beings’ (first or last among them […] that of access to citizenship)”

(Balibar 2017a: 15). On the other hand, they are “disqualifying as privileged means of

legitimizing the internal segregations and exclusion that take citizenship (that is, full

and entire, or ‘active’ citizenship) away from a sector of human beings who are formally

‘equal by rights’” (Ibid.).

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Officially, these differences are disavowed. This is most apparent in the developed

forms of difference-blind liberalism that state that all humans are formally equal. But

in practice, bourgeois civic universalism had and has a tendency to make use of

anthropological differences to organize society in a hierarchical manner. First, by

naturalizing them: concealing their indeterminate or unlocatable character. Sexual

differences, for instance, become natural ones and their boundaries become rigid. It

then inscribes them in social institutions such as schools, prisons, hospitals, the

borders, the family “which typically institute inequalities within the framework of

formal equality” (Balibar 2017d: 931; also 2014a: 123; 2016a: 22-25; 2017a: 224-225).

The key to this relationship, the link between these two ‘moments’, is personhood.

In order to become a full citizen under civic bourgeois universalism, a certain threshold

of (autonomous) personhood must be met (Mezzadra 2007: 44). One of the earlier

instances of this mechanism can be found in Kant’s philosophy of right: “to become an

active citizen, it […] does not suffice to be a party to a contract: it is also necessary to

have the ‘properties’ which are the equivalent of a nature” (Balibar 2000: 111). In short:

one must become a certain kind of person, have certain kinds of properties, in order to

become a full citizen.

Charles W. Mills has shown how this requirement then allows for a slippage

between Kant’s universalist political philosophy and his theorization of racism found

in his Anthropology (1789). It is true, he argues, that according to the former works,

all persons are entitled to equal citizenship. But the catch is that, according to the

latter not all people have full personhood. Personhood is normed: specific norms (such

as whiteness and masculinity) have to be met to achieve full personhood (Mills 2017:

92). There are people who do not meet these norms, are considered sub-human, and

therefore seen as incapable of going through the process of moral maturation that

precedes the acquisition of personhood (Ibid.: 99). This does not entail that they are

considered to be non-persons, it means that they are considered lesser persons (Ibid.:

107; also Balibar 2017a: 15). Exclusion from full personhood, then leads to a denial of

access to certain, and sometimes most, of the powers and capacities attached to the

status of modern citizenship (Balibar 2016a: 25).

Now, one could ask to what extent this link persists as the internal barriers to the

legal status of citizenship are gradually torn down throughout the twentieth century.

For those citizens not excluded from the full set of rights of citizens but still no full

citizens, Balibar uses the concept of internal exclusion (Balibar 2005b: 31-32; 2008:

529-531; 2014a: 159, 237; 2015b: 62-65). He uses it in particular to account for the

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difficult relation that rioting youths in the banlieues have toward their French

Republican citizenship. Technically, he argues, we cannot say that they are excluded

from the status of citizenship. They have the same civil, political and social rights as

other French citizens. Still, given the discriminations they are subjected to, it is also

hard to maintain that they are full citizens. We should thus shift our attention from

the formal characteristics of citizenship – ‘having rights’ – to more informal ones –

‘exercising the powers entailed by having rights’ and ‘having rights respected’ (Balibar

2015b: 65, 74; also Pfeifer 2020). If the channels of democratic participation in

representative institutions or civil society are blocked for these people, if their civil

rights are regularly infringed by police, or if they are structurally excluded from the

job market, we can say that they are not full citizens.

To explain these forms of internal exclusion, it is possible to build upon the above

scheme. Internal exclusion can be explained by the need to have access to full

citizenship in rights and capacities depend on certain norms of full personhood (see

Balibar 2016a: 143). To repeat: “[t]he determination of norms of conduct or behaviour

[is] the hidden face of citizenship” (Balibar 2014a: cit. 124, 126; 2017a: 34). Norms,

however, are always accompanied by their inverse: deviations from these norms

(Balibar 2014a: 39; 2015b: 72-74; 2016a: 143; 2017a: 298). The dominant norms that

subtend citizenship are the “universal reference point in relation to which ‘differences’

[…] are identified, classified and hierarchized depending on whether or not they can

contribute to the reproduction of a particular kind of community” (m.t.) (Balibar 2016a:

31).

Just as deviation from such norms can determine a lack of access to certain rights,

it can also lead to a lack of access to all of the powers and capacities that a full

citizenship entails. Balibar describes this process as follows:

“Race (along with culture, religion, etc.), sex and sexuality, illness, and more

generally the pathological, the criminal personality, or simplemindedness,

either separately or in conjunction with one another, make certain individuals

both human and less than human; and, marked as such, they become objects

of care, protection, redress, surveillance, punishment, and isolation, that are

gathered up and banished from public space […] and barred from the array of

educations, professions, exchanges, associations, and communities which

constitute citizenship in the ‘material’ sense” (Balibar 2017a: 297; also 2012a:

224).

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To conclude: we should repeat that these internal exclusions are for Balibar not

simply a betrayal of the universalist aspirations of modern citizenship. Precisely

because access to full citizenship depends on a model of the human and is subtended

by certain norms, it inevitably produces deviations from these norms. In this sense,

Balibar admits that his theory of political universalism, and thus also modern

citizenship, is marked by a certain pessimism. Not in the sense that all the attempts

to give an institutional form to it produce oppression and exclusion to the same extent.

(Otherwise, progress would be impossible.) But rather, in the sense, that all attempts

will at some point contradict themselves in the inevitable production of oppression and

exclusion (Balibar and Laclau 2010: 93-94; Balibar 2016a: 30).

*

Before we move on to the next sections, which will concern themselves with the

emancipatory aspect of modern citizenship, we should take stock of our arguments.

The aim of the foregoing sections (3.2.-3.4.) was to show how Balibar undermines the

myth of full citizenship. According to Balibar, modern citizenship produces its own

subordinate and non-citizenships. Generally, political theorists are well aware of the

latter process: it is a given that the delineation of a citizenry produces forms of non-

citizenship. However, the link between modern citizenship and the production of

subordinate citizenships is less well understood (see 2.1.). In doing so, Balibar’s critique

of modern citizenship displays some similarities to those of Tully and Young. For one,

he similarly argues that modern citizenship tends to produce a distinction between

active and passive citizens. Likewise, he notes how modern citizenship’s universalism

is internally linked to the production of norms that regulate unequal access to all of

the powers and capacities that are attached to a full and active citizenship.

Nonetheless, his framework is also distinct. The most crucial difference is the fact

(to be discussed in the following section) that he rejects the idea that modern

citizenship can be reduced to a form of domination. However, I argue that also his

critique of modern citizenship is more intricate. In particular, I want to single out two

features: one, his attentiveness to the manner in which the economical, and the

political and symbolical short-circuit each other; and two, the fact that his notion of

subordinate citizenship allows for differing degrees of subjection and is more dynamic.

To start with the first: Tully and Young pay little attention to the interactions

between the economic and the political. To be clear: they are alert to the fact that

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economic inequalities translate to an unequal access to the powers of citizenship.

However, they pay little attention to the way in which the political and symbolic are

short-circuited by the economic and vice versa. Balibar’s astute analysis of national-

social citizenship is a good example of the advantages of such an approach. It shows

how certain norms (in this case that of ‘national belonging’) both respond to economic

shifts and, in turn, exercise an influence on the manner in which economic conflicts

play out.

Second, I would argue that Balibar’s notion of subordinate citizenship is also more

varied and dynamic. If political theorists allow for a status in between full citizenship

and non-citizenship, they often add a notion of second-class citizenship (e.g. Young

1989: 250). However, not all second-class citizens are the same: there are different

degrees of second-class citizenship. Take Jeffrey Green’s argument (at the end of 2.1.)

that most ordinary citizens today are second-class citizens. This argument is, I believe,

enlightening. However, this structure of secondariness, as Green calls it, does not apply

to all of these citizens to the same degree: a white working class citizen might indeed

lack access to certain powers and capacities are attached to a full citizenship, but a

non-white, unemployed inhabitant of a ghetto or banlieue will suffer greater obstacles.

To include them in the same category of second-class citizens will illuminate some

aspects of their place in the polity but will also occlude others.

Balibar’s idea that different (groups of) people enjoy different kinds of access to the

powers accruing to a full citizenship is, in this respect, more intricate. In the table

below, I try to give some schematic form to this idea: a certain combination of one’s role

in the social division of labour and one’s relation to dominant norms can determine the

access that one has to the powers and capacities of a full citizenship. As Balibar writes,

“in a political society like ours, there exists tendentially a representation of the

hypernormal, which would arise from the combination in one […] personal type, of all

the ‘dominant’ functions and qualities that result from subordinating others” (Balibar

2020b: 6). One’s distance from this ‘personal type’, then determines the likelihood of a

person’s exclusion from elements of citizenship or subordinate position within the

community of citizens.

Of course, this scheme is still too simplistic. For one: as we argued in section 3.3.,

there are inequalities of power between those groups are in a subordinate position in

the social division of labour (e.g. between immigrant workers and national workers, or

productive and reproductive labour). Second, whether or not one meets a norm is

subject to historical changes and is also a matter of degree. Consider the norms of

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‘Europeanness’: as Balibar argues, the parameters for who is seen as excluded from

this norm and seen as ‘foreign’ or ‘non-European’ despite being European citizens,

changes throughout history. But intra-European differences, what Balibar calls “a

‘self-racization’ of Europe,” also exist. Not all European national identities are equally

‘European’ (Balibar 2002a: 44).

Real Universality Imaginary Universality

Dominant Role in Social

Division of Labour

Examples: owners of means of

production

Norm (Dominant)

Examples: masculinity,

whiteness, nationality,

Europeanness, etcetera.

Subordinate Role in Social

Division of Labour

Examples: labourers, immigrant

labourers, housewives, etcetera.

Norm (Subordinate)

Examples: femininity, the ‘good

immigrant’, etcetera.

Expulsion from Social Division

of Labour

Examples: informal labourers,

the permanently unemployed,

the homeless, etcetera.

Deviation from Norm

Examples: non-binary persons,

the ‘bad immigrant’, the criminal,

etcetera.

Table 1

3.5. Insurgent Citizenship I: Ideal Universality and the Right to Politics

Until now, we have stressed the darker aspects of modern citizenship. In the following

sections, we will see that modern citizenship is paradoxically also that which allows

for the contestation of forms of domination. Though he agrees, Balibar acknowledges,

in different respects with the critics of political universalism (such as Judith Butler),

he cannot simply reduce universalism to an instance of domination (Balibar 2016a: 18).

Balibar, Slavoj Žižek once suggested, is “the anti-Habermasian Habermasian, in so far

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as he accepts universality as the ultimate horizon of politics, but none the less focuses

on the inherent split in the universal itself […] between the concretely structured

universal order and the infinite/unconditional universal demands of égaliberté which

threatens to undermine it” (Žižek 2008: 201). This brings us to a third type of

universality: ideal or symbolic universality. It is a type of universality that exists in

excess of existing socio-political relations of power. And it does so in the name of a

repeated insurrection against all forms of domination (Balibar 2002a: 163-164; 2014b:

10; 2016a: 14).

In section (3.3) we noted that the central ideal of modern citizenship, the proposition

of equaliberty, is negative and indeterminate. This entails, as we saw, that its political

realization, the attempt to give it an institutional form, is always imperfect and will

necessarily fall short of its promise. However, there is also another side to this

indeterminacy. The “indetermination of the citizen,” Balibar writes, “also manifests

itself as the opening of a possibility: the possibility for any given realization of the

citizen to be placed in question and destroyed by a struggle for equality and thus for

civil rights” (Balibar 2017a: 37). Equaliberty has this quality “because it introduces the

notion of the unconditional into the realm of politics” (Balibar 2002a: 165). It does not

have a determinate content but comes to life as a repeated refutation of its own

negations. Therefore, it has no fixed essence but inheres in concrete struggles to abolish

or fight both discriminations and coercion (Balibar 2002a: 166-167). Hence, the

recurrent failures of and practical limits to its realization, actually form its animating

force, rather than annulling it (Balibar 2016a: 140; 2017a: 302).

The latter already allows us to answer questions concerning the grounding of this

universality. It is grounded “not in an essence but in the contingency of insurrection”

(m.t.) (Balibar 2016a: 141). It cannot be grounded in an essential, universally shared

characteristic of human beings (Balibar 2014a: 36, 42-43, 45). Neither, he argues, is

there an original disposition to respect the proposition of equaliberty. As history shows,

those in power never give up their privileges voluntarily (Balibar 2014a: 5; 2015b: 32;

also Read 2017: 120). Equaliberty is thus groundless, or at least it is so in the sense

that it has not stable or fixed foundation. Instead, it is ‘grounded’ in concrete political

practices and thus has a “historically contingent and aleatory character” (Balibar

2014a: 168).

To explain this further we should start with the French Déclaration which, Balibar

writes, was a “material discursive event” (Balibar 1994b: 102). It is a discursive event

as the original formulations of equaliberty are written texts with a certain autonomy

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from the context in which they were formulated (Ibid.). But there is also a double

material component. First, these declarations are not mere figments of the

imagination. They have an effectivity of their own which allows them “to set in motion

the process of the rearticulation of actual socioeconomic relations” (Žižek 2008: 232).

Second, the capacity to have material effects depends on its rootedness in concrete

practices. There is no equaliberty without the collective actions of non-, semi-, and full

citizens that pursue this ideal and seek to make it into a material reality. For instance,

although rights to equality and liberty generally belong to individuals, they are always

won by collectives. Using a technical philosophical term coined by Gilbert Simondon,

Balibar argues that equaliberty has a transindividual character (Balibar 2002a: 166;

2002b: 28; 2015b: 43).15 In this context, this means that while ideal universality

emancipates individuals it can only do so by being grounded in collective processes of

“the abolition of both coercion and discrimination” (Ibid.: 166). Consider the case of

rights: rights emancipate individuals but they must be won through collective action

and only remain effective to the extent that they are kept alive through collective

processes and practices (Balibar 2002b: 28).

We should, however, say more about the relation between equaliberty and

insurrection. There is no natural disposition to respect equaliberty, we argued. This

entails that, time and again, it must be won through struggle. When subjection persists

or arises again, the subjected must rise up in order to make sure that the declaration

of equality and liberty for all becomes more than a string of words. For this reason,

there is an intimate relation between equaliberty and the right to politics. The side of

modern citizenship that consists in demanding an end to coercion and discrimination,

cannot exist without this right which is “distinct from this or that already existing right

which is guaranteed by law” (Ibid.: 166-167). Other rights (or any emancipatory or

15 Besides this short reference, we will not be able to provide a more extensive analysis of this concept

within the context of this thesis. In short: the concept of the transindividual arises out of an attempt to

think politics neither exclusively through the individual (as a certain kind of liberalism does) nor

exclusively through society or the community (as a certain kind of communitarianism does). Instead, it

seeks to develop a political ontology that foregrounds both their mutual implication and irreducibility.

The concept would then allow us to understand how collective identities such as those of the nation also

include a moment of individuation. National citizenship is, after all, not reducible to the immersion of the

individual in the collective, but also emancipates the individual from his immersion in primary collectives.

But the concept equally allows us to understand that the individual is constituted through social relations.

Liberalism would have us believe that there are individuals with a right to self-ownership first and

foremost, who can then engage in all kinds of social relations (e.g. trade). The transindividual perspective

would, on the other hand, show that this form of individuality is already immersed in and constituted by

social relations, if only for the fact that rights to self-ownership must be recognized by others. For Balibar’s

own reflections on the concept, the reader can turn to his articles on Spinoza and transindividuality

collected in (1998: 76-98; 2018: 199-336) and to his reflections on Marx’s social ontology in (2017b: 123-

158). For a more extensive reflection on the potential of this concept, we can also recommend Jason Read’s

excellent work on the topic (Read 2016; 2017).

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transformational politics for that matter) cannot come into being without the

activation of a person’s right to become an agent of politics, if necessary in opposition

to the state (Balibar 1994a: 212-213).

There are, however, different ways in which we can understand the nature of this

right. Broadly, we can discern two influences in Balibar’s work: Hannah Arendt’s right

to rights; and the right to resistance. The first concept finds its origin in Arendt’s

analysis of statelessness in The Origins of Totalitarianism. Here, she famously points

out the cruel irony that human rights are doomed to fail in protecting those which are

most in need of them – the stateless. The destruction of the communities to which they

belong, at the same time deprives them of the institutions that protect their human

rights. Once they are no longer citizens, people are also deprived of their human rights

(Arendt 1976 [1951]: 290-302). From this follows, what Balibar calls, Arendt’s theorem:

“rights are not properties or qualities that individuals each possess on their own, but

qualities that individuals confer on one another as soon as they institute a ‘common

world’” (Balibar 2014a: 171).

In turn, this leads Arendt to argue that the principal right that individuals have is

the “right to have rights” (Arendt 1976: 296). This invocation, Ayten Gündoğdu writes,

brings forth as much confusion as debate. It starts from the failure of the main

historical foundation of rights: human nature. Rights have often been grounded in

human nature but the crisis of statelessness shows that one’s humanity means little

in the absence of political institutions willing to assure these rights. We must thus

assume that the only possible guarantor of rights is a political community which gives

them institutional form (Gündoğdu 2015: 168).

However, the main question for us is whether this brings Arendt in line with the

conservative critics of the abstractions of rights-discourse (e.g. Burke). There is indeed

a limited interpretation of the right to have rights that restricts it to a right to belong

to a political community or to have a some institution enforce one’s rights (Ingram

2008: 403-405). However, the deeper problem is that we cannot assume that political

institutions and rights neatly converge. There is, Gündoğdu writes, after all an

“inescapable tension between rights and institution [which arises] when institutions

turn against rights either by failing to respond effectively to new demands of equality

and freedom, or by undermining or violating the rights that they are supposed to

uphold” (Gündoğdu 2015: 43). Therefore, another, more radical interpretation of the

right to have rights is in order.

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Given the failure of the two former options, the right to have rights aims to locate a

new ‘foundation’. But Arendt’s readers rightfully ask where it might then be found.

Gündoğdu argues we should look for this grounding in contingent political practices

(Ibid.: 165). This is where Balibar also picks up: Arendt, he argues, acknowledges the

antinomic nature of rights. It consists in the fact that only political institutions can

guarantee them but are also paradoxically one of its main threats (Balibar 2014a: 173).

The only solution to this antinomy is to embrace it. We must understand this right to

have rights as the right of non-, semi-, and full citizens to make rights claims against

the political institutions that protect their rights but also never cease to fail them

(Balibar 2008: 530). In this respect, James Ingram argues, Balibar draws the opposite

conclusion to Arendt’s: the latter saw the conjunction of man and citizen in the French

Declaration as dangerous in the sense that it explains how the loss of one’s citizenship

can lead to the loss of one’s human rights; the former sees an opportunity: here, the

identification of man and citizen opens out to a universal right to politics that enables

that a “rights claim can potentially be made by anyone, anywhere, anytime” (Ingram

2008: 411-413). Under this interpretation, the right to have rights refers to the “the

possibility of not being excluded from the right to fight for one’s rights” (Balibar 2015b:

66).16

This is where Balibar establishes the connection between the right to have rights

and Arendt’s On Civil Disobedience. In this essay, she argues that the American

version of the social contract includes the insight that obedience to political institutions

and the preservation of their authority is predicated on the possibility of disobedience

(Arendt 1969: 84-88). Because political institutions are historical entities, there exists

a recurring risk of their corruption. Therefore, the authority of political institutions

depends on the possibility of disobedience. Of course, Arendt argues, there is such a

thing as a social contract, but “there exist a great number of circumstances that may

cause a promise to be broken” (Ibid.: 93). These circumstances include the (manifold

forms of the) corruption of political institutions but also include the failure of the

“normal channels of change,” the fact that “grievances will not be heard or acted upon”

(Ibid.: 74, 93). Disobedience, Balibar writes, therefore becomes “the ultimate recourse

16 This identification of the man and the citizen also has the consequence of undermining the distinction

between human rights and civil rights (Balibar 2014a: 44-47). According to Balibar, the two cannot really

be distinguished: “human rights are not really different from civic rights (or ‘Rights of Man’ from the

‘Rights of the Citizens’, to return to the 18th century formulation that circulated between the American

and the French Revolution” (Balibar 2013c: 18). Both, he argues, are in essence without foundation and

depend of a practice of demanding rights – i.e. an insurgent citizenship. It is in this sense, that Balibar

doubts that there is a “substantial difference between the politics of human rights of, say, Toussaint

Louverture and that of Martin Luther King” (Ibid.).

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in the face of the ambivalence of the state” (Balibar 2014a: 175-178, 283-284, cit. 178;

also Bromberg 2018: 235).

In contrast to Arendt, who preferred the American Revolution over the French one,

Balibar discovers a similar dynamic in the French Déclaration. The driver of this

dynamic is the right of resistance (droit de résistance à l’oppression) which is contained

in its second article. Given the tendency towards the return of subjection within

modern citizenship, this right is perhaps the most important of rights. Not merely

because rights can always be retracted or ignored by those in power, but also because

the plasticity of domination requires us to periodically invent and demand new rights

(Balibar 2002b: 28; Balibar 2015b: 18). It is, at the same time, also a strange right: one

that cannot strictly speaking be anchored in or circumscribed by positive law. On this,

it seems, conservatives and radicals agree: the former because they believe a political

order cannot allow for resistance to its own operations and the latter because they

believe the institutionalization of this right would amount to its pacification (Balibar

2014a: 307n15).

Balibar interprets the right of resistance, like he does the right to have rights, in an

expansive sense. The right to resistance can be limited in different ways: it might be

limited to resistance against external oppressors; it might be backward-looking in the

sense that it is limited to the restoration of a former community or the reinstatement

of the rule of law; and it might be limited to resistance to one’s own oppression. Balibar

strays from all these interpretations. First, it is “not only exerted against an external

oppressor but also and above all against internal abuses of power” (Balibar 2017a: 260).

In other words, it installs a permanent counter-power in the heart of the democratic

polity (2002b: 30). In line with Arendt, Balibar argues that the possibility to resist, to

refuse, to say no, is essential to democratic life. Not only as a permanent correction to

the likelihood of power’s corruption but also to prevent power from becoming “the mere

property of those who exercise it or the expression of governmental or administrative

routine” (Balibar 2014a: 284). Therefore, the activation of a right to resistance

counteracts the tendency towards the governmental and administrative enclosure of

the citizenry’s capacity for democratic action.

Second, Balibar also refuses two backward-looking interpretations of this right. On

the one hand, there is a reactionary interpretation, popular in the United States, that

legitimates its exercise on the condition that it leads to the restoration of an original

or prior state of the community (Kirkpatrick 2008: 17-38). On the other hand, there is

a more liberal interpretation that legitimates resistance in cases where the rule of law

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is at risk. Balibar departs from both of these understandings. In response to the first,

he maintains that the horizon of resistance must always be “a community to come”

(Balibar 2014a: 292). Not a past or present community but a future one which “must

be invented and imposed” (Ibid.: 289-292). Resistance starts from the failure of past

and present communities and consequently aims at the construction of a new one which

is as of yet still missing. In response to the second understanding, he points to the

“finitude of the juridical order, which can only derive validity from a praxis that itself

takes forms which cannot be prescribed” (Ibid.: 265). It take this to mean that the right

to resistance cannot always aim to reinstate a former juridical order, because the latter

is itself finite and thus fallible. Therefore, it “remains impossible to provide an

unequivocal foundation for […] equal liberty, at the properly juridical level” (Balibar

2004b: 318). This might be the case because legal orders are often out of step with

political and social transformations. But their limits are also internal, as Hans Lindahl

argues, in the sense that there always exist behaviours that are strange (or, alegal in

Lindahls words) in the sense that they are unintelligible from the point of view of the

legal order and therefore expose its internal limits (Lindahl 2013: 13-43).

This stance becomes explicit in his writings on civil disobedience (e.g. Balibar 2014a:

284). For Balibar, Robin Celikates argues, civil disobedience cannot be reduced to the

contestation of infringements on the rule of law. It is expanded into an “anti-oligarchic

politics of insurrection” against “the usurpation or enclosure of democratic self-

determination by either private enterprises, or state and administration” (m.t.)

(Celikates 2010: 74). This can and does of course include a politics of resisting civil

rights infringements but might also involve struggles against the failures and

unresponsiveness of the institutions of democratic will-formation, or the invocation of

new rights formerly unacknowledged.

Third, this right can also be extended to the oppression suffered by others (Balibar

2002b: 20). In fact, some of Balibar’s central essays on the right to resistance are

written in this mode: either as calls to resists the oppression and discrimination of

sans-papiers (Balibar 2002b: 17- 25), or as a set of reflections on the French waves of

insubordination against their government’s war on Algerian independence (Balibar

2017a: 256-272). Balibar, hence, subscribes to “an old internationalist principle

according to which a people that oppresses another cannot itself be a free people”

(Balibar 2014a: 293). Just like it cannot be restricted to a fixed juridical order, the right

to resistance and the fictive universality which is invoked when people resist, cannot

be restricted to a national frame.

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3.6. Insurgent Citizenship II: Between Emancipation and Transformation

The right to politics – encompassing the right to rights and the right to resistance – is

central to Balibar’s conception of modern citizenship. The only probable and acceptable

grounding of fictive universality is to be found in the autonomous struggles of citizens,

in an insurgent citizenship. Neither freedom, nor equality can be granted; they must

be won. Given the tenacity of domination and exclusion, however, this work is never

finished. Modern citizenship is therefore “always ‘in the making’” (m.t.) (Balibar 2001a:

211). This also entails that this making of modern citizenship, its democratization or

universalization, depends on a permanent practice of insurrection (Balibar 2008: 528).

No universalization, that is, takes place without conflict and struggle (Balibar 2012b:

438; 2015b: 32).

In this respect, his theory of democratic citizenship is similar to that of political

theorists such as Jacques Rancière, Miguel Abensour, or Sheldon Wolin (Balibar 2008:

526-528; 2012b: 446; also Ingram 2015: 211; Rodd 2018: 318-321). The main thing these

thinkers share, is a conception of democracy that is irreducible to a political regime or

a fixed set of institutions. They focus on the process of democratization in which

insurgent citizens struggle against domination and exclusion (Balibar 2008: 526). In

construing democracy as a permanent process and highlighting the role of recurring

insurrections, they also stray from a certain interpretation of the revolutionary

traditions. Rather than putting their hopes in a capital-R Revolution, they emphasize

the necessity of insurgent moments. There “is no such thing as absolute universalities

or emancipations,” Balibar argues, “but only finite or limited moments of insurrection”

(Balibar 2010b: 8; 2015b: 44).

Nevertheless, there is also an important difference between Balibar and the other

insurgent democrats. More than the latter, he is attuned to the importance of

institutions. He recognizes the need for the institutionalization of the demands made

by insurgent citizens. Every moment of insurrection will be followed by a moment of

constitution (Celikates 2010: 60-65; Ingram 2015: 220).17 For instance, in response to

Rancière’s invocation of the insurgent actions of those without a share in the polis (la

part des sans-part), he remarks that “the institutional dimension of democracy […]

17 This distinction works better in the cases of Rancière and Wolin, than it does for Abensour. The former

indeed pay little attention to the institutionalization of democracy and favour democracy’s fugitive

moments. The latter, however, was in search of a way to integrate insurgency and institution (e.g.

Abensour 2002: 722).

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cannot be left aside because equality also has to be written in institutions” (Balibar

2008: 526; 2015b: 3). This is wholly in line with his thinking on fictive universalities:

however absolute, excessive, or unconditional they are, there will always necessarily

follow a moment of their institutionalization.

This leads to a different vision on the notion of democratization. The history of the

democratization of democratic citizenship is not only that of fugitive moments of

democratic action but “can only be presented as a constant dialectical movement”

(Balibar 2015b: 36). This movement includes moments of insurrection as “a

constitution of citizenship […] is threatened and destabilized, perhaps even

delegitimised” (Ibid.: 37). However, these moments of insurrection are not completely

independent from the political institutions against which they arise. Like we noted in

our discussion of Machiavelli’s theorem (3.4), even fierce conflicts can lead to the

reproduction of existing political institutions. Sometimes, as the theorem tells us, it is

precisely by transforming institutions that their reproduction is made possible.

This close relation between insurrection and institution has led to what is perhaps

the most persistent line of critique aimed at Balibar. The literary scholar Bruce

Robbins recalls the following exchange: “Alain Badiou informed […] Balibar that he,

Balibar, was a reformist. ‘And you, monsieur,’ Balibar replied, ‘are a theologian’”

(Robbins 2013). First of all, Robbins adds, this portrayal describes Balibar’s style better

than it does the content of his writings: “his irresistible attraction to parentheses and

qualifications makes his philosophical writing sound reformist” (Ibid.). Nonetheless, it

is true that Balibar, to a greater extent than some of his left-wing colleagues such as

Badiou or Toni Negri, believes that the existing political institutions are “legitimate

enough to be worth making demands on” (Ibid.). In other words: it might be true that,

as Mark G.E. Kelly argues, Balibar has a predilection for the road in between, on the

one hand, reforms that leave the status quo intact and, on the other, revolutions

understood as the pure negation of the status quo (Kelly 2017: 896; also Hewlett 2007:

126, 139-140).

The reason for his wariness of this particular understanding of revolutions, I

suggest, has to do with his lifelong project of “thinking Marxism without its god-terms”

(Robbins 2013). In particular, Balibar sheds critical light on the concept of the

proletariat in Marx’s writings. In some of these texts, the proletariat is presented as a

messianic figure, the advent of which will herald not merely the end of the status quo

but the abolition of the socio-political order and the dissolution of world as it exists

(Balibar 2017a: 146, 154). The problem with this kind of discourse is that it supposes

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that the proletariat can be the unitary subject of history. It cannot however fulfil this

role as the proletariat “never coincides with itself” (Balibar 1994a: 147; also 1992a:

193). The proletariat, the revolutionary subject, never manages to coincide wholly with

the masses, the concrete form in which classes exist throughout history. This is the

lesson Marx learned in his Eighteenth Brumaire, as he tracks the blocked passage – so

central to his revolutionary politics – from ‘class in itself’ to ‘class for itself’ (Ibid.: 144-

145; also Ota 2015: 20). This does not entail, however, that it there is no such thing as

revolutionary class subjectivity. It exists but does so as an “always a partial effect”

(Ibid.: 147). Its political conditions must be sought in the conjuncture where

“heterogeneous masses” are (momentarily) transformed into a working class (Balibar

and Wallerstein 1991: 162; also 2011b: 7).18

Balibar’s sympathetic criticisms of Michael Hardt and Toni Negri, showcase this

position. He praises them for their original reformulation of the notion of productive

forces (through concepts such as the multitude and the common). But also scrutinizes

the eschatological undercurrent of their revolutionary scheme in which the

socialization of immaterial and biopolitical productive forces gives way to a communist

exodus from capitalism (Curcio and Özselçuk 2010: 318; Balibar 2013a: 29; 2015b: 110).

What’s missing here, Balibar argues, is a politics able to deal with the inevitable

obstacles to this tendency. First, in the sense that there are countertendencies to the

ones that Hardt and Negri emphasize and these lead not towards the growing

autonomy of these productive forces but towards an increase in their disciplining

(Balibar 2013a: 31). But also, second, in the sense that they underestimate the

challenges that anthropological differences pose to the political unification of the

multitude. There is, Balibar writes, a “diversity of struggles, emancipatory values,

collective agencies of which the social producer, however important, is only one”

(Balibar in Curcio and Özselçuk 2010: 324; also Balibar and Wallerstein 1991: 181;

Balibar 2012c: 25; Balibar 2020a: 237-245).

In turn, Balibar has come under critique on account of his divergences from the

Marxist tradition. For instance, Nick Hewlett and Svenja Bromberg argue that the

Marx of Capital does not figure (enough) in Balibar’s political writings. Both claim that

his more recent writings on politics and citizenship, most of which postdate his earlier

works on Marx, fail to “problematize the questions of production and exploitation”

(Bromberg 2018: 242; Hewlett 2007: 126-127). It seems to me that whether or not these

18 On the question of the ‘masses’ in Balibar’s oeuvre, I can refer to Yusuke Ota’s in excellent study:

Philosophie des Masses: Étude sur la Pensée Politique d’Étienne Balibar (Ota 2015).

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claims are credible depends on how we interpret them. If we take them literally, that

is, they are hard to justify. Not only has Balibar unceasingly engaged with these

questions (see (4.3.)). But he has even increased this engagement in more recent essays

that track our recent transition towards an ‘absolute’ capitalism in which social

relations and other formerly non-commodified aspects of life are subsumed under

capital (Balibar 2016b; 2018c; 2019a; 2019b; 2020a: 272-277).

However, there is also a second way to go about this question. This line of enquiry

asks not whether Balibar engages with questions of production and exploitation, but to

what extent his political writings – such as those on insurgent citizenship – form a

proper response to them. It asks: In which of its forms is insurgent citizenship up to the

task of confronting persistent types of domination? These are the questions that I will

attempt to answer throughout the rest of this thesis. It means that we have to confront

the possibility that, as Stathis Kouvelakis writes, “one can restate ‘égaliberté’ and

‘citizenship’ as often as one likes, but one will never thereby obtain the ‘transformation

of the relations of production,’ ‘seizure of power,’ ‘abolition of wage labour, of the

market, and of classes,” or the ‘withering away of the state’.” (Kouvelakis 2005: 718).

It means, that is, that there are certain stubborn forms of domination (which include

the ones summed up by Kouvelakis, but also extending to patriarchal and racist

domination) which are able to persist in the face of insurgent citizenship, or at least in

the face of some of its forms.

This being said, it is also true that Balibar has himself considered these questions

and left us with some concepts to deal with them. First, we turn to his Three Concepts

of Politics. Here, he distinguishes three ways of doing politics but also – and more

important for our purposes – highlights their respective limits. In light of the objections

outlined above, it pays to focus on the first two of these concepts: the politics of

emancipation and the politics of transformation.

If we say that insurgent citizenship coincides with the politics of emancipation, we

are saying that citizens exercise their right to politics by fighting for their rights, or

demanding rights in the face of their exclusion from full citizenship. The “whole history

of emancipation,” Balibar writes, is that of “the real struggle to enjoy rights which

have already been declared [and hence] the battle against the denial of citizenship is

indeed the vital heart of the politics of emancipation” (2002a: 2-8, cit. 6). It manifests

itself as “a conflict in which an exclusion from recognition, or dignity, or rights, or

property, or security, or speech, or decision-making, is ‘negated’ in a relationship of

forces” (Balibar 2010b: 4). To use a formula we introduced at the beginning of section

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(2.1): in this mode of insurgent citizenship, political actors fight to expand citizenship’s

circle of belonging (Bosniak 2006: 29).

This is the kind of politics, the modality of insurgent citizenship, that Balibar’s

critics put into question. The battle against exclusion from citizenship is important but

it does not always put an end to persistent forms of domination. The de jure equality

of women or non-white people (formerly excluded from citizenship), to give an example,

has not been able to fully abolish patriarchal or racist domination.

However, this is an ambiguity that Balibar partly recognizes. The problem with the

politics of emancipation, he contends, is that it can turn protest into legitimation. Since

the excluded demand their inclusion into full citizenship in the name of principles

upheld by the established order, they also unwittingly legitimize the latter. They

appeal “not to something heterogeneous to that order, but to identical principles” (Ibid.:

7-8). In this way, the dominated “find themselves deprived of a language of [their] own,

dispossessed of the possibility to break discursively with the dominant universality”

(m.t.) (Balibar 2016a: 57).

Confronted with the limits to emancipation, he suggests that we need another kind

of politics which “confronts such ambivalences” (Balibar 2002a: 8). The politics of

transformation is this alternative. To be clear: the mode of transformation shares

common ground with the emancipatory mode of politics. Both exercise an

“insurrectional principle” and share an “ethics […] of self-emancipation” (Balibar

2014a: 118). Regarding the first: neither emancipation, nor transformation can get off

the ground without the exercise of the right to politics, the right to contest one’s

domination. Second, what binds emancipation and transformation is that neither can

be granted by those in power. One cannot, James Ingram writes, “free people ‘from

above’” (Ingram 2015: 218). This, I would argue, is their common ground, the reason

why they can both be seen as modalities of insurgent citizenship.

However, rather than confronting the established order with the principles it

upholds, the politics of transformation seeks to transform “society or social relations,

if not the world” (Balibar 2014a: 112). Under this modality, insurgent citizenship looks

different. It is no longer a matter of demanding inclusion within the community of

citizens or expanding its circle of belonging. Rather, the transformative mode of

insurgent citizenship changes the institution of citizenship itself through a

transformation of its ‘non-political’ conditions (Balibar 2002a: 11). The question that

resides at the heart of this politics of transformation is that of “the relationship

between politics and the transformation of historical ‘conditions’ or ‘structures’ […]

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external to the institution of the political sphere” (Ibid.). To be clear: these structures

are not only economic. This also includes “relations of gender domination [,] intellectual

and cultural relations of domination” (Ibid.).

3.6.1. Emancipation and Transformation I: On the Question of Orientation

Nonetheless, I believe we have not fully answered the question of what truly

distinguishes transformation from emancipation. It is perfectly possible, after all, that

emancipation leads to shifts in these ‘non-political’ relations. To give a few examples:

the struggle waged by black slaves for the abolition of slavery and the recognition of

their civil rights in the US also had a transformative effect on an economy based on

the slave status. Similarly: the extension of the right to vote to formerly excluded

groups cannot but have some impact on such ‘non-political’ relations. What

distinguishes a transformative politics then?

In contrast to the politics of emancipation, transformation works from within such

structures by acting on their contradictions: it “attempts to gain a purchase [on their

contradictions] from the inside” (my emphasis) (Balibar 2002a: 11). Transformation is

only possible because these structures change due to their inner contradictions. For

instance: the capitalist structure of society, Balibar writes, “cannot but change”(Ibid.:

12; also 2019a: 39). It must do so because of its contradictions. For one: as Nancy Fraser

argues, capitalism depends on non-waged social-reproductive work (such as housework

and the caring for and raising of children) but its “orientation to unlimited

accumulation tends to destabilize the very processes of social reproduction on which it

relies” (Fraser 2016: 100). In order to deal with these contradictions, to ensure its

reproduction, capitalism must change. Think of the different transitions capitalism

goes through in response to its historical crises. How, for instance, the shift to a state-

managed welfare capitalism attempted to mediate the contradictions between the

necessity of care and reproduction, on the one hand, and the orientation to unlimited

accumulation, on the other (Fraser and Jaeggi 2018: 83-84)

The politics of transformation, Balibar argues, intervenes in the changes that such

a structure goes through, accelerating some tendencies and countering others, thus

changing the manner in which the structure is changing. In his own words: the politics

of transformation should be seen as “change within change, or the differentiation of

change” (Balibar 2002a: 12). In doing this, the politics of transformation pursues the

reinforcement of those “social practice[s] that [are] incompatible with the ‘system’”

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(Balibar 1996: 118). In this regard, the politics of transformation is unlike an abstract

utopian politics: instead, it is “the politics of the ‘Diesseits’” (Balibar 2002a: 8; also

Balibar 2020a: 292-293). Rather than projecting another world onto the future, it looks

for tendencies and normative resources within this world which allow for its

transformation.

3.6.2. Emancipation and Transformation II: On the Question of Identity

This practice of transformation does not only act upon ‘objective’ or ‘external’ social

conditions, the “transformation of institutions, structures, and relationships of power,”

it should also include “the work citizens perform upon themselves in a given historical

situation” (Balibar 2015b: 129). Citizens who want to democratize their citizenship,

Balibar adds, do not only need to overcome external obstacles but also ‘internal’ or

subjective ones (Ibid.).

Yet again, it is initially difficult to distinguish the modes of emancipation and

transformation along this axis. The different political actors that have fought against

their exclusion from citizenship also had to struggle to overcome such internal or

subjective obstacles. For one, to exercise their right to politics, they had to overcome

their interiorized inferiority complex. Moreover, in the moment one is granted access

to an element of modern citizenship one was excluded from, a further transformation

takes place. Your relation to political actors that were already included in the

citizenship circle changes. If workers win the rights to organize or to vote, this changes

their relation to their bosses and therefore their respective self-identities.

Nonetheless, I would argue that with respect to this question, there is a difference

of degree between the modes of emancipation and transformation (also see Hewlett

2007: 120). Ultimately, the politics of emancipation only requires a limited

transformation of one’s identity. One can demand inclusion into the circle of citizenship

– by demanding rights or recognition – all the while holding on to your identity. For

instance: as Wendy Brown notes, either one demands formal rights that are universal

and neutral, in which case your specific identity or position in society doesn’t matter;

or you can demand group specific rights but these will reify our identity. To explain the

latter with reference to women’s rights: “the more highly specified rights are as rights

for women, the more likely they are […] to encode a definition of women premised on

our subordination” (Brown 2002: 422-423, cit. 422). The same can be said about the

struggle for recognition: the demand for recognition is, as Patchen Markell notes, a

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“matter of rightly or wrongly cognizing and respecting an already-existing identity”

(m.e.) (Markell 2003: 59).

In the politics of transformation, on the other hand, the subordinated do not only

politicize their identity, they also transform it, or at least those aspects of it that are

implicated in their domination. In doing so, it is not only their identity that is

transformed but also that of the dominant party. How this works will become clearer

in the chapter on Fanon (see chapter 7). In the work of the latter, Balibar points out,

we discover not only “a rage of colour” – the rage of someone excluded because of the

colour of their skin – but also “a rage against color” – the rage against the very fact

that mankind is divided along a ‘colour-line’ (Balibar 2017a: 285). Therefore, Fanon

does not seek inclusion for black men like him into the circle of mankind. Rather, he

calls for a “qualitative shift, one that alters the species concept” (Ng 2017: 128). The

aim of Fanon’s politics of transformation is the creation of a new mankind, where the

race – or the unequal division of humanity on the basis of one’s skin colour – would no

longer exist.

3.6.3. Emancipation and Transformation III: On the Question of Boundaries

The third aspect that must be highlighted are the differing attitudes towards the

boundaries that separate the different spheres of modern society, and in particular the

political sphere from others. To engage in a transformative politics is to “transgress

the limits of the recognized – and artificially separated – political sphere” (Balibar

2002a: 11).

Here, Nancy Fraser’s conceptual distinction between defensive, affirmative and

transformative boundary struggles is helpful. Political struggles, she argues, often take

the form of struggles to define and determine the boundaries that separate the

different domains of society. In the case of defensive boundary struggles, political actors

are content with the way that these boundaries are drawn. However, if they feel that

these boundaries are shifting – if, for instance, they see that one sphere is encroaching

on another – they might struggle to re-establish these borders (Fraser in Fraser and

Jaeggi 2018: 174). Critiques of and struggles against marketization often take this

form: the idea being that some sphere of life (e.g. care, friendship or health) should not

become subject to market forces.

In the case of affirmative boundary struggles, “proponents assume that a given

institutional boundary should exist in more or less its present form, while insisting

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that it is currently situated in a wrong place” (Ibid.). One could, for instance, think that

the public-private distinction should continue to exist in its current form but also

believe that some private issues are actually of public importance. For instance:

through decennia of labour struggles, issues or problems that belonged to the private

sphere were pushed into the public sphere (e.g. social security).

Finally, for those engaged in transformative boundary struggles “the problem is not

just the boundary’s location but its very existence, its character, or the process by which

and by whom it was drawn” (Ibid.). Examples of such struggles include the radical

commons-movement (see chapter 5): by turning reproductive and productive work into

the object of political struggles and democratic self-government, radical commoners

fundamentally retrace the boundaries separating the political from the domestic and

economic sphere. However, there are also less savoury examples: think of the fascist

governments that “sought to instrumentalize reproduction in ways that were at once

deeply transformative of established boundaries and utterly regressive” (Ibid.: 176).

I believe that what Balibar calls a politics of transformation shares characteristics

with this last category of boundary struggles in a way that the mode of emancipation

does not (see Balibar 2020a: 291). In the emancipatory mode, political actors might

introduce elements from a ‘non-political’ sphere into the political one, shifting the

boundary between these spheres. But they do not fundamentally challenge these

boundaries (also see Ingram 2015: 220-221). On the other hand, the politics of

transformation, as I understand it, does challenge the boundaries between the non-

political spheres and the political sphere.

However, it is important to point out that we cannot immediately conflate Balibar

and Fraser’s conceptual distinctions. Fraser, for one, makes it clear that the notion of

transformative boundary struggles is analytical rather than normative. To say that

some political practice is a transformative boundary struggle is not to say that it is

desirable or emancipatory. In some cases, like fascist boundary struggles, it will be

reactionary. For Balibar, on the other hand, the notion of transformation already has

a positive connotation in the sense that it is a mode of insurgent citizenship and

therefore part of the struggle against domination. But this leaves the question

regarding the normative ground of such a transformative politics open.

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3.6.4. Emancipation and Transformation IV: On the Questions of Norms

As we noted in the previous section, the last remaining problem is that the normative

ground of a transformative politics is not immediately clear in Balibar’s writings. That

is to say, Balibar seems to suggest that the politics of transformation should not

necessarily be understood as the application of the ideal of equaliberty in a ‘non-

political’ domain. Rather: it is through a politics of transformation that this ideal itself

is transformed: such practices open “onto a new interpretation of the proposition of

equaliberty” (Balibar 2014a: 121; also Bromberg 2018: 18).

In order to fine-tune the distinction between the modes of emancipation and

transformation around this axis, I again want to make a comparison to a neighbouring

conceptual distinction. I believe that Seyla Benhabib’s differentiation between the

politics of fulfilment and the politics of transfiguration allows us to point to the

differing normative orientations of emancipation and transformation.

The politics of fulfilment, she writes, “continues the universalist promise of

bourgeois revolutions”; the politics of transfiguration “emphasizes the emergence of

qualitatively new needs, social relations, and modes of association” (Benhabib 1986:

13). Fulfilment and transfiguration thus involve differing orientations towards the

democratic revolutions. The first, Benhabib argues, seeks to realize “the implicit but

frustrated potential of the present” (Ibid.: 41). The ideals of the bourgeois revolutions

promise some things, equality and liberty, that are as of yet not fully realized.

Transfiguration, on the other hand, pursues a “radical and qualitative break with some

aspects of the present” (Ibid.: 41-42). It seeks, Benhabib adds, to transform the norms

of bourgeois democratic revolutions rather than to fulfil or realize them in the present.

Adom Getachew’s trenchant reconstruction of the Haitian Revolution, applying

Benhabib’s conceptual distinction, illustrates these differences. Often, the Haitian

revolution has been interpreted through a realization- or fulfilment-narrative. “In

these accounts,” Getachew writes, “subaltern actors are immanent critics who take up

existing ideals, point out the hypocrisies that undermine them, and thereby fulfil their

universal intent” (Getachew 2016: 822). Political universals are proclaimed in the

centre of the world-system (France), then travel to the peripheries (Haiti) where

colonial subjects refer to them in their resistance against their exclusion from these

universals. In this narrative, the Haitian Revolution is seen as “a radical project of

inclusion [within the realm of citizenship] that is made possible by realizing and

extending the rights of man” (Ibid.).

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However, Getachew notes, this interpretation is blind to the fact that the French

universalist ideals were thoroughly transformed during the Haitian Revolution. The

idea that the French Déclaration was both its condition of possibility and its ultimate

horizon obscures the actions of the slaves. By construing these actions as the

application of French universals, it fails to see “how political practices themselves

inaugurate ideals” (Ibid.: cit. 823, 826). The Haitian declaration, Getachew notes,

arrived, in contrast to the French and American ones, after the fact (Ibid.: 831).

Consequently, the fulfilment narrative presents us with a limited account of the

Haitian Revolution.

In contrast, Getachew argues that we need a different analysis which focuses on the

Haitian slaves’ efforts to transform economic, social, and political structures of

domination: “the master–slave relationship of the plantation economy, the racial

hierarchy [and] the relationship between the geo-political entities of metropole and

colony” (Ibid.: 828). Indeed, the Haitian slaves did not primarily seek to be included

within the realm of citizenship. Rather, Massimiliano Tomba writes, the slaves

“practiced dis-belonging to that order by opening up new political and social

configurations” (Tomba 2019: 20). The revolutionaries did so through an attack on

racial categories and hierarchies, and white ownership of Haitian land (Getachew

2016: 834-835). However, this practice should not be reduced to its negative features:

the slaves did not merely resist structures of domination, we can also discern nascent

efforts to construct new social relations and modes of association. For example: the

Haitian peasants envisioned new systems of property ownership and communal self-

government (Getachew 2016: 828, 838; Tomba 2019: 22).

This distinction between fulfilment and transfiguration helps us elucidate one

aspect of the distinction between emancipation and transformation. It points to

differing attitudes towards the (bourgeois) democratic revolutions. Emancipation is

similar to the politics of fulfilment in that it seeks to bring the bourgeois democratic

revolutions to completion. Transfiguration and transformation, on the other hand,

maintain a more ambiguous relationship with these revolutions. However, in the work

of Benhabib it is not immediately clear what the nature of this relation is. There is, I

would argue, an equivocalness in her definitions: at times she suggests that

transfiguration ushers in a break with these revolutions; but she also argues that it

transforms the norms of these democratic revolutions. The difference between these

two is that an act of transformation, as I understand it, cannot constitute a pure break

because it always finds something worth preserving in what it transforms.

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To clarify the latter, it pays to consult Rahel Jaeggi’s examination of immanent

transformative criticism. This kind of criticism should be distinguished from internal

criticism which criticizes reality referring to “norms (values or ideals) that it

understands as shared, more or less explicit basic beliefs of a community” (Jaeggi 2018:

199). If a community expresses support for the values of equality and liberty for all and

at the same time belies these values (e.g. by excluding women from citizenship), one

can refer to these norms to contest this discrepancy. This is a form of internal criticism.

For immanent transformative criticism matters are more complex: here, “[i]t is not

a contingent matter that these standards are not satisfied; rather, they are marked by

a systematic problem” (m.e.) (Ibid.: 190). Jaeggi gives the example of Marx’s critique of

the values of the democratic revolutions under capitalism. One can show that

capitalism insofar as it constitutes forms of domination is at variance with the values

of liberty and equality but the deeper problem is that these norms themselves are

constitutive of the domination. They are, after all, are not merely values that one

declares but are also sustained by socio-political institutions like labour-markets,

representative government, etc.

The object of immanent transformative criticism are therefore not discrepancies

between norms and reality but the social formations in which these norms that are

central to social life are systematically betrayed.19 To return to Marx: the values of the

democratic revolutions – equality and liberty – are central to the capitalist social

formation but the institutions in which these values are instantiated at the same time

systematically undermine them (e.g. Marx 1973: 248-249). Therefore, Jaeggi writes,

the problem is not simply that social reality betrays these values but that “insofar as

they are realized, these norms give rise to effects that are directed against the content

of the norms themselves” (Ibid.: 196-201, cit. 201).

Confronted with such a tension, two types of criticism are possible and these give

way to differing remedies. Either, we say that the problem is that these institutions

fail to function according to the norms that inhere in them. In this case, we should

attempt to reform these institution until they start to function according to these

norms. A good example of this approach is Axel Honneth’s critical theory of the market.

The market, Honneth argues, “relies upon the moral consent of the participants”

(Honneth 2014: 184). To be more precise: the market can only function if its

participants see it as a sphere in which social freedom is realized, which happens when

there is a broad acceptance of the norm “that exchange processes must contribute to

19 I want to emphasize that Jaegghi’s use of the concept ‘social formation’ differs from Balibar’s.

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the complementary realization of individual aims” (Ibid. 192). In case that this norm

is no longer realized by markets (e.g. workforce casualization) we can argue that they

are no longer legitimate. Our task is then to reform markets so that they are able to

realize these norms (e.g. introduce legal measures to guarantee minimum wage and

job security) (Ibid.: 253).

However, it is also possible that the tension between a norm and an institutional

arrangement is insoluble. This is the kind of tension that immanent transformative

criticism tries to highlight. It could, after all, be that market institutions do not just

contingently fail to realize equality and liberty but necessarily do so (Fraser in Fraser

and Jaeggi 2018: 123). In this case, criticism does not aim to “restore a prior harmony

between norm and reality that is lost, but instead seeks to transform a contradictory

and crisis-riven situation into something new” (Jaeggi 2018: 203).

I believe we can try translate these ideas back into the language of Balibar. The

transformation of égaliberté is sparked when dominated subjects contest a historical

institutionalization of it, not only because they are excluded from it or subjected

through it. But because the social formation in which it is institutionalized, and the

manner in which it is institutionalized (e.g. the location of boundaries between social

spheres) blocks the remediation of this domination. To remain with Jaeggi’s example:

if égaliberté is realized in such a way that the public and the private sphere are strictly

separated, then forms of domination that arise within the workplace can never be

completely abolished through this particular figure of citizenship. Here, citizens might

have to reorganize (or transform) their socio-economic life. If this transformation is

successful, the ideal of égaliberté itself emerges as transformed.

3.7. Conclusion

In the foregoing sections I distinguished two modalities of insurgent citizenship:

emancipation and transformation. One last question must be addressed: how should

we understand the nature of this distinction? Balibar gives us a few notes. First, he

argues that “[e]ach supposes the others in the space and historical time of ‘life’”

(Balibar 2002a: 35).20 In other words: it would be a mistake to isolate one of these

modalities and turn it into the ‘truth’ or ‘whole’ of insurgent citizenship.

20 The word ‘others’ plural in this quote is not a typo. In the essay, Balibar also distinguishes a third

concept of politics: that of civility. We will tackle this is in chapters 8 and 9.

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In a second moment, he also warns that “there is no sense in trying to turn these

complex presuppositions into a system, or arrange them in some invariant order”; to

turn such a system into “a representation of the political” (Ibid.; also 2014a: 144); or to

“derive them logically […] from some superior essence of the political” (2015a: xii).

These additions, I belief, are important: it tells us not to ontologize the distinction that

we just made. Balibar regularly refers to the historical fact that the theorists and actors

of the politics of transformation, despite their critique of the limits of emancipation,

never ceased to refer to and appropriate its principles. Both Marx and Engels, despite

being theorists of the politics of transformation and critics of bourgeois universality,

would regularly appropriate the language of rights and citizenship (Balibar 1997: cit.

165, 161-165; 2018d: 540-541).

Even more so, Svenja Bromberg notes, Balibar insists on the fact that the politics

of transformation cannot “go beyond ‘political emancipation’” since it cannot undo itself

from the “endless theoretical and practical contradictions and antinomies that play out

in the struggle around citizenship” (Bromberg 2018: 250). One can attempt to realize

a communist world in which the exploitation of one class by another no longer exists,

but this does not liberate us from the kind of antinomies of citizenship as outlined

above (Balibar 1997: 164-165).

Thus, in the messy world of social struggles, elements of both modes will be in play.

Nonetheless, I do believe that we should hold onto this distinction as an analytical

distinction (see table 2, p. 110). If we analyse their different orientations (their aims,

attitude towards social spheres, relation to the democratic revolutions), this could help

us make sense of real world struggles. That is, it could help us make sense of the

conflicting aims, strategies, and ideas that are caught up in the struggles against

domination but also of possible alignments.

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Table 2

Mode of

Emancipation

Mode of Transformation

Common

Ground

The Right to Resistance

Self-Emancipation

Concept of

Politics

Politics as autonomous

domain

Politics as acting from within the ‘non-

political’ conditions of politics (e.g.

economic or symbolic structures)

Politics as a transformation of societal

boundaries

The End(s) of

Politics

Expanding the circle of

citizenship

Emergence of new social relations that

transform the institution of citizenship

Insurrection

Against …

Exclusion on the basis of

social roles

Structures of domination and the social

roles that exist within them

Normative

Logic

Fulfilling the norms of

the democratic

revolutions

Transformation of the norms of

democratic revolutions

Forms The demand for

subjective rights or

recognition

Experiments in historical context

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First Transition: An Antinomy of Progress

As noted in the introduction (B.ii.), I will build on this analytical distinction but will

also attempt to push this framework to its limits by investigating the tensions between

the two modalities. In particular, I will show that the pursuit of emancipation might

block the politics of transformation. In order to do this, I borrow another one of

Balibar’s concepts: that of ‘antinomies of progress’. To reiterate: this concept is reserved

for those figures of citizenship that represent “democratic progress, even with certain

limits, which for their part paradoxically prohibit further progression” (Balibar 2014a:

3). I apply this idea to examine the tension between the politics of emancipation and

that of transformation. In the following chapters, I intend to give a more concrete idea

of what the politics of emancipation (chapters four and six) and the politics of

transformation (chapters five and seven) look like. More precisely, I try to reveal how

two instances of the politics of emancipation, those of the struggle for rights and

recognition, might obstruct practices of transformation.

Before I do so, a few nuances and additions are in order. First, I will not argue that

the struggle for rights or the struggle for recognition are bad. Though I will argue that

their relation to forms of domination is more complex than is sometimes assumed, this

does not mean that these are argument against rights or against recognition. Second,

this entails that I also do not argue that all instances of the struggle for rights or the

struggle for recognition obstruct the politics of transformation. To give one example:

the struggle for the civil and political rights, or their defence in the face of growing

authoritarianism can be a condition of possibility for the politics of transformation.

What I do want to establish, is that it is important to develop a better understanding

of the possible conflicts between these modalities. To put it negatively: I would like to

get to a point where we understand when not to demand rights of recognition, or how

to deal with the perversions of these kinds of politics. In this sense, I remain faithfull

to a recurring idea in Balibar’s oeuvre: that a politics must “also be a politics of the

second order or a ‘politics of politics’ […] reflecting the consequences of its insurrections

and resisting the modalities of its perversions” (Balibar 2013c: 20; Balibar 2020a: 294-

298).

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Part Two: Insurgent Citizenship as Struggle for Rights?

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4. Limits to the Politics of Demanding Subjective Rights:

Reading Marx after Lefort

4.1. Introduction

Modern citizenship knows many forms but one can also distinguish a few constants.

The most prominent of these constants is that all forms of modern citizenship have a

juridico-political aspect. To be a modern citizen is to have access to universal rights.

These rights cannot be denied to you on the basis of class, gender or race (or, for that

matter, any other particular characteristic). Therefore, it is this juridico-political

aspect that is most commonly associated with the emancipatory side of citizenship. To

have rights is to be emancipated.

Nonetheless, three critiques have often been levelled against rights. First, there is

the assertion that rights-talk (and specifically, liberal rights discourse) is formalistic

and abstracts from structural forms of domination (Marion Young 1989; Brown 1995:

96-134). Second, there is the claim that rights are based on a liberal political

anthropology. In this sense, rights are taken to promote a specific view (atomist,

abstract, yet gendered and racialized) of what it means to be a human being (Douzinas

2000: 235-245; Tully 2008: 249-267). And third, rights-talk is seen as depoliticizing:

when rights are seen as ahistorical moral imperatives, we overlook the contested

character of rights, the possibility of conflicts between rights and their implication in

structures of power (Geuss 2001: 146-152).

In response to these critiques, a literature on the political nature and contestability

of rights has emerged. Against the critique of formalism, they raise the argument that,

instead of being an insurmountable problem, the gap between the abstract ideal of

universal rights and the reality of existing forms of domination gives rise to a politics

of claims-making. And against the critiques of the liberal anthropology of rights and

their moralism, they claim that excluded or dominated subjects can contest the

interpretation and application of rights and, in a same movement, transform the

political anthropology underlying rights-discourse (Baynes 2000; Ingram 2006; Colliot-

Thélène 2011; Lacroix 2013; Ingram 2013; Balibar 2013c; Balibar 2014a: 99-134;

Aitchison 2019). Rights – these thinkers claim – are not merely formal, liberal and

moralistic imperatives, but can also be invoked by the excluded in a struggle against

domination.

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In this chapter, I want to explore not only the limits to this practice of rights-

claiming, but also explore how these limits feed back into the forms of domination of

which rights are partly constitutive. Therefore, I return to Karl Marx’s blueprint for

the critique of subjective rights (in both his earlier and later works). The claim I want

to defend in this article is that this critique is still relevant. To be clear: I am not

interested in whether Marx assigns a role to rights in communist society.21 What I’m

interested in is why Marx thought that the politicization of rights wouldn’t get us

beyond capitalism and its manifold forms of domination in the first place.

My engagement with Marx will, however, take a particular form. I will read Marx

first through the eyes of Claude Lefort and thereafter against Lefort. The latter’s

critique of Marx still constitutes the strongest case against the dismissal of subjective

rights (Baynes 2000; Colliot-Thélène 2011; Lacroix 2013). Introducing a reading of

Lefort into the argument should allow us to discover what is dead and what is well

alive in the Marxist theory of rights. What is dead, I will argue, is Marx’s early

conception of subjective rights as ideology and illusion. However, the more mature

Marx developed a theory and critique of the legal form that can explain why the politics

of rights – despite its undeniable advances – has not been able to overcome certain

forms of domination.22

4.2. Reading On the Jewish Question Twice Over

Before we start, I should introduce a conceptual clarification: Why subjective rights? It

is tempting to read Marx as a critic of human rights avant la lettre. But as Samuel

Moyn has repeatedly pointed out, the droits de l’homme that were the object of Marx’s

blistering critique are different in nature from our contemporary human rights. More

precisely, ‘[t]he one implied a politics of citizenship at home, the other a politics of

suffering abroad’ (Moyn 2010: 12). On the Jewish Question should be read as a critique

of the politics of rights within the nation state, then, rather than a critique of a global

human rights regime that at this point did not yet exist (Moyn 2014: 153). Therefore,

when Marx opposes the rights of man to the rights of the citizen, we should interpret

21 Therefore, I will not engage with David Leopold’s argument that the young Marx, to the extent that he

formulated a theory of human flourishing, held onto a concept of human rights (Leopold 2007; also see

Lacroix and Pranchère 2012). Even if this argument is convincing, I believe it doesn’t tell us enough about

the role rights might play in the transition towards this more ideal society. 22 This leaves out the first phase of Marx’s legal theory where he was influenced by Hegel’s philosophy of

rational law (see Shoikhedbrod 2019: 25-33).

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this as an opposition between different citizenship rights (civil rights – e.g. the right to

private property – and political rights – e.g. the right to vote – respectively).

On the other hand, the strict link between citizenship rights and the nation state is

loosening. Citizens see their rights protected by institutions that are not necessarily

nation states and are equally capable of making claims against these institutions

(Cohen 1999). This means that if we want to adapt Marx’s analysis to fit the present

conjuncture, we must take these evolutions into account.

Luckily Marx’s thought at times operates at a high level of theoretical abstraction.

This entails, I believe, that we can read him as a critic of subjective rights and bracket

the question of whether citizens are claiming these rights at home or against

international institutions. To define this concept of subjective right: it ‘starts from some

particular individual subject, attributes to that subject a power and/or warrant, and

then moves out from there to the relation of that subject to others subjects and other

features of the world’ (Geuss 2001: 134). Without wanting to deny the differences

between citizenship rights and human rights, we can argue that they both derive from

this more fundamental category of subjective right (Yeatman 2014: 206).

4.2.1. Reading ‘On the Jewish Question’

On the Jewish Question is Marx’s opening salvo in a series of attacks on subjective

rights. Although the text presents itself as an intervention in the debate on the political

emancipation of Jews, Marx eventually develops the argument in a direction that

transcends the questions of secularism and religious toleration that initially animate

it. The opening pages of the text present a critique of Bruno Bauer’s take on Jewish

emancipation. Cursorily summarized, Bauer argues that Jews must be emancipated

from religion before they can become equal citizens. Or, rather, their political

emancipation requires the subordination of their religious identity. Marx, in contrast,

responds that this kind of secularization of the state and citizenship does not

necessarily entail the abolition of religious identity. On the contrary, he argues, ‘in the

land of complete political emancipation [that is, North America,] we find not only that

religion exists but that it exists in a fresh and vigorous form’ (Marx 1992: 217).

This simple observation quickly turns out to have wider implications. The takeaway

is that you can be liberated by the state (through the granting of equal rights) but

remain unliberated or oppressed. This is so because the state only emancipates in “an

abstract and restricted manner” (Idem: 218). In Wendy Brown’s pointed restatement of

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the argument, political emancipation frees the individual from “politicized identity –

the treatment of a particular social identity as the basis for deprivation of suffrage,

rights, or citizenship”, but fails to liberate “the individual from the conditions

constitutive or reiterative of the identity” (Brown 1995: 105). In other words, then, the

state emancipates the fictive double of an individual that remains ‘a plaything of alien

powers’ in civil society (Marx 1992: 220).

The initial critique of political emancipation is thus that it is a limited form of

emancipation. It is a form of emancipation because to be recognized as equally

deserving of rights is preferable to being seen as an inferior being. But it is limited as

it ultimately remains illusory: the citoyen is emancipated but the bourgeois remains

subjected to forms of domination in civil society. And this is where the limits to political

emancipation turn out to constitute a form of subjection. By claiming that our

particular position in civil society is irrelevant to our citizenship, political

emancipation depoliticizes the social relations of domination that make these

particular positions problematic in the first place. To give one of Marx’s own examples:

we can abolish property qualification for election rights but this does not mean that

private property – and the division it creates between the capitalist and the labourer –

cannot assert its power in civil society (Idem: 219).

If political emancipation is an illusion, then, it is an illusion that exercises a real

material force. To understand this seeming inconsistency, we must elucidate the idea

of the state as an ‘abstract’ entity. As David Leopold notes, in the context of Marx’s

earlier works the adjective ‘abstract’ has two meanings. On the one hand, it points to

the other-worldly character of the state. And on the other hand, it refers to the modern

separation of state and civil society (Leopold 2007: 66). These two meanings, while

distinct, must be seen in their interconnectedness: by relegating emancipation to an

ideal realm, the distinction frees the forces of civil society from the demands of

universality. Or, to put it in different terms, illusory emancipation gives way to a real

separation of state/universality and civil society/particularity. “Political

emancipation,” in Marx’s words, “was at the same time the emancipation of civil society

from politics” (Idem: 233).

It is at this point that a remarkable volt-face takes place. As it turns out, the

depoliticization of civil society gives rise to the dominance of civil society over state and

right. In a rudimentary exegesis of the different modern constitutions, Marx discloses

how the subject of civil society – the bourgeois or egoistic man – “is now the foundation,

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the presupposition of the political state” (Idem: 233). 23 The modern constitutions

acknowledge this figure by privileging civil rights. These are rights that protect

negative liberties (the rights to property, freedom of speech and freedom of religion),

rights ‘to do and perform everything which does not harm others’ (Idem: 229). The

victim of this prioritization are the rights of the citizen, the political rights that

guarantee the citizen’s “participation in the community” (Idem: 227). This

unacknowledged hierarchy between civil rights and political rights results in a

circumscription of the latter by the former. Hence, what we have here is a struggle

between two concepts of citizenship, an individualist liberal one and a communitarian

republican one, which ends in the defeat of the latter as “the citizen […] is proclaimed

the servant of egoistic man” (Idem: 231).

To summarize, Marx’s early critique of subjective right is threefold. First, right

emancipates in an abstract way that leaves the relations of domination in civil society

untouched. Second, this abstract emancipation is not without content: it privileges a

certain conception of citizenship and a specific political ideology – that is, citizenship

as possessive individualism (Kouvélakis 2005: 709-711). And third, as it depoliticizes

civil society and naturalizes its egoism, it reinforces and obscures its worst tendencies.

To be more precise, the ideological illusion of a community of equal citizens hides the

fact that the members of civil society are engaged in a bellum omnium contra omnes

(Isaac 1990: 476).24

4.2.2. Reading Lefort on Marx

In his famous reading of On the Jewish Question, Claude Lefort targets the accusation

that subjective rights are depoliticizing. On the contrary, he argues, rights are political

and this entails that the other critiques of rights – that they are formal and that they

are ideological – lose some of their self-evidence as well (see infra). Rights, he writes,

23 As many commentators have pointed out, Marx’s reading of the modern declaration of the rights is very

selective at this point in his intellectual formation (e.g. Fine 2002: 83; Balibar 2010: 35-65). Nonetheless,

I find it more productive to adopt Justine Lacroix and Jean-Yves Pranchère’s suggestion that Marx may

have recognized the heterogeneity of the declarations but denounced the lexical prioritizing of civil rights

and particularly the right to private property (Lacroix and Pranchère 2012: 52). 24 This does not mean that Marx has a fully worked out conception of the implication of state and right in

capitalist domination. On the contrary, as Bob Fine notes, Marx still ‘portrayed the relation between civil

society and state as an antagonistic one, based on their mutual opposition. Civil society appeared as the

sphere of pure egoism and slavery, while the rational state appeared as the sphere of pure universality

and freedom’ (Fine 2002: 85). Consequently, and this is very important, ‘Marx was not yet able connect

form and content, freedom and exploitation’ (Idem).

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do “no longer seem to be formal, intended to conceal a system of domination; they are

now seen to embody a real struggle against oppression” (Lefort 1986: 240-241).

As an opening remark, it should be noted that Lefort was a sympathetic reader of

Marx. Against the latter’s detractors, Lefort argues that in some respects Marx’s

analysis was quite astute. No one, he argues, can read these founding documents of

modern rights and deny the presence of “the image of a sovereign individual, whose

power to act or to possess, to speak or to write, is limited only by the power of other

individuals to do likewise” (Idem: 248). Moreover, he continues, “it is not arbitrary to

regard the right to property […] as the only right which can be characterized as sacred

and as the one on which all the others are based” (Idem).

Where does Marx’s analysis go awry then? Ultimately, Lefort argues, he falls into a

trap that he was normally so adept at taking apart – namely, that of ideology. He

becomes a prisoner to the ideological version of rights and thus oblivious to what

“appears on the margins of ideology” (cit. Lefort 1986: 248; Lefort 1991: 23). He is so

blinded by the liberal formulation of these rights that he fails to observe how they are

subverted in practice. To give one of Lefort’s own examples: the right to freedom of

opinion might appear as a negative liberty but in practice enables citizens to form

relationships. Consequently, this right is a right to public speech and thought. It is a

right that allows citizens to leave the world of their private thoughts and enter the

public domain (Lefort 1986: 250; Lefort 1991: 32; Lefort 2007a: 412-413).25

More importantly, however, Marx’s captivity has a more fundamental origin: his

inability to “grasp the meaning of the historical mutation in which power is assigned

limits and right is fully recognized as existing outside power” (cit. Lefort 1986: 254;

Lefort 1991: 32). In the Ancien Régime power, law and knowledge where still joined in

the figure of the king. Because of the modern democratic revolution(s), however, the

place of power – once occupied by the king – became disincorporated. After all, the key

legitimating principle of a democracy is that the place of power can be occupied by

anyone and – conversely – cannot be consubstantial with one person or group (Cohen

2013: 129-131; Lefort 2007b: 1031). Therefore, Lefort states, political emancipation is

not an illusion, but an unprecedented event in which the principles of power, law and

25 As Samuel Moyn notes, this might not be Lefort’s strongest argument. The problem with this reasoning

is that it leaves the individualist social ontology of rights in place: public debate is still the result of an

interaction among individuals. In this sense Lefort merely replicates the liberal proposition that an

aggregate of individual actions creates a public benefit (Moyn 2012: 298). I would like to add to this

argument that Marx himself would probably not deny that the right to freedom of opinion establishes

relations. What’s salient in this case is that this right establishes these relations in a field that is already

structured by unequal relations of power and, at the same time, abstracts from these relations of power.

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knowledge – once joined in the figure of the king – became separated. After this event,

rights can no longer be controlled by power. No power, whether it is of a religious,

monarchical or popular nature, can take a hold of them. Moreover, as a result of this

separation rights are deprived of a fixed anchor point and consequently “go beyond any

particular formulation which has been given of them” (Lefort 1986: 255-258, cit. 258).

Therefore, subjective rights – and this is an important distinction – are not

ideological but symbolic (Idem: 259; also see Flynn 2005: 166-167). According to the

ideological view of rights, the mismatch between their supposed universality and the

realities of domination can only be explained as a cover-up operation by those in power.

If, on the other hand, we conceive of rights as symbolic, the gap between the universal

aspect of rights and unjustifiable circumstances gives rise to a politics that tests these

formulations. Therefore Lefort, Kenneth Baynes argues, has a more dialectical

conception of rights than Marx who was working with a rigid opposition between

abstract right and the concrete relations of civil society (Baynes 2000: 459).

The fact that rights are bereft of an ahistorical essence and thus demand their

continuous reformulation explains how rights give rise to democratic struggles (Lefort

1986: 258; Lefort 1991: 21). Even more so, because rights constitute an exteriority of

society to itself, they are a condition of possibility for society’s perpetual self-

questioning. On the basis of subjective rights “a whole history [developed] that

transgressed the boundaries within which the state claimed to define itself, a history

that remains open” (Lefort 1986: 258). Not only are rights not set in stone, they are

also not – as Marx seems to claim – what keeps society’s hierarchies in place. On the

contrary, without subjective rights we would be stuck in an end of history (Colliot-

Thélène 2010: 53).

4.2.3. Rights in History: Some Critical Remarks

Let’s take a moment to take stock of this critique. I believe that any sophisticated

Marxist theory of subjective rights should take on board three of Lefort’s points. First,

subjective right is not reducible to a liberal ideology that simply disguises relations of

domination in civil society. Second, subjective rights are not merely an instrument of

the oppressor but can also be appropriated by the oppressed. And third, rights are not

set in stone but can be challenged, questioned and reformulated. Given the history of

rights struggles, I believe these propositions are more than plausible. Nevertheless,

recently we have been seeing a backlash to the optimistic, leftist appropriation of

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rights-discourse. As one observer starkly puts it, “the capacity of rights claims to

fundamentally ‘shatter’ the existing political situation, as Lefort once hoped, has

proven limited” (McLoughlin 2016: 319).

More fundamentally, however, Lefort’s thought shares some blind spots with the

thought of – what Ben Golder calls – redemptive critics of (human) rights. The

redemptive critique of (human) rights is a three-step process: first, they are criticized

as Eurocentric, liberal and capitalist; in a second movements these characteristics are

shown to be contingent and historical characteristics; and in a third, and final

movement, it is shown that these rights, which in the end do promise universal

emancipation, are endlessly generalizable (Golder 2014: 106-108). Hence the adjective

‘redemptive’: what was once a problematic construct, contains the promise of a brighter

future. However, this discourse is beset by a few lacunae: it is blind to the limits of

contingency, on the one hand, and the limits to the legal form, on the other (Idem: 108).

The first lacuna has been most effectively dissected by Susan Marks. Her article

False Contingency is constructed as a savvy recuperation of the concept of false

necessity (the bête noire of post-foundational political, legal and social theory). Political

and social theorists, Marks argues, are trained to uncover the contingency of political,

social or cultural constructs that present themselves as necessary, as givens that are

not up for debate or contest (Marks 2009: 3-4). However, as a consequence they often

tend to replace one problematic form of reasoning (that is, reasoning from false

necessity) with another one (that is, reasoning from false contingency). To be more

precise, the critique of false necessity has been accompanied by a suspicion towards

“the idea of determination as the setting of limits and the exertion of pressures” (Idem:

8). But, Marks notes, determination is not the same as determinism: the first involves

claims about the direction and dynamics of historical change, while the second claims

to predict the progression of history starting from its hypothesized end-state (Idem: 9).

An inability to acknowledge determination can, however, lead to an overestimation of

the openness of history. Consequently, false contingency is a form of reasoning that

abstracts from historical tendencies and ends up in voluntarist fantasies.

To bring the analysis back to rights: the problem is that a certain formulation and

institutionalization of rights can be contingent without necessarily being open to

challenge by certain subjects. We can perfectly well acknowledge that rights are

contingent and thus in principle open to contestation and maintain that, given existing

power relations, it is very unlikely that oppressed subjects can actually do so. Now,

this in itself would not result in a decisive blow to Lefort’s argument. He never states

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that any subject can invoke rights in just any circumstance (Lefort 1986: 259). 26 What

is needed then, is an argument that proves that the limits to contingency apply to

certain emancipatory projects due to a structural feature of the form of subjective right.

In more direct terms: we need to explain how certain emancipatory projects are

restrained (rather than helped) by subjective rights for reasons internal to their form.

This leaves us with a more specific question. Which exclusions and forms of domination

are not soluble “in the internal dialectics of the founding utterances of citizenship […]

as founding utterances of rights [emphasis added]” (Kouvélakis 2005: 714)?

4.3. Revisiting Marx on Subjective Right

4.3.1. From Ideology to Fetishism

Before we return to Marx, we should briefly re-examine Lefort’s claim that rights

cannot be reduced to ideology. More precisely, we should reveal how he understands

the Marxist concept of ideology. “Marx,” Lefort writes, “did not treat bourgeois ideology

as a product of the bourgeoisie; rather, he leads us to relate it to social division and to

link its origin to that of a particular historical formation, which he describes as the

capitalist mode of production” (Lefort 1986: 1984). What this quote shows, is that

Lefort’s understanding of these concepts is restricted to the earlier phase of Marx’s

work. In this phase, ideology is seen as the product of class division in which the ideas

of the dominant class (including those of subjective right) are presented as universal

ideas. Under this interpretation, ideology critique would reveal how these ‘universal’

ideals are merely a sublimation of particular interests and hide a reality of oppression

(Balibar 2017b: 47-48). The problem with this concept of ideology, as Lefort in some

way shows, is that the epistemological concept of ideology, at least as applied to law, is

not entirely convincing (Basso 2015: 22). Namely, what makes capitalism as a social

system so particular is that it is the first society in which its members are no longer

bound to a particular structure of belief. As Jason Read argues, “[w]hereas prior to

26 Nonetheless, it can be argued that Lefort’s thought is marked by a certain blindness towards the

(important) fact that the invocation of rights is dependent on an array of practical factors: the make-up of

the legal apparatus, the disposition of and ideological notions shared by legal experts, media framing of

rights struggles in civil society, etc. This could be a consequence of his innovative (but limited)

conceptualization of power and the state. More specifically, as Antoon Braeckman argues, Lefort proposes

an epistemic-ontological view of the state in which it figures both as “the expression and materialization

of society's instituting principles and the prism through which these principles may be hermeneutically

disclosed” (Braeckman 2018: 250). Therefore, he remains blind to the internal setup of the state (the

different functions it performs) and the relations between the different state apparatuses (Idem: 250-251).

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capitalism [domination] is lived through the coded structures of belief and personal

subjugation, in capitalism it is lived through abstract operative rules, which are not

necessarily believed or even grasped” (Read 2003: 71). In other words: Marx’s early

conception of right as a product of bourgeois ideology and cognitive delusion is indeed,

as Lefort argues, misguided (also see: Miéville 2005: 80-82). However, the mature Marx

developed a different conception of subjective right that focuses less on the content of

rights (on whether or not they embody particular ideals) than on the form of right and

its relation to subjectivity.27 Perhaps the question of right belongs more to Marx’s

taxonomy of the masks, roles and characters available in capitalist society, than to the

realm of great ideological ideas (Neocleous 2003; Mezzadra and Neilson 2013: 258-264;

Basso 2015: 40-48).

If you want to understand modern right, Christoph Menke writes, you have to

understand its form. You have to comprehend the way in which it effects a radical

transformation of the ontology of right and its relation to normativity (Menke 2015: 9-

10). Pre-modern conceptions of right enable claims to what is by right already yours.

That is, claims to what the community and its ethical order have already apportioned

you (also see Colliot-Thélène 2010: 27). Modern right, on the other hand, enables claims

to something that is outside of and prior to right. And once modern right takes the

specific form of subjective right it becomes clear what this entails: rights allow a person

to make a claim on the freedom and power to engage in any activity that he or she

wants to engage in (as long as this activity is consistent with the rights of others) (Idem:

57).28 This enabling by right should, however, be understood correctly: not as the

enabling of an already autonomous subject but as the formation of an autonomous

subject (Idem: 17). As Menke clarifies: “Empowerment by subjective rights means

empowerment of the subject’s own […] – the constitution of the unethical, apolitical,

nonmoral private will of the individual” (Menke 2017: 131). And, of course, the first

freedoms granted to the modern citizen are the right to self-ownership, the freedom to

own property and the right to enter into contracts (Mezzadra 2007; Tully 2008: 251;

Menke 2015: 207).

27 The word ‘developed’ should be taken with a pinch of salt. The young Marx – still heavily occupied with

Hegel’s philosophy – wrote extensively on modern right, but the later ruminations on right (in Grundrisse,

Capital and Critique of the Gotha Program) are fragmentary to say the least. However, taking Marx’s own

method and these fragments together should allow us to develop a more coherent concept of right. 28 I should clarify that Menke distinguishes between modern right, as a more general category, and

subjective right as one specific instance of modern right. In Menke’s argument, subjective right (or

bourgeois right) is both the most prominent – if not the only actually existing – actualization of modern

right and a betrayal of the concept of modern right. Subjective right blocks modern right’s self-reflection:

by naturalizing the modern bourgeois subject, it obstructs modern right’s inherently self-revolutionizing

character. It is, Menke adds, a post-revolutionary right (Menke 2015: 165).

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Subjective right is, as Marx himself notes, essential to the functioning of capitalism.

“Commodities,” he writes, “cannot themselves go to the market and perform exchanges

in their own right” (Marx 1976: 178). Commodities need guardians, the possessors of

commodities, and if an exchange of commodities is to take place these “guardians must

[…] recognize each other as owners of private property” (Idem). Consequently, abstract

legal personhood is not merely an illusion that hides the relations of power in civil

society but a condition of possibility of the relations of exchange. Once commodity

exchange becomes dominant, the legal form gains prominence as well. After all, in

commodity exchange individuals confront each other as possible antagonists and the

legal form guarantees a smooth conclusion to the exchange. The legal form is, as Sonja

Buckel points out, therefore both a form of subjectification (it produces abstract legal

subjects) and productive of cohesion (it brings these subjects together in a new societal

composition) (Buckel 2008: 119; also Shoikhedbrod 2019: 39). The concept of the legal

form thus includes the element of legal personality and an idea of the form that

relations between legal subjects take.

Things become problematic, however, once the most important commodity in a

capitalist society, namely labour-power, enters into the equation. Legal personhood not

only allows the modern subject to dispose of the objects that he owns but also his most

immediate possession – his labour-capacity. After all, whereas in feudal society labour

was subjected to all kinds of regulations, the modern revolutions created a mass of

persons “free” (vogelfrei) to sell their labour to whomever could pay for it (Marx 1976:

cit. 897; Marx 1973: 502-512). However, it is a strange kind of freedom: it is the liberty

to let another person use and control your labour power. While the labourer does not

sell himself and is thus not a slave, he does give his employer a right to dominate him

(Menke 2017: 121).

This domination of labour is made up of three moments. The first (structural)

moment of domination derives from the fact that in a society in which wage is the only

consistent form of income, most workers cannot but sell their labour (Gourevitch 2015:

106-109). The right to self-ownership is thus immediately (and cruelly) inflected: the

mass of labourers, as Marx observes, are “thrown onto the labour market […] free from

old relations of clientship, bondage and servitude’ but also ‘free of all belongings and

possessions [and thus] free of all property” (Marx 1973: 507).

This gives rise to domination’s second moment: once they enter the marketplace

they are left to the whims of market. While the market does not impair the agency of

its participants, it does affect their freedom as it dominates their decision making. The

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parameters of market transactions are not freely chosen but are established by a

multitude of other transactions that preceded them (Roberts 2017: 95, 102).29 In the

case of labour this entails that the workers have little control over the terms under

which they sell their labour-power (Gourevitch 2015: 109-111). Again, in Marx’s own

words, this time at his most visceral: the owner of labour-power enters into this

negotiation “timid […] like someone who has brought his own hide to the market and

now has nothing else to expect but – a tanning” (Marx 1976: 280).

In turn, this transaction gives way to a third moment of domination: the more

personal form of domination by the employer (Idem: 111-115). 30 Once the labourer sells

his labour time to a boss, he becomes subject to different forms of arbitrary authority

in the workplace (Roberts 2017: 146-186). As Elisabeth Anderson notes, we are not

nearly as critical of private forms of government as we are of public ones. Even more

so, we often do not even recognize the authority exercised in the workplace as a form

of government. But most labourers are subjected to the arbitrary will of their workplace

superiors: they may be prescribed to dress in certain ways, their workplace

conversations might be monitored, they may be forbidden to speak certain languages

and may even be forbidden to engage in certain (political) activities off the work floor

(Anderson 2017: 37-38). Since it can be checked by public government, arbitrary

private power might be a matter of degree. But nonetheless, it remains an undeniable

feature of our capitalist economies (Idem: 45).

It is at this point, then, that Marx locates the central contradiction of the modern

legal form. The sphere of commodity exchange and its relations of legal equality – “the

exclusive realm of Freedom, Equality, Property and Bentham” (Marx 1976: 280) –

permit the domination of labour.31 It is important to see that for the Marx of Capital

29 This is a rough sketch of William Clare Roberts’s convincing reinterpretation of the concept of

commodity fetishism. Instead of seeing commodity fetishism as a phenomenon that sees human beings

becoming subject to the movement of commodities (and thus objects), Roberts defines it as a form of

impersonal domination of individuals by the “changing relations of interdependency” between people

(Roberts 2017: 93). The force that is exercised by a market might look like a force exercised by objects, but

any clear-eyed account should see it for what it is, namely the force of human actions mediated by an

impersonal mechanism (Idem: 92). The rationale for rejecting the first interpretation (fetishism as

domination by the movement of objects) is that domination – even impersonal domination – can only make

sense as a relation between human beings. This is the only way in which it can be considered as a problem

with political traction. 30 As my more concrete description will show, we should not take the word ‘personal’ too literally. The

relations of personal subordination are also – and increasingly so – mediated by impersonal techniques

(e.g. algorithms determining employee schedules). On top of that, domination in the workplace is also

mediated by a type of subjection to machines. The increased centrality of machines to the modern

production process, as James Tully notes, can generate a sense of passivity and powerlessness in the

modern worker (Tully 1993: 253-261). 31 However, this is not to suggest that the domination of wage labour is the only form of domination in

capitalist society. As Nancy Fraser argues, we should develop an expanded conception of capitalism that

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the legal form and domination are no longer at odds but are actually compatible

(Rehmann 2008: 39-41).32 Nonetheless, the spectre of ideology still haunts this

formulation of the problem: we are confronted with a social form that promises freedom

and equality but enables the domination of the majority of persons. In the end, Bob

Fine notes, Marx was never able to overcome his ambivalence towards right: on the

one hand, he viewed it as a deceptive semblance and, on the other hand, he recognized

that an illusion that both capitalist and worker accepted, and thus formed an essential

component of their relationship, was more reality than semblance (Fine 2002: 120).

We can find a way out of this deadlock, I believe, in the notion of legal fetishism as

a companion to commodity fetishism (Pashukanis 2003 [1924]; Buckel 2010; Mezzadra

and Neilson 2013: 259-261). As we noted above, the whole notion of commodity

exchange makes no sense without the possibility of a contract among equal partners.

In other words, exchange is not possible without the availability of a juridical mask

that abstracts from the concrete characteristics of persons and enables a transaction

between these persons as equals. And just like commodity fetishism – the seemingly

independent movement of commodities – influences and constrains the behaviour of

those participating in the market, legal fetishism – “the juridical ‘masks’ which

individuals have to assume to be able themselves to be ‘bearers’ of commodity relations”

(Balibar 2017b: 73) – exercises a formative influence over the modern capitalist subject.

The thing with fetishism, however, is that it is not merely an illusion. As Marx

noted, under the condition of fetishism “social relations […] appear as what they are”

(Marx 1976: 166). If you experience the movements of the market as an arbitrary

constraint on your actions this is probably not an illusion on your part but an accurate

assessment of your predicament. Intellectually you might know that the movement of

the market is not an alien force but rather the result of human actions. But this does

not change the fact that you are forced to act as if it is such a force. Similarly, if the

capitalist subject in certain situations understands his or her freedom in terms of the

formal categories of subjective right (abstract, individual, based on private will) this is

not an illusion but a practical necessity. If you want your claims to be heard, establish

certain relations (e.g. marriage) or resolve conflicts (e.g. appeal a dismissal) it makes

not only highlights the domination of wage labour, but also of unpaid labour (as, for example, housework)

(Fraser 2014). 32 Already in Grundrisse, Marx responds in a similar manner to Proudhon’s claim that the equality and

freedom inherent in exchange were perverted by money and capital. On the contrary, Marx replies, “the

money system is in fact the system of equality and freedom, and […] the disturbances which they

encounter in the further development of the system are disturbances inherent in it, are merely the

realization of equality and freedom, which prove to be inequality and unfreedom” (Marx 1973: 248).

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sense to resort to the modern legal instrumentarium (Buckel 2010: 141-142). While it

would be inaccurate to claim that this form of subjectivity is the only one present to

the modern subject, it does make sense to argue that it exercises a structuring effect

on the self-understanding of modern subjects and their reciprocal relations. Again,

intellectually you may know that human beings are not natural legal subjects, but you

may often find that there are good practical reasons to conceive of both yourself and

other people in this way.

To conclude this section, we will note some of the advantages of the critique of the

legal form and address some possible difficulties. The main advantage of this shift in

focus from the content of law to the legal form is that it allows us to avoid some of the

difficulties that are involved in two other versions of the Marxist critique of law: one

that reduces law to an ideological fiction and another that reduces law to an

instrument. The problem with the first version is that it overemphasises the

importance of ideological fictions and underemphasizes the ways in which law

regulates, organizes and shapes everyday life (Miéville 2005: 80-82).

The instrumentalist version, on the other hand, reduces law to an instrument in the

hands of the ruling class that allows it to suppress working class organization and

resistance (Pashukanis 2003 [1924]: 40; Hunt 1985: 23-24). A first problem with this

version is that it “neglects the partial independence of the state from ruling class

control in capitalist societies” (Anderson and Greenberg 1983: 69). It fails to see that

if law is to perform its functions, it cannot be perceived as an instrument of a single

ruling class. In addition, a critical theory that reduces law to an instrument in the

hands of a dominant group cannot be called a critical theory of law in the sense that it

fails to explain the specific nature and role of law in modern capitalist society

(Shoikhedbrod 2019: 99). It is also too simplistic, Alan Hunt notes, as it reduces the

existence of law to a single dominating function (Hunt 1985: 28). As we noted in our

reflections on Lefort, this position is untenable as rights can become a weapon in the

hand of the oppressed in their struggle against domination.

Nonetheless, there are some possible dangers that accompany an analysis that

starts from the legal form. The first danger is that of economic reductionism: legal form

analysis might create the impression that the legal form – as a superstructual

phenomenon – is simply derived from the economic base. 33 As Bob Jessop argues, this

33 This critique was, for instance, formulated by Nicos Poulantzas in his take on Evgeny Pashukanis’

derivation of the legal form from the sphere of exchange (Poulantzas 2008 [1964]: 28). For a defence of

Pashkunis’ concept of the legal form against Poulantzas see (Elbe 2008 and Buckel 2011: 162-165). On the

broader question of the relative autonomy of law in capitalist society see (Tomlins 2007).

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danger can be avoided if one does not equate correspondences between legal form and

economic base with a causal necessity (Jessop 1980: 350; also see Buckel 2010: 140).

Such a reductionism would be unworkable for multiple reasons. For one, it would be

difficult to ‘derive’ an element x (i.e. legal relations) from another element z which is

partly constituted through thing x (i.e. the capitalist mode of production). Second,

though we can debate the extent of law’s autonomy, we cannot completely dissolve it

in extralegal circumstances without negating the ‘lawness’ of law (Öszu 2019: 633).

The latter would be unattractive for a critical theory of law: why should we be

interested in legal relations if they have no internal logic?

A second possible problem is that it posits the existence of a single legal form for

capitalist society and therefore papers over historical and geographical variations in

the legal regimes of capitalist societies. It is, for instance, not true that all capitalist

societies rely on free labour to a same extent. In fact, most of the early historical forms

of capitalism depended on unfree labour. Here, we can follow Alan Hunt’s suggestion

that when we speak of the legal form we are only speaking at the highest level of

abstraction in which only the most general characteristics of the legal order in

capitalist society are denoted (Hunt 1985: 25; Jessop 1980: 349). Legal form analysis

might thus be an indispensable mode of analysis but does not tell the whole story.

The third question follows from the second one: if there is such a thing as the legal

form then what are its characteristics? I would point to at least three characteristics.

First, the legal form is characterized by the legal subject: a “human or organizational

entity vested with legal rights” (Hunt 1985: 25). Second, it abstracts: as we noted above,

the juridical mask abstracts from the concrete characteristics of persons and the

unequal relations of power between persons (Buckel 2010: 140). The third, and final,

characteristic is that of formality: this refers to the self-referential and self-contained

nature of the legal form which precludes extra-legal (political, social or moral) forms of

reasoning from entering (Poulantzas 2008 [1964]: 36; Horwitz 1975; Buckel 2013: 163-

164).

4.3.2. From Fetishism to Domination

As of now, we have a few elements that hint at a connection between rights (or legal

fetishism) and domination but still need to connect the dots. It seems that right is

implicated in different forms of domination but implication is not the same as

constitution. That is to say, arguing that right is in some way connected to forms of

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domination is not the same as saying that it is in itself a form of domination. In this

context, I believe, we should keep in mind Foucault’s suggestion that we find a non-

juridical conception of power in Marx’s Capital. Whereas the Occidental tradition of

political theory has always theorised power in terms of right, Marx was one of the first

to conceive of power in its multiplicity (Foucault 2001 [1981]: 1005; Read 2003: 86-87).

In Capital we find different analyses of the specific and local forms of power exercised

in workshops and the army neither of which is reducible to a juridical type of power

(Idem: 1006).

Therefore, we should draw the conclusion that this kind of power is itself extra-

juridical. For example, right in itself tells us very little about the force exercised by the

movements of the market: as Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilson put it, “[b]ehind the

mask of the legal person, there is a mix of variegated and historically differentiated

circumstances that compel embodied subjects to commodify their labour power”

(Mezzadra and Neilson 2013: 263). And neither does it tell us much about the way, as

Marx writes, “[t]he technical subordination of the worker to the uniform motion of the

instruments of labour, and the peculiar composition of the working group […] gives

rise to a barrack-like discipline” (Marx 1976: 549). That is, the link between rights and

the methods through which workers are disciplined in a negative sense (what they can

and cannot do) and a positive sense (how they are trained to execute their jobs) is

obscure.

But would this then entail that the forms of discipline and domination in the

workplace are completely unconnected to right? Of course, we shouldn’t underestimate

the extent to which, for instance, the right to private property gives employers a license

to exercise these kinds of power. But, as we already argued, right in itself does not

explain how domination operates or why it is exercised in a certain way. Therefore, I

would locate the connection between right and domination somewhere else. Right

intervenes in the way subjects relate to and deal with the different moments of

domination in capitalism. This is the takeaway from our discussion of legal fetishism:

with the expansion of the contractual form, modern subjective right and legal

personality become dominant elements of our practical subjectivity. I suggest, then,

that right constitutes a form of domination because it presents itself as a form of

protection against domination but once exercised either fails to perform this function,

or worse imbricates its claimants in structures of domination – even those they might

be trying to escape. This applies to the day-to-day exercising of our rights: when we

exercise the right to sell our labour power, for example. However, it also applies to the

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deliberate invocation of rights against domination. This latter aspect is particularly

important given our discussion with Lefort. Rights, I contend, affects the trajectory

and unfolding of these political actions.

But how does it perform this operation? Once again we have to turn to the form of

subjective right: the fact that rights claims have to be presented in a certain way has

a decisive impact on the content of these claims (Knox 2009: 429-432).34 Let’s look at

the first way in which the form of subjective right shapes the content of claims. The

legal form, Robert Knox argues, is both too abstract and too precise to gain traction on

the background conditions that shape and produce a particular dispute. It is too

abstract in the sense that it focuses on the actions of the concerned actors (e.g. the

dismissal of an employee or an act of discrimination), without considering – and thus

‘abstracting from’ – the background conditions that gave rise to these actions (Idem:

430-431). For the law to do its work a process of complexity reduction has to take place

first. Consequently, a host of politically significant circumstances simply cannot enter

into (or, cannot be translated into) a legal argument without disrupting the smooth

functioning of the legal system (Christodoulidis 1998: 102-115). However, as a result

of this abstraction, this specific form of conflict resolution is also too precise: it resolves

specific disputes but does not touch upon their background conditions (Knox 2009: 430-

431).

We could apply this critique to an example that Lefort himself uses: workers

claiming the right to work in response to impending redundancies. This particular

struggle, he argues, shows how right can be used to shatter social power (Lefort 1991:

262). But what this example really shows, I would argue, is that the foregrounding of

a particular conflict (whether or not some workers can be fired) leaves the background

conditions to the conflict untouched. It does nothing to change the fact that the

employer is subject to market imperatives and might repeat his or her actions. Neither

does it change the fact that the workers have little alternative to wage-labour. In short,

34 Of course, we could also invert the terms of the question: we could ask not how the modern legal form

prevents emancipatory movements from achieving their aims, but how it allows problematic subjects to

do so. Lefort only sees promises in the indeterminacy of the ‘man’ of rights which, he argues, gives it “a

basis which, despite its name, is without shape” and therefore “eludes all power” (Lefort 1986: 258). The

blind spot in this argument is that the legal form also allows for the appearance of things as non-human

legal persons. To give an example, the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, initially adopted

to protect the rights of former slaves, was instrumental in the creation of corporate personhood. However,

corporate personhood – the assigning of rights to corporations as if they were natural persons – leads to

all kinds of unwanted consequences. To give an example, because of the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby landmark

court decision, corporate personhood grants US corporations the right to be exempt from regulations they

religiously object to. Conceding corporations this right to religious freedom, however, enables them to

curtail the rights of their employees in turn (Lütticken 2017: 121). The flexibility of legal personhood often

has, as this case shows, problematic consequences (also see Neocleous 2003).

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these rights struggles hardly point beyond capitalist society and therefore do little to

help overcome the “abstract compulsion characteristic of capitalism” (Postone 1993:

368-369, cit. 389; also see Garo 2008).35

On its own, however, this argument is not enough to decisively criticize Lefort. After

all, he simply holds that rights are a necessary condition for social transformation, not

that they are a sufficient one (Lefort 2015: 13; also see Pranchère 2019: 115). As both

Justine Lacroix and Jean Cohen note, the strength of Lefort’s analysis is, first, that he

shows that the formal freedoms of speech, of movement and of association are

generative of a democratic space and democratic dialogue that is open and

unpredictable. And, second, that he demonstrates that the new demands that arise

from this unpredictable democratic dialogue can be formulated as rights-claims around

which oppressed individuals can mobilise (Lacroix 2012: 684-686; Cohen 2013: 128;

also see Lefort 2007a: 418). Jean-Yves Pranchère further extends this logic and argues

that it is the nature of subjective rights to give rise to a dynamic in which new social

demands are formulated and forms of domination are contested. The revindication of

social rights by the oppressed against their domination are not an accidental

consequence of the dynamic of subjective rights but an extension of these rights

(Pranchère 2019: 141; also see Lefort 2007a: 419; Lefort 2007b: 1032). In other words,

while it is true that subjective rights are not a sufficient condition for social

transformation, they are its necessary condition as they enable the mobilisation of

oppressed individuals around social demands – they are central to the politicization of

social demands.

However, our forgoing analysis of the legal form can show why this is not self-

evident. First, while it might be true that rights can establish relations among

oppressed individuals in the sense that they function as symbols that unite these

individuals in a common struggle, the act of transforming a rights-claim into positive

law breaks up this initial solidarity. As Sol Picciotto writes, in a reflection on working

class struggles: “[S]ubstantive gains are achieved through collective struggles building

up class solidarity: the channelling of such struggles into the form of claims of

bourgeois legal right breaks up that movement towards solidarity, through the

operation of legal procedures which recognize only the individual subject of rights and

duties [my emphasis]” (Picciotto 1979: 171; also see Christodoulidis 2017: 135-137). A

35 This being said, I agree with Wendy Brown that it is possible to both see the limits to these rights

struggles and, nonetheless, perceive their necessity. In a world in which rights are currency, the advice to

not fight redundancies or acts of discrimination with rights could actually be irresponsible (Brown 1995:

123).

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similar dynamic is noted by Wendy Brown: “at the moment a particular ‘we’ succeeds

in obtaining rights,” she observes, “it loses its ‘we-ness’ and dissolves into individuals”

(Brown 1995: 98). The Lefortian analysis, focused as it is on the symbolic and

mobilizing aspect of rights-claims, plays down the individualizing results of the

redemption of these rights.

The legal form also depoliticizes in a second way: through its formalism. More

specifically, it depoliticizes a conflict by translating it into a language amenable to the

legal system (Buckel 2011: 163-165). As Emilios Christodoulidis notes, in terms not

specifically directed at Lefort but certainly applicable to his thought: “[i]n republican

theory, law is always-already the stage that will host conflict over normative

understandings. What disappears as contested in this ‘always-already’ is the conflict

over the mode of staging the conflict” (Christodoulidis 1998: 139). Once a political claim

is transmogrified into the language of rights, the conflict it is supposed to provoke is

already tamed. To translate a political conflict into the language of right involves a

process of disciplining this conflict. It involves cutting down on the possible answers to

the question of what the conflict is about. This argument can be further divided into

two elements.

First, formalism prevents political arguments from entering a juridical dispute. One

example that Christoudolidis himself gives is that of a workplace occupation that

contests managerial organisation in the name of democratic workplace control and a

series of solidarity strikes and occupations it evokes. The legal system, he continues,

cannot but break up these political concepts (‘democratic control’ and ‘solidarity’) into

a binary that is agreeable to the legal system – the distinction between legal work-

related and illegal political claims. As a result, the broader political conflict – of

workers acting in solidarity against domination in the workplace – is cut up, classified

and pacified in the terms that facilitate the legal unfolding of the conflict (Idem: 188-

189).

Second, formalism involves the centrality of legal procedures that are the terrain of

juridical experts because of the kinds of arguments they require (Buckel 2013: 164).

Karl Klare has perhaps best documented the anti-participatory and depoliticizing

consequences of this aspect of juridical formalism. Law-making, he argues, is an

alienating process in which the ‘product’ of a procedure can no longer be recognized as

having been created by their purported authors. Therefore, it has the effect of

deradicalizing a political movement (Klare 1978; Klare 1979: 132-134; also see Knox

2017). Again, to reconnect with our argument with Lefort: whereas the process of

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claiming rights might initially involve politicization, the process of realizing these

rights obstructs further politicization as the formalism of this process disciplines the

initial political claim and deradicalizes the political movement that initiates the

process.

A third way, and final way, in which form transforms content is the way in which

this legal form presupposes contractual relationships. As Radha D’Souza argues, rights

claims do not challenge the idea of social relations as contractual relations but rather

take the form: “we are entitled to own this thing, not you” (D’Souza 2017: 59). This

poses serious problems for emancipatory movements that want to challenge

proprietary models of social relations. It is, for instance, a perennial problem for

Indigenous struggles against colonization. Indigenous people that contest their

dispossession are, as Robert Nichols argues, confronted with a particular dilemma.

Either they claim prior possession of the land, but this entails a rewriting of their own

history (in which their relation to the land was never proprietary) and thus resigning

to the possessive logic of colonialism. Or, they disavow possession and undermine the

claim of dispossession. This dilemma derives from the fact that colonial dispossession

takes a recursive form: it is the creation of property rights through an expropriation of

an Indigenous population that only in hindsight can appear as the original proprietor

(Nichols 2017). Hence, even in cases were these movements win recognition of their

land claims, they still must resign to proprietary models of social relations that they

might not accept. This explains why subjective right is inadequate to deal with these

kinds of problems (also see Lindahl 2013: 60-64). Here the depoliticizing aspect resides

in the delimitation of the kinds of claims that can be made. The radical content of

certain claims – such as those that are made in indigenous struggles against

proprietary models of social relations – simply cannot appear in the form of subjective

right.

To conclude this segment: legal form analysis highlights the depoliticizing aspect of

rights-claims. It does not, to be clear, deny that rights can have a mobilizing aspect.

Rather, what it shows is that the process of the redemption of rights – their

transformation into actual legal entitlements – is a process of depoliticization.36 In the

end, this can only mean that any politics that aims to abolish capitalist relations of

36 In this sense there is an overlap with Jürgen Habermas’ analysis of the process of juridification

(Habermas 1987: 356-373). The difference, however, is that my analysis does not restrict the nefarious

influence of the legal form to the fourth wave of juridification (namely, that involving social rights)

(Tweedy and Hunt 1994: 308) but also includes the earlier ones.

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domination cannot limit itself to struggles within this legal form but will also have to

move beyond the legal form.

4.4. Conclusion

We started this chapter with a challenge to the critique of rights. If we see rights as

both the instrument and object of a conflictual politics of claims-making, most critiques

of rights – as moralistic, consensus-oriented and ideological – lose their self-evidence.

In what followed I tried to answer this challenge. By reading Marx first through the

eyes of Claude Lefort and thereafter against Lefort, I developed a conception of

subjective right that is able to (partly) undermine Lefort’s theory of right.

My first conclusion is that the secret to right’s implication in domination does not

lie in its ideological character – in the ideas it represents. Pointing to the overlap

between the founding documents of subjective right and liberal ideology (and its

political anthropology of possessive individualism) is a cul-de-sac. On this point I agree

with Lefort. The ideological theory of subjective rights fails on different levels. First, it

is unable to account for the ideological dissonance of the founding documents of modern

subjective right. Second, it is also unable to explain the historical effectivity of the

different emancipatory rights movements. And third, on a legal-theoretical level it

cannot explain why domination takes the specific form of right. That is, if the function

of right is simply to hide the reality of oppression from the oppressed, there is no reason

to assume that another ideological notion couldn’t perform this function equally well.

Therefore, I proposed to shift the attention to Marx’s later theory that focuses on

the legal form and on the phenomenon of legal fetishism. This theory can explain

right’s implication in domination without resorting to the problematic concept of

ideology. Moreover, it allows us to explain how right is both open to contestation and

limits this political conflict at the same time. The latter point is particularly important:

it allows Marx to turn the tables on Lefort. Lefort criticizes Marx for underestimating

subjective right’s potential for politicization, but the latter could respond that the

politicization of the legal form hinges on a fatal circumscription of political conflict. The

fact that political rights-claims must be presented in a certain way – have to assume

the guise of the legal form – in order to be redeemed explains why they are unable to

shatter critical forms of social domination.

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5. Right to the Common as Counterright?

5.1. Introduction

In the previous chapter, we argued that given the depoliticizing tendencies of the legal

form, a transformative politics will have to develop a politics to deal with the legal

form. This is, of course, easier said than done. The central problem here is that this

formula conflicts with the other side to this same analysis. We did not merely argue

that the form of subjective rights deforms transformative politics but also that it

exercises a structuring effect on modern subjects and their reciprocal relations. In

other words: although we can always argue that we must move beyond the legal form,

we will have to take into account that it suffuses our social relations and thus cannot

simply be dismissed. “We are always and already enmeshed in legal relations,” Robert

Knox argues, “and as such it cannot be said that there is a simple ‘choice’ [to use or rid

ourselves of it as we please]” (Knox 2010: 223).

In the current chapter, I will explore the nature of these difficulties. In particular, I

will focus on one case of the politics of transformation: that of the politics of the

common. We will spell out our understanding of this politics later, but we can already

offer a preliminary definition. Though there are many different characterizations, most

theorists tend to agree that it involves a praxis of common (as opposed to private or

public) administration, distribution and use of shared resources (or common goods)

both natural and social. In our capitalist societies, this entails that these resources

(like lands, forests, waters, cities and knowledge) are managed outside of the purview

of both market and state (e.g. De Angelis and Harvie 2014: 280; Caffentzis and Federici

2014: 101-102).

In what follows, I will proceed in four steps. In the first part, I will discern a

moderate and a radical tradition in the recent literature on the commons. In the second

part, we will show that this radical tradition could be understood as a politics of

transformation. The third and fourth parts will be dedicated to clash between this

politics and the contemporary legal order. First, we will argue that the right to the

common clashes with the current legal order as it puts the concept of property into

question. In other words: here, we set the stage for a confrontation between these two

kinds of law. Second, we will explore what this entails strategically for those wanting

to extend the principle of the common.

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5.2. Moderate and Radical Traditions of Commoning

Before we can distinguish a moderate and radical tradition of the common, we must

start with the antithesis of commons: enclosures and their continual recurrence. The

initial definition of the enclosures sees it as a process that starts in thirteenth-century

England and continues well into the eighteenth and nineteenth century. In this period,

we see that common land – until then a significant part of England’s total area – was

converted into private property and concentrated in the hands of the few (Linebaugh

2010: 13). One of the most important analyses of this transition is Marx’ account of the

process of primitive accumulation. In part 8 of Capital we find his take on the enclosure

movement in England and Scotland. The central argument is that the accelerated

enclosure of common land in the 18th and 19th century was crucial to the transition

from feudalism to capitalism. This happened because peasants “became sellers of

themselves only after they had been robbed of all their own means of production, and

all the guarantees of existence afforded by the old feudal arrangements” (Marx 1990:

875). As long as individuals were able to live from commons, they were unlikely to give

up their freedom and sign up for badly paid wage-labour (Wall 2014: 74).

However, the enclosure of the commons was not a sufficient condition for the

transition to capitalism. Even after the enclosures, people found ways to survive

without turning to waged labour (Perelman 2000: 14). Hence, the process of primitive

accumulation could not be completed without a change in ideas about (il)legality and

property and the emergence of laws and institutions that could give form to these ideas.

Private property would have to be seen as absolute; the use of common lands (free

pasture and wood collecting) as theft. In order to discourage life outside of the system

of waged labour, strict laws were installed to punish beggars and vagabonds, other

measures were taken to create a disciplined labour force (Read 2003: 28; Perelman

2000: 14-15; Federici 2002).

Contemporary theorists of the common claim that this process was not only

disastrous but is also still ongoing. Enclosure or primitive accumulation is not a one-

off occurrence – the violence that was needed kick-start the transition from feudalism

to capitalism. It is, rather, a recurring phenomenon under capitalism (Midnight Notes

Collective 1990; Glassman 2006). For some, like David Harvey, this is so because

dispossession solves the economic problem of overaccumulation. Dispossession

provides investment opportunities for surplus capital that lies idle (Harvey 2003: 137-

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182). Others argue that dispossession primarily has a disciplining function. By

removing all means of survival outside of the wage-relation, the capitalist class is able

to “reassert its command over labour” (Caffentzis and Federici 2014: 194).

In other words: primitive accumulation is not a one-time event but is a recurring

mechanism that “can be said to take place at every point where something in common

is converted into private property […] or where the conditions for the production and

reproduction of existence are converted into commodities (e.g. the transition from home

garden plots to fast food)” (cit. Read 2003: 27; also De Angelis 2001; De Angelis 2002).

This is a deliberately broad definition: as will become clear further on, what is ‘common’

is different for each theorist of the common. For some, primitive accumulation

primarily concerns the enclosure of subsistence commons (e.g. communal lands or

fisheries). For others, it includes the appropriation of global natural goods that –

depending on your definition – belong to no-one or mankind as a whole (e.g.

international waters or outer space). Still others, expand the category to include those

human products such as language, knowledge and affects that are a condition of

possibility for the production of commodities (Glassman 2006).

The dominant justification for these enclosures is provided by variations on the

myth of the tragedy of the commons. Its most famous instance is an article under the

same title by Garrett Hardin. Hardin argues that commons are doomed to deterioration

since, in the absence of a private or public owner responsible for these resources, people

simply overburden and eventually destroy the commons (Hardin 1968). This argument

can be linked to a broader tradition of thought that defends the enclosure of commons,

often indigenous ones, on the ground that the common management and use of land

not geared towards market exchange is no ‘proper’ use of land (Bhandar 2018: 35, 47-

50; Olsen 2019: 7-9).

What these narratives miss, however, is that access to and use of the commons were

and are subjected to rules. This is the argument of Elinor Ostrom to whom the scholarly

rehabilitation of the commons owes a great deal. Ostrom managed to demonstrate that,

given the right regulatory framework, certain resources (common pool resources) thrive

under a common-property regime (e.g. Ostrom, Walker and Gardner 1992; Ostrom

2000; also Linebaugh 2010: 15-16; De Angelis and Harvie 2014: 284-287; Gilbert 2014:

164-165). Though Ostrom’s analysis assumed the methodological primacy of the

rational individual agent and thus remained within the ambit of rational-choice theory,

she subverted the idea that individuals are egotistic and incapable of collective

decision-making in the absence of a single proprietor (Deleixhe 2018: 62).

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It is here that we can also start to distinguish a moderate and a radical tradition

(Brancaccio and Vercellone 2019: 707). Pierre Dardot and Christian Laval, who belong

to the latter group, elucidate the stakes. There is a set of theories, such as Ostrom’s,

that offer an analysis of commons on the basis of rational-choice theory. Their implicit

assumption is that commons, or rather common-pool resources, are specific economic

entities that must be defended against market and state, but – once boundaries are

established – can live in harmony with them. Here, the commons are naturalized: they

are seen as specific natural resources (forests, land, fisheries, etc.) that can be governed

as commons because of their intrinsic properties. These properties are rivalrousness

and non-excludability: (a) common-pool resources can be depleted through overuse; and

(b) because of their specific nature or size it is impossible or very costly to exclude

people who would want to benefit from or make use of the good. Such goods could,

according to Ostrom, benefit from a common-property regime. This entails that they

have a particular place in the socio-economic sphere which explains why the borders

with other social spheres should be maintained. The counterpart of this conjecture,

however, is that there are also goods that naturally belong to the sphere of market

exchange or state provision (Dardot and Laval 2010: 6-8; 2014: 39, 137-158; also

Saûvetre 2016b: sections 4-9; De Angelis 2019: 215-218).

In the first place, then, these theories are moderate because they limit the practice

of commoning to a particular set of resources, or one type of resource. They preclude

political discussion over the commonification of resources that are not ‘natural’ or

‘intrinsic’ common-pool resources (De Angelis and Harvie 2014: 287; Dardot and Laval

2014: 156-157). In this sense, we can call these projects conservative in a quite literal

sense: they are focused on the conservation of a limited set of common-pool resources

and thus fail to consider the expansion of practices of commoning. Yet, if one looks at

the history of commoning it becomes clear that practices of commoning were not always

based around such common-pool resources (De Angelis 2019: 2016).

Second, as Pierre Saûvetre notes, the Ostromian argument that certain resources

are most effectively governed as commons can be and also has been turned against

public goods provision. Under the Reagan administration, her arguments were used

both to delegitimize “modernizing, technocratic and state-centred development model

stemming from the New Deal, and [promote] a new, alternative model favouring a

convergence between the market and the customary practices of local communities

called upon to adapt to the latter” (Saûvetre 2018: 82; also Federici 2019: 89-90). Under

other regimes, the commons are no longer a basis for resistance but function as fixes.

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Here, commons pick up where market mechanisms fail and public services are cut (De

Angelis and Harvie 2014: 290; Broumas 2017: 110). Think, for instance, of (British

Prime Minister) David Cameron’s Big Society program. Here, Silvia Federici notes,

practices of commoning, such as non-market and non-state based practices of caring

(e.g. foodbanks), are used as safety nets forced to compensate for cuts in social services

(Federici 2019: 90).

In contrast to this tradition, there is a radical tradition, Marxist in inspiration,

which sees the common as a (potential) force of resistance against capitalism and

therefore approaches it in light of its emancipatory possibilities (Midnight Notes

Collective 1990; Hardt and Negri 2009; Hardt and Negri 2017; Rogerro 2010; Dean

2012: 119-156; Dardot and Laval 2010; Dardot and Laval 2015; Mezzadra and Neilson

2013: 277-312; Gilbert 2014: 165-171; De Angelis 2017; Broumas 2017: 111-121;

Federici 2019). Rather than seeing the common as a particular type of good or one form

of socio-economic organization among others, it starts from the “political principle of

omnia sunt communia, all in common” (De Angelis 2019: 215). This idea is echoed in

the move, prevalent in the literature, from the plural ‘commons’ to the singular

‘common’ which serves to underline the search for a practice or principle that can form

the basis for the complete reorganization of society (Deleixhe 2018: 65; also Saûvetre

2016b).

Nonetheless, this tradition is also split over its relation to Marx’s writings. On the

one hand, there are those thinkers (like Sivlia Federici, George Caffentzis, or Peter

Linebaugh) that formed the Midnight Notes Collective. These thinkers’ focus rests on

those commons, often in located in the Global South, which have remained outside of

capitalism. Even more, it is precisely as an outside to capitalism, that they form a

wellspring of resistance against it (Midnight Notes Collective 1990; Caffentzis 2013;

Caffentzis & Federici 2014; Federici 2019). In this, they deviate from two key ideas in

(a particular interpretation of) Marx’s writings: that (a) the destruction of ‘pre-modern’

commons was tragic and violent but also necessary and a form of progress; and that (b)

the ground of capitalism’s overcoming must be sought within capitalism itself. In

contrast, Silvia Federici argues that “it is not where capitalist development is the

highest but where communal bonds are the strongest that capitalist expansion is put

on hold and even forced to recede” (Federici 2019: 159-166).

This assumption is not shared by Michael Hardt and Toni Negri, on the one hand,

and Pierre Dardot and Christian Laval, on the other. Rather than counting on these

pockets of resistance against capitalism, they look for the basis of resistance – the

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common – within capitalist societies. One the one hand, there is the work of Hardt and

Negri: although they do not disregard the ‘classic’ commons (i.e. the “common wealth

of the material world”), their particular contribution consists in a theory of the common,

being “those results of social production that are necessary for social interaction and

further production” (Hardt and Negri 2009: viii; Hardt and Negri 2019: 79). The

common, they argue, is does not stand outside of capitalist society, and neither is it

marginal to it. In contrast: “[c]ontemporary forms of capitalist production […] make

possible and even require expansions of the common” (Ibid.: ix). These tendencies form

the basis of a politics of the common (see infra).

On the other hand, there is the work of Dardot and Laval. Whereas the analysis of

the transformations of contemporary capitalism is at the core of Hardt and Negri’s

work, Dardot and Laval tend to focus more on the legal and political institutions of the

common. For the latter, then, the common is in the first place a legal and political

principle for the reorganization of social life. This principle of the common has three

characteristics. First, the principle of the common differs from the notions of the

common good and common-pool resources in the sense that the common cannot be

owned. The principle of the common “expresses first and foremost the dimension of […]

the inalienable [inappropriable]” (m.t.) (Dardot and Laval 2015: cit. 83, 239).

Therefore, the principle of the common exists not only beyond the categories of private

and public property, it even exceeds the notions of communal and collective property

(see infra). Second, the principle of the common is expansive: you can attempt to make

any sphere of society operate according to the principle of the common (Ibid.: 155).

From this follows a third characteristic: it is “only the practice of men that can make a

thing common” (Ibid.: 49). This introduces an institutionalist dimension into their

work: “collective self-governance is not part of the commons,” Martin Deleixhe notes,

“it is constitutive of the commons” (Deleixhe 2018: 64).

5.3. The Politics of the Common as Transformation

I want to argue that the politics of the common as elaborated in these two last

approaches could be understood as a politics of transformation. In doing this, I will

have to point out the points of contention between the two theories. But nonetheless I

believe that we need both theories to fully understand in what way the politics of the

common is a politics of transformation.

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5.3.1. On the Internal Transformation of the Conditions of Politics

The aspect that Hardt and Negri’s theory of the common illuminates is the idea that

transformation acts from within ‘non-political’ structures of domination. To reprise

Balibar’s own words: “[transformative] political practice intervenes from the inside […]

into the course of a change which has always-already begun” (Balibar 2002a: 12). Our

starting point here is Hardt and Negri’s take on Marx’s idea that capitalism creates

the conditions of its own overcoming (e.g. Hardt and Negri 2019: 79; Dardot and Laval

2015: 194). In their own words: “contemporary capitalist production by addressing its

own needs is opening up the possibility of and creating the basis for a social and

economic order grounded in the commons” (Hardt and Negri 2009: x).

This idea requires some background and further explanation. Their concept of the

common builds on older work in the autonomist Marxist tradition (in which Negri

himself is an important figure). In particular, it builds on Mario Tronti’s concept of ‘the

social factory’: the idea that capitalism increasingly relies on social reproductive work.

To an increasing extent such “social activities are subsumed within processes that lead

to the production and appropriation of surplus value by capitalists” (Glassman 2006:

617). In other words: those practices necessary for the reproduction of social life (e.g.

housework, care, education, language, etc.) become integral to and geared towards the

accumulation of capital.

Hardt and Negri reprise some of these arguments in their examination of the

transition from industrial-Fordist to cognitive biocapitalism (Hardt and Negri 2009:

131; Fumagalli 2011). One of their central ideas is that immaterial (e.g. intellectual,

communicative or creative work) and biopolitical production (e.g. the educational,

health or care sectors) are slowly moving to the centre stage, thus replacing industrial

production as the dominant form of production. To be clear: this is not a quantitative

claim. Industrial production, they admit, is still hugely important. It is a qualitative

claim: the value of industrial production is increasingly dependent on immaterial

factors.

For one, knowledge, images (e.g. advertising or packaging) and code become more

important in the traditional sectors of production (such as the automotive industry).

On the other hand, processes essential to the reproduction and production of life

(caretaking work, the work of education and socialization, ...) become central to the

valorisation process: workers are increasingly encouraged to make use of everyday

social skills (empathy, friendliness, affection) in the workplace, while our social lives

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are increasingly being exploited for profit (e.g. Facebook’s exploitation of the data

derived from our social interactions). This means that the kind of work that is central

to contemporary capitalism is “the work of the head and the heart, including forms of

service work, affective labour, and cognitive labour” (Hardt and Negri 2009: 132; Hardt

and Negri 2017: 239; Hardt and Negri 2019: 80). This entails, Hardt and Negri add,

that the separation between productive and reproductive labour is further breaking

down (Hardt and Negri 2009: 133, 135; Casarino and Negri 2008: 14-15).

One of the chief characteristics of this immaterial and biopolitical production is that

capital struggles to both manage and organize it. You can bring workers together in a

factory, provide them with tools and make them cooperate (think of the assembly line),

but capitalists cannot coordinate intellectual (e.g. the production of knowledge),

communicative (e.g. social work) or affective (e.g. health care) work to the same extent.

This is, Hardt and Negri argue, because the skills needed for these kinds of labour are

chiefly developed outside of the workplace and thrive outside of heavily regimented

workplace regimes (Hardt and Negri 2009: 140). This has implications for the relation

between capital and production. “Capitalist accumulation today,” Hart and Negri

write, “is increasingly external to the production process, such that exploitation takes

the form of expropriation of the common” (Ibid.: 137).

Moreover, capital's efforts to expropriate and control practices of commoning tend

to exhaust it and reduce its productivity. For example: in order for scientific knowledge

to be produced, information, methods and ideas would have to be accessible to the broad

scientific community which would establish a virtuous cycle in which knowledge is

continuously produced and reproduced. Attempts to privatize knowledge through the

creation of intellectual property rights, in contrast, tend to thwart this virtuous cycle

(Hardt & Negri 2009: 145-156; Hardt 2010: 349).

For Hardt and Negri this means that capitalism is becoming increasingly parasitic.

The keyword in their critique of capitalism is no longer that of exploitation but those

of primitive accumulation, expropriation and extraction (Hardt and Negri 2019: 79-83).

It is less and less the case that capital exploits labour that it has itself organized.

Instead, capital extracts and expropriates: it extracts natural resources; it extracts

knowledge and data from human interactions; it expropriates ideas, images and

sounds, often from indigenous or subaltern cultures (Hardt and Negri 2017: 242). In

technical Marxist terms: in some domains, cognitive and biopolitical capitalism reverts

from the real subsumption of society to its formal subsumption (Hardt and Negri 2009:

230). In these domains capital is no longer in charge of the organization of productive

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and reproductive activities. Instead, “the social relations and social cooperation that

generate value are brought under the control of capitalist management but are

nonetheless external to it” (Hardt and Negri 2019: 81n25; also Dardot and Laval 2014:

197).

However, the fact that these activities are external to capital, means that they have

“the potential to become autonomous from capitalist control” (Ibid.: 82). This process

of becoming-autonomous takes the form of an exodus: the people who produce the

common, should subtract themselves from their relationship with capital. They

compare this process to the act of marronage: the communities of cooperative self-

government formed by slaves who had escaped their slavery (Hardt & Negri 2009: 152).

In later work, they build on this idea: the multitude who produces the common should

shift “social production and reproduction away from property and toward the common”

(Hardt and Negri 2017: 232-233, 242). As these social forms of cooperation are then

removed from their relation to capital, “social organization […] spills over into political

organization” (Ibid.: cit. 279, 40, 238).

The coordination of social life that is involved in the practice of commoning, they

argue, will form the basis for a new type of democratic polity (Ibid.: 244-245). In this

sense, their project is a self-avowed attack on the autonomy of the political. Rather

than looking to political institutions to reorganize social life, the dynamic reverses such

that the social which forms the basis for a new kind of politics (Ibid.: 42-46). In

particular, they claim that “[r]egarding the institutional question, our assumption is

that today the common comes first, prior to every other configuration of social action”

(Ibid.: 236). This does not, however, entail that they reject all engagement with the

existing political institutions. It merely means that these kinds of strategies, which

they call “antagonistic reformist” strategies, are judged on their ability to advance the

transformation of the social which is set in motion by practices of commoning (Ibid.:

276-277).

Now, to return to our initial question: what does this add to our understanding of

transformation? Hardt and Negri’s concept of the common helps us understand how

politics can start from within the ‘non-political’ conditions of politics. Moreover, it

illustrates the idea that the politics of transformation acts on tendencies within such

structures. Rather than being monolithic structures of domination, the different

historical forms of capitalism always bring forth tendencies that bear the potential of

other lifeforms. This is what Hardt and Negri understand so well: transformation is

the practice of strengthening such tendencies.

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Nevertheless, the framework of Hardt and Negri is flawed and I believe this has

further implications for our understanding of the politics of transformation. First, we

can question to what extent their concept of (and thus politics of) the common is able

to show how that common is internal to the structure of capitalism. Hardt and Negri

tend to vacillate between the argument that the common grows within capitalist social

relations and the idea that the common is an outside to these relations (Dardot and

Laval 2014: 226). This is reflected in their idea that the relation between the common

and capital should be understood as one of formal subsumption: that capital does not

organize or enable the production of knowledge, affects, images, etc (Ibid.: 197). Dardot

and Laval argue that this portrayal is overly optimistic: the evidence suggests that

neoliberal managerial methods shape the form of intellectual and affective labour and

interfere deeply in its organization. The forms that the common takes, such as

knowledge and language, do not remain untouched by this interference (Ibid.: 202-203).

This theoretical limit affects their political project: if the product of our common

labour is not already external to capital but rather intimately and uncomfortably

entwined with it, this necessitates another politics. It brings us back to Balibar’s

critique of Hardt and Negri (see 3.6.): their politics of transformation underestimates

the tendencies within capitalism that go counter to the ones that they are identifying

(Balibar 2013a: 31; 2015b: 26-27). The problem then, Balibar notes, is that this project

is missing a politics able to properly deal with these countertendencies (Balibar in

Curcio and Özselçuk 2010: 318; Balibar 2013a: 32).

Such a politics, I would argue, is present in the work of Dardot and Laval. First, it

should be stressed that, like Hardt and Negri, they put into question the autonomy of

the political. The politics of the common, Dardot and Laval argue, is “transversal to

instituted separations” (m.t.) (Dardot and Laval 2015: 460; Deleixhe 2018: 64). The

political logic of democratic self-governance cannot be limited to the field of state

politics or even the political sphere at large but should also be extended to the social

and economic sphere. This is why they argue that politics cannot be restricted to state

institutions in the form of ‘more rights’, or a ‘greater inclusivity’ but should also

transform the conditions in which politics takes place (Ibid.: 572). More precisely: such

practices act on and in the context of a social life that pre-exists them (Ibid.: 425). The

instituent practice (la praxis instituant) of the common, they insist, “presupposes

certain conditions and ‘works on’ these same conditions to transform them deeply”

(m.t.) (Ibid.: 436).

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In particular, the politics of the common must start where “the submission of labour

to capital is still operative” : “the private enterprise” (m.t.) (Ibid.: 462). It is here that

the politics of the common starts: the “collective and social dimension of work […] these

days often neglected,” they write, “remains the most important tool to realize the

transition from the reign of forced cooperation to emancipated common acting” (m.t.)

(Ibid.: 483). However, unlike Hardt and Negri, they assert that we cannot depend on

“sociological or economical postulates that would see the common be born ‘naturally’

from either social life or the accumulation of capital” (m.t.) (Ibid.: 227). Hence, while

this double dimension of work provides a starting point for a politics of the common, it

does not constitute a politics of the common as such. This should be emphasized:

whereas Hardt and Negri posit that the social organization internal to practices of

commoning spills over into political organization, Dardot and Laval point to the

importance of new institutional and legal forms that would be able to bring such

tendencies to the fore. For instance: on the terrain of the enterprise, these innovations

should aim for the democratization of the workplace, a redistribution of power towards

the workers, and a break with the logic of capital accumulation (Ibid.: 482-489).

5.3.2. On the Self-Transformation of Commoners

The idea that a politics of the common could start as a transformation of the workplace

raises both institutional and normative questions (see 5.3.4.). But before we tackle

these questions, another transformative aspect of commoning must be highlighted. The

politics of the common is not only transformative in the narrow economic sense. The

transformation of socio-economic institutions and relations of power, Balibar argues,

should be complemented by the “work citizens perform upon themselves in a given

historical situation” (Balibar 2015b: 129; also Balibar 2002a: 13; Balibar 2020a: 293).

The politics of the common also wages its struggle on this domain. Through the act of

commoning, Massimiliano Tomba writes, commoners enact “[a]n anthropological

transformation; ‘socialized man’ in place of the proprietary individual” (Tomba 2016:

381). These practices thus aim not only at the transformation of external circumstances

but also pursue the end of mankind’s self-conception as the owner and “lord of nature”

(Ibid.).

In the case of Dardot and Laval, the politics of the common is more specifically

wielded as a weapon against processes of neoliberal subjectification. To provide more

context: in an earlier book called La Nouvelle Raison du Monde, they provide an

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analysis of the extension of neoliberal reason to the different spheres of human

existence (Dardot and Laval, 2009). Central to this book, is the assertion that the

neoliberal project is a constructivist project.37 Whereas classical liberalism worked

under the assumption that the propensity to truck and barter is inherent to human

nature, neoliberalism recognizes that economic rationality cannot be assumed as a

natural given. Consequently, neoliberalism should not be seen as a politics that

removes the obstacles to our natural inclination to truck and barter but as a political

project that stimulates market competition through permanent intervention. What

Dardot and Laval are looking for, then, is a rival project to counteract this neoliberal

governmentality. They are in search of “alternative forms of subjectivation to the model

of the entrepreneurial self [l’entreprise de soi]” (m.t.) (Dardot and Laval 2009: 476).

In this sense, Dardot and Laval’s work on the principle of the common responds to

the root of the problem. If competition between isolated actors is the organizing

principle of society, then learning to act in common is the foremost task of a

revolutionary politics. Hence, commoning is not only a new political-economic form, it

is also a pedagogic project in which people teach themselves – better yet, work on

themselves – to resist processes of neoliberal subjectification (Dardot and Laval 2014:

438; also Saûvetre 2015: 281). This is, I would say, why Dardot and Laval return to a

socialist tradition of associationalism [socialisme associationniste] that spans from

Proudhon to Jean Jaurès and Marcel Mauss. What these thinkers understood so well,

is that organizations such as cooperatives and trade unions, all with their own specific

institutions and rules, were not only bases of socialist power but also (in Marx’s words)

“schools in socialism” (m.t.) (Marx cited in Dardot and Laval 2014: 396). Their

institutional innovation, Dardot and Laval argue, “resides in the self-transformation

of the workers through the creation of ‘new forms of life’ and new psychological types”

(m.t.) (Ibid.). The politics of the common should endeavour to learn from these

institutions and resume their task. The transformation of socio-economic relations

should go hand in hand with a process in which commoners transform themselves

through their actions (Ibid.: 438).

37 As Wendy Brown explains: “Neoliberalism is a constructivist project: it does not presume the ontological

givenness of a thoroughgoing economic rationality for all domains of society but rather takes as its task

the development, dissemination, and institutionalization of such a rationality” (Brown 2005: 40-41).

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5.3.3. The Common Contra The Right of Property

This conflict between a proprietary and socialized self-conception is doubled on another

level as a conflict between two different approaches to law. To be more precise: in the

following section, I will contend that this double-sided process of transformation

unfolds in part as a conflict between two different kinds of law. The politics of the

common, Dardot and Laval argue, will usher in “a new right” and will therefore take

the form of a struggle of “right against right” (m.t.) (Dardot and Laval 2014: 231). There

are two axes of conflict between bourgeois subjective right and the right of the common.

First, the conflict between the right of property and the right of use. Second, the conflict

between state law and the law of the common (see next section).

The most immediate clash arises as the common defies the private-public property

paradigm. In this sense, the politics of the common opposes itself to the basis of the

current legal order: the inviolability of the right to private property. The dominance of

private and public authority in the modern capitalist world is, as Sandro Mezzadra and

Brett Neilson argue, a result of the prior enclosure of the common. This “cut across the

common,” they write, “is the constitutive gesture of both private property and public

law” (Mezzadra and Neilson 2013: 292; also Dardot and Laval 2014: 259). For instance:

private property transforms common land, a relationship among people and between

these people and nature, a relation aimed at the reproduction of the land and therefore

encompassing certain obligations, into mere things that can be owned (D’Souza 2018:

5). Theorists of the common never tire of pointing out the political and artificial nature

of this process.

To return to the example of land: the idea that all land can be owned as a commodity,

that its owner can dispose of it as he wishes, is – as Karl Polanyi pointed out –

fundamentally absurd. If “we allow the market mechanism to be sole director of the

fate of human beings and their natural environment,” he writes, “[n]ature would be

reduced to its elements, neighbourhoods and landscapes defiled [and] rivers polluted”

(Polanyi 2001 [1944]: 73-76, cit. 76). Hence, there is nothing natural about the right to

private property. However, Erik Olsen argues, early modern philosophers like John

Locke and David Hume, and jurists like William Blackstone managed to make it look

natural. They did so through the creation of “original acquisition stories” in which

mankind moves out of a pre-civilized state of nature, in which land is common to all,

and enters into civilization through the private appropriation of land (Olsen 2019: cit.3,

8).

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In its initial, classical liberal formulations, the right of property entails an absolute

right to exclude. In the famous formulation of William Blackstone: it is “the sole and

despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the

world in total exclusion of the right of any other individual in the universe” (cited in

Mezzadra and Neilson 2013: 292). This view still has a strong hold on the public

imagination. It informs our idea of what private property is: the direct relation between

an owner and a material object from which others are excluded (Olsen 2019: 16-19).

Indeed, as Dardot and Laval argue, there exists an intimate relation between property

and the modern subject: the latter being in part constituted by the ownership of things

material and immaterial (Dardot and Laval 2015: 75).

However, since its initial formulation, it has also been altered. Part of this story

concerns a change in legal vision: the ascendance of the ‘bundles of rights’-view of

property. Here, property is no longer seen as the direct and unmediated relation of an

owner to a thing but as a set of legal relations among human beings – distributing

different rights (e.g. rights to possess, rights to use, rights to capital, etc.) – mediated

by the state. Once this is acknowledged, Blackstone’s ‘despotic dominion’ can be

relativized and subjected to certain limitations protecting the rights of other citizens.

In other words: as certain uses of a property (e.g. such as the pollution of land) conflict

with the rights of others, it can be subjected to restrictions (Davies 2007: 20-21; Dardot

and Laval 2014: 474-475; Hardt and Negri 2017: 86).

Regardless, the exclusivist character of the property-relation has been maintained

in other forms. Not in the sense implied in Blackstone’s definition: a total ban on non-

owners trespassing the boundaries of a given property. Rather, Larissa Katz argues,

property remains exclusivist in the sense that owners are the sole agenda-setter with

regard to their properties. Ownership, she writes, “requires not that others keep out so

much as that they fall in line with the agenda the owner has set” (Katz 2008: 278). The

property relation is, in other words, akin to the notion of sovereignty: it involves a

hierarchy in which those at the top are free to act at their discretion (Ibid.; also

Mezzadra and Neilson 2013: 293; Hardt and Negri 2017: 87).

Nonetheless, it remains in question whether and to what extent private property is

still central to the operations of the capitalism. Some, like Jeremy Rifkin, believe that

access has been steadily replacing ownership as the central relation under capitalism.

For instance, we no longer buy CD’s or LP’s, but we subscribe to digital music services

such as Spotify. That is to say, we do not buy the music but buy access to the music

(Dardot and Laval 2014: 471). However, notwithstanding these real shifts, the relation

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between private property and private appropriation has far from disappeared. These

platforms on which access to music, films, or other services (like transport or bed and

breakfasts) are sold, monopolize the distribution of these goods and therefore manage

to appropriate most of the value produced. Hence, though it is true that private

property has become more dispersed in the sense that the rights to a given property

are distributed over different right holders, the right to capital is still monopolized and

trumps others (Ibid.: 473-477).

By now, it should be clear that private property and the common are antagonistic.

But theorists of the common have more complex relationship with public ownership.

In a democratic state, public ownership in principle coincides with the common

ownership of public goods by the citizens. This raises the question in whether public

ownership falls short of the principle of the common. First, radical commoners tend to

invoke the history of enclosures. State sovereignty does not only protect private

property and regulate relations among proprietors, it also enabled and enables the

enclosure of commons (Mezzadra and Neilson 2013: 293). It was, after all, the modern

state, as we already remarked in the section on Tully, that helped impose the

institutions of private property, markets in labour, corporations and contract law

through the enforced enclosure of commons (Tully 2008b: 255, 259).

Second, the theorists of the common point to the alienated character of the modern

state. In principle, public property is owned by the state, a legal persona, in the name

and for the benefit of its citizens. Rather than that citizens themselves decide on the

use, administration, and distribution of these resources, it is the state and its

administrative apparatuses that take over these functions. If thinkers of the common

are critical of public ownership, then, it is because in most cases it diminishes the

citizens’ democratic control of these resources. In such arrangements, citizens have

use- but no management-entitlements (Di Robilant 2013; also Vrousalis 2018: 93).

In the practice and history of public ownership this can and often does lead to a

misuse of public properties. As John Medearis argues, “[t]here are just too many ways

for state powers to escape common control, too many entrenched groups positioned to

take advantage of the vulnerabilities” (Medearis 2015: cit. 171, also 180). In the case

of the actually existing socialism(s), this manifested itself as a form of bureaucratic

capture of the common. Here, the common was and is subjected to the directives of

totalitarian states (Dardot and Laval 2014: 79-85). Liberal democratic capitalism, on

the other hand, generates its own problems for the institution of public ownership.

Here, Dardot and Laval argue, the existence of public goods is typically justified as a

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means to make up for market failures. Public goods are those important goods, such as

education or public lighting, that markets cannot or do not want to provide. The

problem is that public goods thus exist in an awkward ‘mirror-relationship’ with

private goods. They exist as its negative and are therefore justified in terms set by the

logic of the market (Dardot and Laval 2010: 3). The result is that the state and its

administrative apparatuses, and thus also the management of public properties, are

beholden to the interests of capital (Fattori 2013: 383; Cumber 2015: 66-67; Broumas

2017: 118).

Nonetheless, this critique of the state and idea of public ownership while shared by

the radical theorists of the common, does not entail an identical posture towards the

state. On the one hand, there are those, like Silvia Federici, who believe that the

commons cannot rely on the state given the “crisis of the state form” (Federici 2019:

167). Such thinkers tend to argue that the modern state, inextricably tied to the goal

of private capital accumulation, is beyond saving. On the other hand, there are those

like Dardot and Laval, and Massimo de Angelis, who take it that the state and the

public are worth fighting for. To be more precise: although they are critical of state

institutions and public goods in their current form, and insist on the primacy of local

practices of commoning, they believe that we cannot ignore the state, and that at the

very least certain public institutions and services must become ‘commonized’ (Dardot

and Laval 2014: 514-526; De Angelis 2017: 340-347; Broumas 2018).

I side with this latter approach, but this entails that we must deal with one of the

primary conflicts between the state and the common: commoners oppose a right of use

to the right of property (e.g. Sauvêtre 2018: 93). This should be underlined: the logic of

the common does not oppose (the right to) common property to private or public

property. On the contrary, the common constitutes a break with the logic of ownership

itself (Negri in Teubner and Negri 2010: 20). This stance was prepared in Marx’s

Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts (1844). It would be a mistake, Marx argues,

to simply replace private property with “universal private property” (Marx 1975: 346).

This is a crude form of communism that reproduces the logic of private property in

which “an object is only ours when we have it,” but does so on a larger scale (Ibid.: 351;

also Hardt 2010: 352).

Marx’s attempt to break with this logic also manifests itself in the critiques of

Proudhon. If the latter writes that private property is theft, he argues, he tacitly

presupposes the legitimacy and import of the category of property. Critical uses of

concepts of ‘theft’ and ‘dispossession’, after all, assume a prior state of possession. In

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order to avoid this conceptual trap, Robert Nichols argues, Marx started referring to

the enclosures as a “separation-process” [Scheidungsprozess] instead (cited in Nichols

2018: 5-10, cit. 8; also Tomba 2016: 381). The result is that the argument no longer

remains within the ambit of a logic of ownership. It is not the theft of land that is

problematic in se, but the social consequences of this act. Here, the problem is the

destruction of human relations with the land, the elimination of use rights and the

separation of people from non-market means of survival, and the commodification of

nature.

5.3.4. On the Democratic Determination of the Right of Use

For these reasons, the radical theorists of the common refuse to advance their political

project under the banner of a right to the common ownership of the earth. The common,

Hardt and Negri write, “is not a new form of property but rather nonproperty, that is,

a fundamentally different means of organizing the use and management of wealth”

(Hardt and Negri 2017: 97). However, historically, there are different ways of thinking

about this state or condition of not-being-property.

In Roman law, for instance, there were two different kinds of res nullius. On the one

hand, there was a res nullius simpliciter: these were things that belonged to no one but

could be appropriated by anyone. On the other hand, there was res nullius in bonis.

Here, an institutional decision was made to remove objects from the sphere of

ownership. The res nullius in bonis, Dardot and Laval write, was made inalienable

[inappropriable] (Dardot and Laval 2014: 264-266). The reason for this historical

detour is that it allows us to appreciate the importance of institutions. What the

distinction between res nullius and res nullius in bonis shows is that if we want to

resist the common’s subsumption under the categories of ownership, we will have to

institute it as inalienable [inappropriable]. In other words: the condition of not-being-

property is not a natural state, the eternal and intrinsic essence of certain resources

but one that results from a sequence of institutional decisions (Ibid.: 267).

Once the common is subtracted from the sphere of ownership, it should form the

basis for new social relations. In the sphere of the common, Massimiliano Tomba

writes, there is no such thing as a right to property. What takes its stead is the “right

of usufruct […] regulated by use and need, which varies over time and according to the

number of occupants” (Tomba 2019: 104). While agreeing with the gist of this idea,

Dardot and Laval state their preference for the right of use over the right of usufruct.

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The idea of usufruct, they argue, preserves the idea that someone is the owner and

therefore can grant another, subordinate (group of) person(s) the right to use (without

spoiling the resource) (Dardot and Laval 2014: 470). The thing worth saving in this

idea of usufruct is that the idea that the right to use is not unlimited: a common can

be used to satisfy material and social needs, but its use should accord with the finalities

of the resource being used and thus should not spoil it (Tomba 2016: 378-379; Dardot

and Laval 2014: 273-274; Dardot and Laval 2015: 81). In this sense, radical commoners

still align themselves with Ostrom: the right of use is subjected to the obligations that

commoners have towards other commoners and the resources themselves (De Angelis

2019: 218).

However, the right of use as Dardot and Laval see it, leaves no room for ownership.

What’s left are users of the common “bound to other users of the same common through

the coproduction of rules that determine the common’s use” (m.t.) (Dardot and Laval

2014: 471). Thus, the right of use is circumscribed by rules commoners set themselves

(Saûvetre 2016a: 128; also Blokker 2013). This central idea revises another element of

the idea of usufruct: while it keeps the idea that use should accord with the finalities

of the resources, it adds that the determination of these finalities can only be the result

of deliberation among commoners (Dardot and Laval 2014: 478).

These rules are not provided by the state. The right of the common, Dardot and

Laval write, cannot be a right that “emanates from a sovereign authority or the will of

a legislator” (m.t.) (Dardot and Laval 2014: 285; also Linebaugh 2008: 45). The politics

of the common hence creates a “new democratic culture of citizenship” outside of the

state; moreover, it also constitutes a “relativization” of the authority of state (Sauvêtre

2016a: 128-129, cit. 129; also Sauvêtre 2018: 94). Inspiration for such a non-state law

is sought in the tradition of associationist socialism (see supra). It was Proudhon who

had, Dardot and Laval write, “much more systematically than Marx, thought about the

institutional alternative to private and state property” (m.t.) (Dardot and Laval 2014:

371).

This social law differs from juridical liberalism in the sense that it arises from

within a shared practice. Here, the parties do not meet each other as atomistic

individuals but as “fully social beings” (m.t.) (Ibid.: 375). Georges Gurvitch, belonging

to this same tradition, describes it as follows: “[s]ocial law makes its subjects direct

participants in the whole […] whereas interindividual and intergroupal law is based

upon distrust” (Gurvitch 1941: 24). Moreover, he adds, whereas individualistic law

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always depends on the state for its enforcement, “social law, of which democratic state

law is itself only one species, never entirely submits to the state” (Ibid.).

These characteristics of the common raise two problems which I cannot completely

address in this chapter but still need to mention. The first blind spot of this discourse,

Dardot and Laval acknowledge, is its emphasis on consensus. If not addressed, the

danger exists that these ideas will lapse into fantasies that represent social law as the

result not of design but of spontaneous human actions that result in a harmonious

order – the law as a ‘spontaneous order’ as Friedrich Hayek would have it (Dardot and

Laval 2014: 443). The problem with this aspect of commons-discourse, Martin Deleixhe

notes, is that it underestimates the extent to which both conflict and unequal relations

of power continue to exist within commons. On the one hand, we cannot assume that

commoners will reach an agreement of the rules governing the common. For instance:

when it comes to the use and preservation of natural resources, conflicts over the

balance between these two, and over the best ways to address environmental concerns

will continue to exist. On the other hand, the persistence of relations of domination

among commoners (e.g. male and female commoners) will and should give rise to

conflict (Deleixhe 2018: 72-74). For Dardot and Laval, this entails the law of the

common can only be produced in and through conflict. The common, they write, “is not

primarily a matter of the ‘management’ of a ‘resource’ or a ‘good’ but consists of an

activity that cannot but constitute itself in and through conflict” (m.t.) (Dardot and

Laval 2014: 324).

The second problem is that of scaling. The question remains how a multiplication of

forms of communal self-government in the workplace leads to “moment of acceleration,

intensification and collectivization of [the] instituting praxis [of ‘common acting’]”

(m.t.) (Ibid. 575). Neither is it clear how such practices lead up to the point at which a

qualitative change takes place as state and market, public and private property, are

subordinated to the principle of the common (Ibid.: 582). To put it more concretely: the

hard question for a politics that starts from localized practices of commoning is how to

prevent that the force exercised by markets transforms commons (as opposed to these

commons transforming the market) (Ibid.: 499). This kind of question reminds one of

Marx’s critique of the utopian socialists. Worker control in the workshop, he thought,

would fail to emancipate workers as long as they kept producing commodities for the

market. In such cases, they would, after all, still be subject to the impersonal

domination of capitalist markets (Roberts 2017: 236). Similar problems arise for some

modern-day commoners: as long as commons or common-like organizations keep

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producing for the market, both the internal organization of their practices and their

social objectives remain affected by questions of profitability, competitiveness, etc. (De

Angelis 2017: 273-274). In part, such problems can be remedied through forms of

scaling-up, or, what Massimo de Angelis calls, meta-communality. De Angelis gives the

example of the Campi Aperti network of (commoning) farmers and consumers: “the

price at which they sell [their products] is a price that is decided at regular assemblies

among consumers and the 84 local producers of the Campi Aperti association” (De

Angelis 2017: 294-302, cit. 294). Other, more speculative proposals consider the

construction of a federation of commons (Dardot and Laval 2015: 446-468; Dardot

2018). However, more work is needed to examine how such practices of scaling-up are

able to balance local control of concrete commons and the safeguarding the common

good (e.g. Vrousalis 2018).

5.4. From Legal Recognition to Legal Strategy

Now that we have mapped out the most central point of the incompatibility between

the law of the common and modern constitutionalism, we will proceed to examine how

this conflict could play out. Should these legal orders clash at some point, different

scenarios are conceivable. First, we could witness an illegalization of practices of

commoning. Neoliberal states, beholden to the compulsion of capital, could prevent

these new ways of organizing common life from stabilizing into new institutions. They

are, for instance, already doing this by tightening anti-squatting laws (Vishmidt,

2014).38 The continuation of these practices in the face of their illegalization could have

the effect of reinforcing state authority. As Hans Lindhal notes, even though illegal

behavior “breaches legal order, its qualification as illegal has a ‘positive’ normative

significance: illegality counts as the privative manifestation of legal order, hence as its

reaffirmation” (Lindhal, 2013: 28). As long as these confrontations between commoners

and the state are relatively rare and the community of citizens recognizes the illegality

of these acts, the state is ‘justified’ if it responds to resistance with violence.

The second, contrasting scenario would see the incorporation of practices of

commoning into the legal order of the state. One example is the occupation of the

38 It should be noted that not all forms of squatting are automatically acts of commoning. Squatting

becomes an act of commoning when the right of use – here, in the form of a right to have roof over one’s

head – is opposed to the right to property. Another important factor is that the squatters/commoners

autonomously and democratically develop rules that regulate this right of usage.

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Teatro Valle in Rome: here the occupiers demanded that culture be recognized as a

common good and managed to obtain the legalization of their occupation. Whereas the

initial occupation of the Teatro was illegal, the occupants, who managed the theatre as

a common, succeeded in getting legal recognition for the occupation through the

employment of a private law tool (Bailey and Marcucci, 2013: 399). This episode

illustrates the idea, popular in the Italian movement for common goods, that “the legal

recognition and regulation of the commons is consistent with the law in force and the

current legal regimes of private property” (Marcella 2017: 64).

Under the guidance of jurists Stefano Rodotà and Ugo Mattei, the Italian commons-

movement developed a set of legal tactics aimed at introducing the commons as a legal

concept within the Italian legal order (Bailey and Mattei 2013: 986-1001; Dardot 2016).

The strength of these tactics, Hardt and Negri argue, is that they constitute a line of

defence against the privatization of public goods and commons (Hardt and Negri 2017:

96). It is, however, a fragile tactic and the Teatro Valle episode demonstrates this: the

Roman mayor eventually decided to evict the commoners, thus shutting down the

experiment (Vishmidt, 2014; Dardot and Laval, 2014: 479). In addition, tactics that

attempt to turn the dominant legal order against itself, Fernando Atria notes, can

always falter. This is the case when the anomalous right (in this case the right to the

common) is “reinterpreted according to the rationality of the host,” or more concretely:

“reinterpreted in terms of bourgeois law, as yet another kind of individual right” (Atria

2015: 603).

The difficulties faced by the Italian commons-movement raise strategic questions.

In Balibar’s words: the question is, “which forces, or political combination of forces, are

likely to legally displace the point of ‘absolute’ resistance to socialization that is present

in every regime of property” (Balibar 2018e). It is possible that the legal tactics outlined

above achieve provisional successes as resources are recognized as commons. However,

the task theorists of the common set themselves is more far-reaching. In what Dardot

and Laval call the auto-institution of society, practices of commoning would be more

widespread, to the point where they challenge the parameters of the legal order. These

practices would constitute, what legal theorists call, a form of a-legal behaviour. This

is, in the words of Vanja Hamzíc, the “capacity to be neither legal nor illegal, an ability

to exist and act in the interstices, or perhaps beyond or outside, the dominant

(capitalist) modes of legal production” (Hamzíc 2017: 191).

This zone of alegality, Vanja Hamzíc acknowledges, is not inherently emancipatory.

The capitalist class, he notes, often operates in this same zone as well. In fact, they are

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often more skilled at using it to their own advantage (Hamzíc 2017: 197-200).

Moreover, to say that the transformative politics of the common operates in the domain

of the alegal is not the same as saying that it can escape the reach of the law (see Knox

2010: 223). This means that while one can avoid formulating one’s claims or politics

within the legal form of subjective rights, one cannot do without tactics and strategies

to deal with the law. To start with the latter distinction: in military terms, Ben Golder

argues, strategies make up an “overarching plan” that aims to achieve a long-term

goal, such as that of winning a war; tactics are “intermediate methods” that can be

used to achieve this ultimate goal (Golder 2015: 119). If one translates this distinction

for the field of transformative politics, Robert Knox contends, we could say that

strategies concern themselves with those elements of socio-political reality that are

relatively permanent, such as the mode of production, or racial or patriarchal

domination. The formulation of a strategy would then involve the design of an

overarching plan to intervene in these structures. Tactics, on the other hand, concern

themselves with the day-to-day political battles one wages. Of course, Knox admits, it

is possible that a tactical choice has an immediate strategic importance. This occurs in

those rare moments when our day-to-day struggles happen to set off a wider chain of

events that threaten the fundamental political or economic structures of society.

However, in stable times, the logic of the tactic is different from that of the strategy

(Knox 2010: 199-200).

In the realm of law and right, the politics of the common would need both tactics

and strategies. Of necessity – and this was already apparent in the events surrounding

the Teatro Valle occupation – some legal battles will be of a tactical nature. This might

involve struggles to defend commoners’ civil and political rights against the state. In

the first place, these kinds of battles enable “the organization of working-class praxis”

(Poulantzas 2008: 45).

The more difficult question is whether commoners can develop legal strategies. I

argue that such strategies should do three things. In the first place, the development

of such strategies ushers in a shift in perspective: political actors come to realize that

“there is a world of difference between taking advantage of legal opportunities that

arise in the course of social struggles and framing those social struggles in terms of

rights” (Knox 2011: 38-39). One of the more interesting ways of doing the former, is

through strategies of rupture. These are legal interventions, Emilios Christodoulidis

argues, that force a legal system “to confront a contradiction that it could neither

suppress nor contain” (Christodoulidis 2008: 24). He gives the examples of insisting on

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the right to work: since a capitalist system requires a degree of unemployment,

insisting on this right might highlight a “contradiction […] that allows neither

reconciliation nor resolution within the system” (Ibid.).

To make these ideas more concrete, I would like to close this section with a short

sketch of the legal strategies employed by Landless Peasants’ Movement in Bolivia (the

MST, or Movimiento Sin Tierra). This movement, formed in 2000, was part of a broader

movement of indigenous struggles for land redistribution. A common tactic used by the

MST was that of the (illegal) occupation of land. What is interesting, Honor Brabazon

writes, is that their legal approach aimed “not to enjoy but to exploit the legitimising

and institutionalising characteristics of law” (Brabazon 2017: 27). More concretely, the

MST drew on a 1996 Bolivian law that included the “promise to title all land that

fulfilled a ‘socio-economic function’ (i.e., land that was in use) and expropriate that

which did not” (Ibid.: 25). The landless workers started “farming land on a large estate

known to be uncultivated by its owner and used the principle of the socio-economic

function to question whether the owner was legally entitled to own this land because

it was not being cultivated” (Ibid.).

What’s interesting in this case, is that the MST did not invoke laws “designated for

social change, such as human rights complaints […] nor those designated for achieving

its short-term goals, such as title to land” (Ibid.: 31). They were perfectly aware that

their “goals […] were broader and more radical than any individual legal decisions

would allow” (Ibid.: 28). Instead, they exploited ambiguities in laws that were not

intended to be used for emancipatory purposes. Ultimately, the MST’s strategy was to

develop their own interpretation of such a law, then force the judicial system “to choose

between accepting the movement’s interpretation of the law and the movement’s ‘help’

in enforcing it, or on the other hand admitting that the law is not intended to be used

in ways that benefit the movement’s constituents and thus that they are not equal

before the law” (Ibid.: 31). In doing so, Brabazon argues, the MST could either win a

legal battle that allowed them to continue their political project, or create a spectacle

that highlighted the “friction between the equitable, impartial, and apolitical ideals of

the liberal form of law and the concrete ways that law supports certain political

interests and power configurations” (Ibid.: 32).

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5.5. Conclusion

The politics of the common can be understood as a form of transformation. In the

practice of commoning, citizens do not only act from within economic structures but

also work on themselves. Hence, citizens do not only politicize and democratize aspects

of social reality that are seen as ‘non-political’. But in doing so, also bring a new practice

of citizenship into being: one that does not found the institution of citizenship on

proprietary individualism. The practice of commoning is a sustained effort to escape,

what Balibar calls, the “subjectivation proper to capitalism”: not “that which aims at

the appropriation of oneself but at the appropriation of the world” (Balibar 2014a: 71).

In enacting and defending a right to use, I argue, the transformative politics of the

common will have to think about its relation to the state. Few question that a radical

politics of the common would conflict with the right to private property. However, the

relation between this politics and the state is more complex. On the one hand, radical

commoners are antagonistic to the state to the extent that the latter protects private

property and insists on its own right to manage public goods. On the other hand, no

politics of the common is sustainable without certain public functions that the state

provides. Neither, can commoners simply ignore the state. In section 5.4., I suggested

that commoners might navigate these tensions through a tactical and strategic

approach to the law.

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Part Three: Insurgent Citizenship as Struggle for Recognition?

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6. The Wages of Recognition: A Critique of Honneth on Race and

Capitalism

6.1. Introduction

Since the publication of Axel Honneth’s monograph The Struggle for Recognition

(Honneth 1995a [1992]), the concept of recognition has become central to political and

social theory. In this chapter, we will focus on his idea that socio-political progress

occurs as people struggle for recognition. According to Honneth, all the important

moments of emancipatory change in modern society – whether we are talking about

the securing of social provisions and protections for the working class, the

enfranchisement of women or the acquisition of civil rights for and by African

Americans – can be explained through the concept of the struggle for recognition.

Still, this idea can only be defended if a strict demarcation of recognition and

domination can be made. Honneth believes this can be done. He adheres to a ‘deficit-

model’ of recognition (McBride 2013). This means that he (a) “approaches issues […] of

oppression as stemming from a lack, absence or distorted form of recognition” and that

(b) “[s]ocial problems are not seen to stem from the mechanics of recognition itself”

(McQueen 2015: 44). In addition, he beliefs that we can always tell when a struggle for

or relation of recognition is genuine and when it is not. In other words: the grey area

in which emancipation and oppression, ‘genuine’ and ‘false’ recognition, are entwined

is eliminated (McNay 2014: 58).

However, the literature on the concept of recognition has also produced a critical

counterpart. Whereas recognition is seen as an unambiguous good in the literature

spawned by Taylor and Honneth, their critics have argued that recognition might play

a more ambiguous and sometimes even nefarious role. Often going back to earlier

critiques of recognition, particularly that of Frantz Fanon (2008 [1952]), they have all

argued in some way or another that “recognition […] is essential to the economy of

domination” (Oliver 2001: 23). In other words: these critics contend that recognition

can also play a role in the stabilization of structures of domination.

Generally, these critiques take one or more of six forms: the anti-colonial critique;

the identity critique; the displacement critique; the ideology critique; the ‘evil’ claimant

critique; and the monism critique. The first critique argues that settler states often

reinforce their own legitimacy and conceal the continued dispossession of indigenous

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peoples by granting them recognition. The nub of this critique is that if indigenous

people accept the recognition of the settler state, they also acknowledge this state’s

legitimacy to grant recognition and thus sanctify the act of dispossession that lies at

the origin of this state (Coulthard 2014). Hence, it contains a critique of the meta-

recognition involved in an act of recognition: the fact that the recognizing party is

always already recognized as a party with the authority to grant recognition (McBride

2013: 37-39). The second critique maintains that the act of recognition depoliticizes the

identity of the recognized party. In trying to receive the recognition of your identity,

the genesis of this identity, the fact that it is an effect of power structures, disappears

from view. In turn, this can have undesirable results: the desire for the recognition of

their identity can be turned against the oppressed precisely because they have been

oppressed through this same identity (Brown 1995; Foster 1999; McQueen 2015;

Lepold 2018). The third critique, that of displacement, is perhaps the best known. It

argues that struggles for recognition displace concerns for economic redistribution. The

politics of recognition, the critique goes, operate in the cultural sphere where people

struggle for the recognition of their identity, culture, religion, or language. This

inordinate focus upon recognition, however, displaces material concerns with the

redistribution of goods (Fraser 1995a; Phillips 1997).

The fourth critique argues that ideological forms of recognition can prevent the

oppressed from perceiving their oppression thus foreclosing a struggle against

domination. The idea is that ideological forms of recognition occlude the misrecognition

one suffers (Allen 2010). The fifth, ‘evil claimant’ critique argues that struggles for

recognition are not always justified (e.g. the white pride movement) and that the theory

of recognition does not have the instruments to tell us when this is the case (Kalyvas

1999: 103; Fraser in Fraser and Honneth 2003: 38; Zurn 2015: 90-91). The sixth and

last critique targets Honneth’s recognition monism: its inordinate focus on integration

through relations of recognition at the expense of systemic forms of integration (Fraser

in Fraser and Honneth 2003: 214; Kouvélakis 2019: 444-518). Hence, this critique

targets Honneth’s recognition paradigm as a social theory: or the fact that it ends up

as “a theory of sociation without society – at least without a conception of society that

has any systemic or structural features with causal powers” (Thompson 2018b: 572).

Obviously, these critiques can be and often are combined. For instance: both the

ideology critique and the identity critique rely on the critique of recognition monism

since they involve broader claims about the relation between relations of recognition

and structural forms of domination. Or, to give another example: the displacement

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critique often relies on the idea that the desire for recognition should be understood as

a desire for the recognition of your identity (as opposed to a desire for redistribution).

I would argue that none of these critiques are strictly speaking incompatible. In this

chapter, I will thus borrow freely from these different lines of critique.

I do so in order to re-examine the link that Honneth establishes between struggles

for recognition and emancipation. To be clear: I will not argue that he beliefs that all

struggles for recognition are automatically emancipatory. For Honneth, after all, it is

possible that struggles for recognition are misguided. However, he does claim that it is

possible to separate misguided struggles for recognition from truly emancipatory ones

(McNay 2014: 58). In fact, as Kristina Lepold argues, he even advocates the stronger

(empirical) claim that struggles for recognition “will […] lead in the medium term to

real improvements in the collective life of a society” (Lepold 2019: 250). This claim

relies on the empirical prediction that “only such claims to recognition that point into

the direction of greater freedom will ultimately be successful in struggles for

recognition” (Ibid.: 6).

I do not share this optimistic estimation of struggles for recognition. The reason for

this lack of trust could be illuminated by focusing on the problem of racist domination.

More specifically, I will return to W.E.B. Du Bois’ sharp analyses of racism and white

supremacy in the USA (Du Bois 1998 [1935] & 2007 [1940]).39 Du Bois shows how the

desire for and acquisition of recognition on part of the white working class prevented

a class-based coalition with black labour against capitalist domination. Recognition,

rather than being the medium for an emancipatory struggle, at least in this case

stabilized the structures of domination that are most central to racial capitalism (i.e.

(a) the structure of class-domination and (b) the structure of racial domination). I will

show that these episodes undermine Honneth’s beliefs concerning the relation between

struggles for recognition and emancipation.

The chapter will be built up as follows. First, I will reconstruct Axel Honneth’s

recognition paradigm paying specific attention to the concepts of recognition (1.1.),

misrecognition (1.2.) and the struggle for recognition (1.3. & 1.4.). Second, I will

reconstruct Honneth’s theory of racism as a form of misrecognition caused by social

39 The aptness of Honneth’s concept of recognition for the study of racist domination is understudied. This

is, as will become clear in section (2.1), partly due to the absence of this theme in his own writings.

Nonetheless, there already are some excellent critical studies on this subject (see Rogers 2009; Basevich

2019). The present chapter adds to this literature in two ways: one, it focuses – as will become clear – on

those who benefit from racist domination as opposed to on those who suffer from it; and, two, it places the

attention on struggles for recognition as opposed to the institutions of recognition (which is the focus of

these studies).

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pathologies (2.1.). This theory is problematic because it fails to acknowledge

recognition’s implication in structures of racist domination. I will defend this position

in two further steps. First, I will show how Honneth’s core theoretical assumptions

prevent him from noticing problematic forms of recognition (2.2.). And second, I will

turn to W.E.B Du Bois’ later writings to demonstrate how and why recognition can

become complicit in racist structures of domination (2.3.). As a result, I will have shown

that the struggle for recognition is not always inherently emancipatory.

6.2. Axel Honneth: Modern Citizenship and the Struggle for Recognition

6.2.1. Recognition as the Normative Foundation of Modern Citizenship

Honneth’s philosophy is situated at the crossroads of philosophical anthropology and

social theory. He starts from the anthropological premise that the one thing human

beings desire and need is recognition. And, given the intersubjective nature of

recognition, derives social and political instructions from this premise. That is, he

argues that certain socio-political orders do a better job of guaranteeing those forms of

recognition that allow human beings to flourish. This section will therefore be

dedicated to explicating this concept of recognition and, in a second step, showing how

it relates to the topic of modern citizenship.

Honneth claims that we cannot understand the concept of recognition without

grasping its Hegelian origins. Initially he develops the concept exclusively through an

engagement with Hegel’s early, ‘Jena’ writings (e.g. Honneth 1995a: 1-63; Honneth

1997: 19-22). In more recent works, however, he maintains that the concept of

recognition is present in all stages of Hegel’s intellectual development, also the later

ones (e.g. Honneth 2012: 3-31). Hegel, he argues, was the first philosopher to properly

formulate the idea that “the self-consciousness of the human being depends on social

recognition” (Honneth 1997: 20). This is, Honneth stresses, a transcendental fact of

human sociality (Honneth 2012: 4). As a result, autonomy and subjectivity are

decentred: we can’t be seen as being completely in control of our doings as long as we

are ontologically dependent on other subjects (Honneth 1995b: 261-271). Hence, in

Hegel’s writings we find the beginnings – if, imperfect – of an intersubjective theory

that explains how individuals develop a sense of themselves as autonomous and moral

beings (Deranty 2004: 299; Zurn 2015: 24).

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German idealism, however, was mired down by its metaphysical assumptions.

Therefore, Honneth attempts a naturalization of its intersubjectivist intuitions. In

George Herbert Mead’s social psychology and Donald Winnicot’s psychoanalytical

theory, he finds a non-speculative grounding for his theory of recognition (Honneth

1995a: 71-130). In particular, they show how individuation occurs through

socialization: to “the extent that growing children recognize their interaction partners

by way of an internalization of their normative attitudes, they can know themselves to

be members of their social context of cooperation” (78). The central idea here is that we

can become individuals with distinct identities only through learning to navigate the

different aspects of the social world and gaining competence in interacting with others.

In this respect, Christopher Zurn argues, Honneth borrows from Habermas, but “shifts

the central medium of intersubjective life from language to practical attitudes of

acknowledgment” (Zurn 2015: 25).

It should be emphasized that the concept of recognition incorporates diverse aspects

of human life. This means that it does not only include anthropological claims about

fundamental human needs, the constitution of subjectivity or the psychological

development of human beings. It also involves normative claims. The underlying

intention of his project, Honneth notes, “was basically to conceptualize the structures

of mutual recognition analysed by Hegel not merely as preconditions for self-

consciousness but as practical conditions for the development of a positive relation-to-

self” (Honneth 2002: 500). This raises the question, however, what kind of good is

instantiated in this positive relation-to-self. For Hegel, Robert Pippin argues, the

theory of recognition is primarily a theory of freedom: it explains why and in what way

a subject must be recognized by others in order to be free (Pippin 2000: 156). Honneth

does something similar: he labels the normative theory of recognitive relations as a

formal conception of ethical life: a theory that determines the “conditions that […] serve

as necessary preconditions of individual self-realization” (Honneth 1995a: 173).40 In

turn, the value of self-realization is formulated in terms of the freedom that it

instantiates: the different kinds of recognition that a person can receive (see infra),

give them the confidence and “unanxious ways of dealing with oneself” that allow a

person to be free (Ibid.: 174). This entails that freedom is, in line with Hegel’s concept,

understood as social: people can only “acquire this freedom with the help of their

40 This normative theory is supposed to open up a middle road between the Kantian ideal of moral

autonomy and the communitarian ideal of an ethos realized in a particular lifeworld.

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interaction partners” (Ibid.).41 Thus, we could say, as Kristina Lepold does, that

genuine recognition is a freedom-enhancing practice: we become a free human being

through the recognition of both others and the central institutions of modern social life

(Lepold 2019: 249).

Still, this doesn’t exactly tell us what recognition is. Recognition, Honneth writes,

has four characteristics (Honneth 2012: 80). First, recognition is all about affirming

the positive qualities of human individuals or groups. For instance, if I recognize

someone I confirm that she has positive qualities – some of which are shared

universally (e.g. I respect her as a human being) and others which are specific to her

(e.g. I acknowledge that she is an exceptional painter). Second, recognition is a

continuous practice: if we recognize someone, we should not merely affirm their worth

symbolically or in words but should also act accordingly. I cannot profess that all

human beings are equal and, in practice, treat my female colleagues with disrespect at

the same time (Honneth 2002: 504-505; also see Honneth 2001: 124). This also entails

that we should take into consideration “pre- or extradiscursive, subject-constitutive

dimensions of bodily and social experience” (Deranty 2004: 300). A positive relation-to-

self is not only a result of our being acknowledged in words but also – say – a result of

the affection of loved ones. Or, to give another example: recognition can be expressed

by looking someone in the eyes or smiling at him or her (Honneth 2001: 112). Third,

recognition should be intended: if a gesture, a speech-act or an institutional measure

only incidentally produces recognition, we cannot really speak of a recognitive act.

Again, to give one of Honneth’s examples: if I really want to play chess with someone,

I probably recognize this person’s intellectual capacities. However, this appraisal is

only a side-effect of my intention to play chess. Therefore, it cannot really count as an

act of recognition (Honneth 2002: 504). This third characteristic also shows, is that

Honneth moves away from functionalist models of society. The integration of society,

he argues, is not so much an effect of anonymous processes (in, for example, the

economy) but is effected through intended acts of recognition. Socialized subjects, he

stresses, “are not simply passively subjected to an anonymous steering process but,

rather, actively participate with their own interpretative performances in the complex

process of social integration” (Honneth 1995b: 69).

41 Despite the centrality of Hegelian themes of freedom to the theory of recognition, it would take Honneth

some time to write at length on the value of freedom. It is only with the publication of Freedom’s Right

that Honneth will explain what exactly freedom is to him (Honneth 2014).

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Finally, recognition is a more general species with three essential subspecies: love,

legal respect and (social) esteem. These are the three forms of recognition that allow a

human being to flourish. In, what Honneth calls, our bourgeois-capitalist society these

three subspecies of recognition are subject to a historical differentiation. To clarify this

point with an example: whereas in pre-modern societies legal respect and social esteem

where intimately connected, in modern bourgeois-capitalist society this “alloy of legal

respect and social esteem […] broke up” (Fraser and Honneth 2003: 140). Hence, from

this point onwards your legal recognition was no longer tied to the kind of social esteem

you enjoyed because of your origin, gender or function.

Love is the first form of recognition that human beings experience and need. It is

what allows a person to develop basic self-confidence. Initially, this self-confidence is

developed in the relationship between mother and child but gradually more people

(family, lovers, friends) enter this circle of emotional support (Honneth 1995a: 95-107).

Precisely because human beings need this fundamental level of emotional confidence

to function socially, it should be seen as genetically and conceptually prior to the other

forms of recognition (Ibid.: 107). For Honneth, someone who is damaged in early life

will always have a harder time participating politically (in the public sphere) and

socially (in civil society).

Still, in a modern society we do not only live with our loved ones. Therefore, we’re

also in need of the recognition of those people we do not necessarily choose to live with.

This is where legal recognition comes in: being granted rights ultimately safeguards

our self-respect. In opposition to the relationship of love which always has an element

of moral particularism to it, the modern legal relationship is a universal form of

recognition. What legal recognition affirms, then, is that which makes us all persons

in the first place, that which we share with other persons. And the thing that we all

share, according to Honneth, is moral responsibility. Hence, we do not necessarily need

to like a person to be able to respect them. We simply have to respond properly to the

fact that they are persons equally capable of moral decision-making (Ibid.: 107-121).

As Christopher Zurn points out, this form of legal respect explains why we may dislike

a criminal and disapprove of his actions, but still maintain that he has a right to due

process and – if convicted – dignified treatment (Zurn 2015: 35). Moreover, legal

recognition has a decidedly historical character. What it means for a person to be

capable of acting autonomously, to be morally accountable, changes over time. What

changes are the assumptions concerning the “prerequisites that enable participation

in rational will-formation. [Hence] [t]he more demanding this procedure is seen to be,

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the more extensive the features will have to be that, taken together, constitute a

subject’s status as morally responsible” (Honneth 1995a: 114). This explains why the

set of universally granted rights become more encompassing throughout the history of

modern democracies. Social rights, to give an example, are defended on the ground that

they are a necessary condition for participation in the political community (Ibid.: 116).

Lastly, we arrive at the third indispensable form or recognition: social esteem. What

is being recognized in forms of social esteem are our concrete traits and abilities.

Therefore, it sits somewhere in between the particular and unconditional form of

recognition that is love and the universal form of recognition safeguarded by rights. In

Honneth’s own words: “this form of recognition demands a social medium that must be

able to express the characteristic differences among human subjects in a universal and,

more specifically, intersubjectively obligatory way” (Ibid.: 122). The basic idea here is

that societies are made up of subjects that share a cultural and moral framework that

allows them to judge the value of certain traits or capabilities. Hence, as could be

expected, this specific species of recognition is even more sensitive to historical

transformations (Ibid.: 121-130). In our bourgeois-capitalist society, Honneth argues,

social esteem is most often expressed as an appreciation for someone’s “achievements

as a ‘productive citizen’” (Fraser and Honneth 2003: 141). Seen like this, esteem is the

result of a broadly shared respect for the kind of work we do. But esteem can also

manifest itself as a way of valuing certain lifestyles (Honneth 1992: 195). Christopher

Zurn argues, that it is impossible that all traits, capabilities, or lifestyles can lay claim

to an equal amount of esteem. Some lifestyles, such as the that of monks, value traits

that are simply too far removed from those generally valued in modern society.

However, what one can demand is that one’s “community’s ethical way of life be

accepted by other groups as one among many acceptable and potentially worthy ways

of life” (Zurn 2015: 71).

Now, what does all of this tell us about the normative foundations of modern

citizenship? As can be expected, a multi-layered conception of recognition informs a

multi-layered conception of citizenship. The best way to start making sense of this sort

of citizenship is by distinguishing formal and substantive citizenship. It is possible,

Evelyn Nakano Glenn argues, that someone enjoys formal standing in law but is not

recognized in local practices. We can have our rights protected in positive law and still

lack recognition in daily life. Glenn gives the example of the Mexicans living in the

South-West of America. Under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) they were

recognized as US citizens, but in everyday life they experienced de facto segregation.

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Although these practices were technically illegal, they were subjected to restricted

shopping hours, restricted access to public places, were assigned to segregated schools,

etc. As this shows, citizenship rights, while a necessary condition for the enjoyment of

citizenship, are not sufficient. Substantive citizenship, Glenn argues, is also “a matter

of belonging” and this “requires recognition by other members of the community”

(Glenn 2011: 1-9, cit. 3).

This, then, is the strength of Honneth’s model: it shows that not a single form of

recognition in itself is a sufficient condition for an autonomous, democratic citizenship.

Therefore, we could say that Honneth proposes a multi-dimensional democratic theory

(Lysaker 2017: 34-39; also see Jorgensen 2015: 37-41).42 In such a theory, democratic

citizenship is not merely about civic equality in the political sphere (or legal

recognition), but also depends on the self-confidence and self-esteem (see supra) that

we gain in our family lives and civil society (Honneth 2015: 25). For instance, as

Honneth notes in a reflection on John Dewey’s democratic theory: it is only in a fairly

organized social division of labour that a citizen develops the kind of consciousness of

cooperation and shared responsibility that are a condition of possibility for

participation in democratic will-formation (Honneth 1998: 777). Moreover, these forms

of recognition can only exist if citizens actively practice them towards each other.

Hence, citizenship does not only exist as a status recognized by the state, it is also

grounded in the specific habits and conduct of citizens (Ibid.: 27). To return to Glenn’s

example: while Mexicans were recognized as citizens under positive law, the

discriminations they had to suffer in civil society shows that they were not recognized

as full citizens. They lacked the kind of legal respect and social esteem that is necessary

for participation in social and political life.

6.2.2. Misrecognition and Struggle

This last point brings us to an aspect of recognition that we have – somewhat

artificially – suppressed in the foregoing analysis: that of misrecognition. Honneth,

being an heir to the Frankfurt tradition of critical theory, does not intend to construct

an ideal theory of recognition. It is not critical theory’s function to take the measure of

society with timeless, transcendent norms (Deranty 2004: 303). Rather: the critical

42 We could also, as David Owen does, turn this argument on its head. Owen claims that – in Honneth’s

recognition paradigm – it is only “in a democratic community, as a free relation of co-operating groups,

that one can realize the plurality of aspects of oneself in a way which is mutually enriching” (Owen 2007:

291).

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theorist tries to find “an instance in the facticity of social processes that time and again

presses beyond the given social order” (Fraser and Honneth 2003: 245). We only

discover what is wrong with our society if we can reveal the ways in which the

normative expectations of society are disappointed or violated. This happens when

members of our society do not receive the kind of recognition that they should be able

to expect. Therefore, what interests Honneth is the lack of recognition that some of us

experience in our lives and the forms of suffering that it produces. “[S]ocial suffering

and discontent,” Honneth argues, “possess a normative core” (Ibid.: 129).

Since there are three subspecies of recognition, there are also three forms of

misrecognition (or, as Honneth also calls it, disrespect): the violation of the body, the

denial of rights, and the denigration of ways of life (Honneth 1995a: 129, 131; also see

Honneth 1992: 190-192). The first form of disrespect is, again, the most fundamental:

it is obvious that if someone’s physical integrity is violated, this interferes with this

person’s social functioning. The most extreme cases of this form of disrespect are

torture and rape. As Honneth stresses, the injustice of these acts cannot be reduced to

the fact that physical pain is inflicted. It is primarily the humiliation – the feeling of

being at the mercy of another person’s will – that has a lasting impact on a person’s

basic self-confidence (Honneth 1995a: 132-133). But this form of disrespect can also

manifest itself in subtler, less obviously extreme ways. For instance, a child growing

up with parents that constantly berate him or her will have a harder time developing

the kind of self-confidence that allows him or her to participate socially.

The denial of rights, on the other hand, does not pertain to a person’s self-confidence

but to her moral self-respect. By denying a person certain rights we fail to accord her

the degree of moral responsibility we accord to others. We deny this person the

opportunity to participate in the community as a full-fledged member. Obvious

examples of this form of disrespect are the different ways in which voting rights where

denied to members of society based on class, gender or race. Yet, like the first form of

disrespect, the denial of moral self-respect equally allows for gradations. Hence, one

could technically have the rights that your co-citizens have but still be subjected to

social ostracism (Ibid.: 133).

Finally, the denigration of individual or collective ways of life constitutes a third

form of disrespect. We could, Honneth proposes, consider this an “evaluative” form of

disrespect that robs individuals of the ability to “relate to their mode of life as

something of positive significance within their community” or to “regard themselves as

beings whose traits and abilities are esteemed” (Ibid.: 134). For example: by only

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attributing value to wage-labour we have often disrespected other activities necessary

for social reproduction such as household work (Fraser and Honneth 2003: 141). Or, to

give another example: if we systematically underpay, say, garbage collectors we are

not only distributing resources unequally, but are also disrespecting – or not properly

valuing – the work that they do.

These forms of disrespect and the suffering that they produce are, Honneth argues,

a driving force in history (Honneth 1992: 187). This statement can be read in two ways:

psychologically and normatively. Disrespect is a driving force in history because it is a

source of moral motivation. The experience of being disrespected drives people to

change the society they’re living in. Economic privation or social repression, Honneth

argues, are in themselves insufficient as driving forces behind the great modern social

and political revolutions (Ibid.: 196; also see Fraser and Honneth 2003: 125). In

addition, the existence of forms of disrespect morally justifies the drive to change

society. If political actors contest their social order, they can justify their actions by

referring to lived experiences of disrespect.

This brings us to the third important element of Honneth’s theory: that of struggle.

Struggle is that which allows for the transition from disrespect to recognition. History

progresses because the misrecognized force their oppressors to recognize them. And

here the work of Hegel becomes important again: in his writings, Honneth contends,

we find an alternative to the philosophies of Machiavelli and Hobbes. The latter trace

conflict between humans back to the motive of self-preservation. Competition over

interests is what explains struggles between human beings (Honneth 1995a: 7-10).

This problematic idea of conflict is also reproduced in the orthodox Marxist tradition.

Class struggle, in this view, is reduced to the “model of a struggle for (economic) self-

assertion” (Ibid.: 149). To put it differently: working class resistance arises from the

misfit between the interests of the working class and the capitalist economic order

(Fraser and Honneth 2003: 127). However, what’s missing in these theories of conflict

is the element of morality.

Hegel’s early Jena writings advance an alternative conception of conflict is

advanced. As Honneth writes: in these works, “the conflict that breaks out between

subjects represents, from the outset, something ethical, insofar as it is directed towards

the intersubjective recognition of dimensions of human individuality [emphasis

added]” (Honneth 1995a: 17). This view of conflict, he argues, allows us to develop a

new conception of social protests. The labour movement, for instance, should not

merely be seen as a struggle for labourers’ interests, but also as a defence of the honour

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of the labouring classes. This works, either by forcing the bourgeois class to appreciate

the importance of their labour (through struggles for self-esteem) or by demanding

equal rights for labourers (these being struggles for self-respect) (Fraser and Honneth

2003: 131-132).

Generally, Honneth proposes in a later text, these emancipatory struggles can be

divided in two types of political interventions: internal struggles for recognition and

external struggles for recognition. The first type of political intervention is the most

common. Internal struggles for recognition take place when the disrespected either try

to appropriate an existing normative principle or propose a new interpretation of such

a principle (Honneth and Rancière 2016: 104-105). When excluded subjects (e.g.

labourers or women) claimed civil or political rights that were initially denied to them,

we speak of the appropriation of an existing normative principle. The struggle for social

rights, on the other hand, redefined an existing normative principle. The demand for a

guaranteed minimum of social security was justified on the basis of a new

interpretation of the equality principle (Fraser and Honneth 2003: 147).

External struggles for recognition are more exceptional. These are the type of

political interventions that concern “an interruption of the whole normative order,

which doesn’t aim at an improvement of the application of one principle, but at an

overcoming of the authority of the order as such” (Honneth and Rancière 2016: 105).

External struggles for recognition become necessary when misrecognized subjects

cannot find within the existing recognition order a normative principle that accounts

for their suffering or shows what kind of recognition can alleviate their suffering. The

typical examples of these struggles are revolutions. The modern bourgeois revolutions,

for instance, happened because there was no normative principle within the feudal

recognition order to allow the revolutionary actors to formulate their grievances (Ibid.:

106).

6.2.3. The Struggle for Recognition and Emancipatory Agonism

Having introduced the elements of misrecognition and struggle, we can now attempt

to reformulate Honneth’s concept of modern citizenship. By acknowledging the

importance of misrecognition and struggle we arrive at a more dynamic conception of

citizenship. We arrive, that is, at a conception of citizenship that not only places

importance on the multiple forms of recognition, but also values the kinds of struggles

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that make successful relations of recognition possible. The question I want to pursue

in this section, then, is whether Honneth proposes a theory of agonistic citizenship.

What distinguishes an agonistic theory of democratic citizenship is that is reserves

a special role for contestation, conflict and struggle in democratic politics. In agonistic

theories, conflict is not an unfortunate trait of a modern pluralistic society but

something that should be valued. In addition, the agonistic ideal of democratic

citizenship is connected to the perpetuity of contestation. Conflict is, in this view, a

permanent feature of a healthy democracy.

Although hardly anyone questions Honneth’s positive valuation of conflict (as

demonstrated in the centrality of the struggle for recognition), there are questions

concerning his take on the permanence of democratic conflict. Honneth himself argues

that the conflict for recognition is permanent: every form of recognition is continuously

transcended via a struggle that leads to a higher (or more inclusive) stage of

recognition. This entails that every relation of recognition already includes the

possibility of its own overcoming (Honneth 2002: 502). Yet, as he acknowledges, his

theory of the struggle for recognition is plagued by ambiguities. Either, he argues, we

must postulate a deep-seated human inclination to contest recognitive relations. But

in this case, we lose track of the normative aspect of recognition struggles. After all, if

we locate the origin of these struggles in our predisposition to rebel, we lose its

connection to the moral experience of disrespect. Or, we can locate the origin of

recognition struggles in historically specific experiences of disrespect. But if we do this,

we lose the internal connection between recognition and struggle. If we take this road,

struggle only connects to recognition to the extent that historically specific forms of

disrespect exist (Ibid.: 502-504). Honneth summarizes the options as follows: “Whereas

the first thesis presupposes a need, anchored in human nature, that generates the

agonistic character of relations of recognition, the second thesis appeals, by contrast,

to the moral vulnerability of humans, who turn to protest and rebellion only when faced

with certain experiences” (Ibid.: 502-504, cit. 504).

As some of his critics have argued, Honneth is inclined to favor the second option

and therefore ends up with an agonistic deficit. Patchen Markell, for instance, remarks

that Honneth holds on to the notion of a successful recognition as the horizon of these

struggles. In other words: while historically specific relations of misrecognition might

obstruct the pursuit of recognition, the possibility of a successful recognitive order –

successful and therefore free of conflict – is not forsaken (Markell 2003: 16, 120).

Similarly, but on a slightly different note, Chris Bertram and Robin Celikates argue

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that conflict is always external to recognition for Honneth. After all, conflicts and

struggles are simply that which allows for the transition from one recognition order to

another (more successful) one. Conflicts are therefore not valued in themselves but

merely as “occasions for the development of particular orders of recognition” (Bertram

and Celikates 2013: 841).

In a recent article, however, Honneth successfully counters these readings.

Reflecting on possible explanations for the persistence of conflict in societies, he argues

that the following answer is the most plausible one: “social conflict,” he writes, “is

inevitable in all societies simply because the norms accepted by their members will

again and again give rise to new moral claims that cannot be satisfied under existing

conditions and whose frustration will therefore result in social conflicts” (Honneth

2017: 913). Norms, he continues, are almost always interpreted in one-sided,

hegemonic ways. Yet, if they are to perform their socially integrative function, they

should also be open to interpretations that deviate from the hegemonic one. As a result,

when different individuals discover that they are “denied appropriate recognition

within some structure of socially practiced norms,” they can collectively contest these

norms and “develop creative and more inclusive reinterpretations [of these norms]

guided by their own particular concerns” (Ibid.: 915). At this point, then, conflict is no

longer external to orders of recognition but is internal to them.

6.3. Racism and the Limits to the Struggle for Recognition

In the following sections I want to put Honneth’s theory to the test. Research

concerning racism and its structural character, I will argue, is able to show where his

recognition paradigm comes up short. To be more precise: I will argue that W.E.B. Du

Bois’ theory of the co-constitution of racist and capitalist domination shows how the

struggle for recognition can (a) become implicated in the reproduction of racist and

capitalist structures of domination and (b) displace other non-recognition based

struggles against domination.

In the first subsection (3.1.) I will reconstruct Honneth’s position on racism. In the

following subsection (3.2.), I will review his debate with Nancy Fraser, focusing on the

question of the relation between recognition and capitalism. Though Honneth can

respond to some of Fraser’s critiques, I will contend that some fundamental problems

remain. In the remaining paragraphs of this section, I will show how these problems

have roots in his theoretical premises. Finally (3.3), I explore what a more successful

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account of racist domination looks like and what teaches us about the limits to the

recognition paradigm.

6.3.1. Honneth’s (Missing) Theory of Racism

Even though racism would make a good example of misrecognition, Honneth’s analyses

of it are relatively scarce. The closest Honneth comes to providing such a theory of

racism is through the concept of a ‘social pathology’. Though I do not believe that he

ever offers an actual theory of racism, I will argue that Honneth’s decision to place the

phenomenon within his theory of social pathologies is telling (see infra).

First: what is a social pathology? In abstract terms: to diagnose social pathologies,

Honneth writes, one must trace those “social developments that must be understood

as preventing the members of a society from living a ‘good life’” (Honneth 2007a: 4). In

other words: the diagnosis of social pathologies – this being for Honneth the domain of

social philosophy – does not approach society through the lens of justice but discloses

the different process through which societies deviate from those ‘normal’ or ‘healthy’

states of affairs that “allow [their] members to experience undistorted self-realization”

(Ibid.: 35). In a later reprisal of this argument, he adds a historical element. Following

Hegel, Honneth argues that “each successful form of society is possible only through

the maintenance of its most highly developed standard of rationality” (Honneth 2009:

23). In the early writings of the Frankfurt School this idea receives a specific content:

capitalism is a pathological form of social organization that obstructs the realization of

a more rational form of life “already made possible by history” (Ibid.: 35).

In Honneth’s thought, the category receives another interpretation: social

pathologies “impact subjects’ reflective access to primary systems of actions and norms”

(Honneth 2014: 86). To be more precise: “[s]omeone who is unable to comprehend the

purpose of a certain socially institutionalized practice is not psychologically ill,”

Honneth writes, “but has only lost the ability, due to social causes, to practice

adequately the normative grammar of an intuitively familiar system of action” (Ibid.).

Here, the ‘highest developed standard of rationality’ receives a recognition-specific

content. As Neal Harris argues, in the recognition-cognitive understanding of social

pathologies, they arise ‘in the head’ as certain social patterns inhibit our “capacity to

recognize the other” (Harris 2019: 54-55, cit. 54) or our ability to pick up on the

“normative content of truly modern institutions that are built on recognitive processes”

(Thompson 2019: 11).

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Honneth’s first foray into the analysis of racism as social pathology focused on the

phenomenon of invizibilization, taking Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man as a starting

point. In Ellison’s novel we follow the journey of the narrator – an unnamed black man.

As the title already suggests, the book explores the subject of racism through the

invisibility of its protagonist. This invisibility, Honneth suggests, is of a specific kind:

it is evidently not a literal physical invisibility but a social one. It is the kind of

invisibility that makes another person look ‘right through you’. This act, he continues,

has an intentional character: as the physical presence of the invisible person is a given,

his or her invisibility must be performed. Through certain gestures (or the withholding

of certain gestures) we avoid recognizing the presence of said invisible person. There

are certain gestures of which it is commonly known that they express a form of social

recognition. We are expected to look a person in the eye when we speak to them or

acknowledge their presence through certain facial expressions (e.g. smiling).

Therefore, by withholding these gestures we perform the invisibility of a person

(Honneth 2001: 111-115). Think, for instance, of the “absent-minded ignorance of the

master of the house vis-a-vis the cleaning lady, whom he overlooks because of her social

meaninglessness” (Ibid.: 112). However, one isolated act of disrespect does not make a

social problem. We can ignore someone for a variety of reasons. If someone has offended

me, I might ignore him later. But this hardly counts as a form of misrecognition. Social

invisibility is therefore only a form of misrecognition if it “is the result of a specific set

of socially shared racialized relations of subordination and oppression, rather than

particular interpersonal relations” (Zurn 2015: 102).

The second time Honneth focuses on racism is in a 2007 interview (Honneth 2007b).

Here he focuses on racism as a socialization defect. Whereas the article on

invizibilization mainly focuses on the form racist practices take, this interview sees

Honneth attempting to explain how racism can arise in the first place. Before he does

so, however, he dismisses two common explanations for racism. We cannot explain

racism, he says, as the adoption of primitive beliefs and ideologies; we do not suddenly

become racist because we encounter a racist ideology. Nor can we explain the existence

of racism by referring to economic factors: it is not a consequence of economic

uncertainty or inequality. Racism is explained by pathological developments in the

socialization process. Racism persists because children and youngsters are brought up

without having properly learnt to respect others regardless of their skin colour or are

brought up learning to classify others on the basis of their of their skin colour. As a

result, these children grow into individuals who are liable to be swayed by racist ideas

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and can develop a racist habitus. Even without explicitly holding onto a fully formed

racist ideology, their whole disposition is geared towards the disrespecting of ‘racial’

others (Honneth 2007b).

Honneth’s recent monograph on reification, provides a third moment in his

theorization of racism. His starting point is Georg Lukàcs’ ground-breaking work on

the concept of reification. According to Lukàcs, in Honneth’s summary, reification is a

result of the totalizing logic of the capitalist system: as the capitalist practice of

commodity exchange become omnipresent, we start to approach other aspects of social

life in a similar manner. That is, one starts to “(a) to perceive given objects solely as

‘things’ that one can potentially make a profit on, (b) to regard each other solely as

‘objects’ of a profitable transaction, and finally (c) to regard their own abilities as

nothing but supplemental ‘resources’ in the calculation of profit opportunities”

(Honneth 2008: cit. 22, 26-28; also Honneth 2009: 34). This results in the loss of a more

desirable form of human praxis and, consequently, the goal of emancipation is to rid

us of capitalism (Freyenhagen 2015: 135).

Honneth, translating the concept to fit his theory of recognition, defines it as the

forgetting of recognition. It is the forgetting of our antecedent recognition of others

which results from our taking up an objectifying stance. It arises as we approach others

in a calculative or instrumental way, thus ‘forgetting’ that they are human beings (as

opposed to machines or objects) (Zurn 2005: 105). The immediate difference with

Lukàcs’ conceptualization is its normative angle: Honneth maintains that one should

understand reification as a violation of normative expectations (i.e. the expectation of

recognition) (Honneth 2008: 25; Chari 2010: 591-593). In addition, this definition is

also narrower: Honneth does not condemn all instances of objectification. What is

problematic according to him is objectification combined with a forgetting of

recognition (Ibid.). However, according to Honneth we can perfectly assume an

instrumentalist or calculative stance towards others in the market sphere without

necessarily denying them recognition. The fact that we recognize the other as a

contractual partner, he writes, is already a form of recognition (however minimal)

(Honneth 2008: 75, 80). As a result, reification is not as widespread as Lukàcs would

have it.

This concept of reification also shapes his idea of racism. Racism, Honneth writes,

is that phenomenon in which, “[u]nder the effect of reifying stereotypes (of women,

Jews, etc.), groups of individuals are retroactively deprived of the personal

characteristics that have been accorded to them habitually and without question on

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the basis of antecedent social recognition [i.e. a form of reification]” (Ibid.: 81).

However, Honneth notes, racist ideologies and stereotypes in themselves do not

“possess the strength to unsettle retroactively an antecedently familiar fact [i.e. the

prior recognition of other human beings]” (Ibid.). In other words: racist stereotypes

merely serve as a cognitive reinforcement for social practices in which humans treat

each other instrumentally.

These disparate threads, we already noted, hardly add up to a fully-fledged theory

of racism. However, we can draw them together to highlight some of the central

characteristics of Honneth’s view on racism. For him, racism primarily constitutes a

failure to take up and inhabit the recognitive norms that are central to a modern

democracy: that all human beings are deserving of recognition. Moreover, what all his

analyses of racism share is the insight that this disconnect between racist actors and

modern recognitive norms is not only or even primarily the result of the acceptance of

racist ideologies or ideas. Rather, the acceptance and effectivity of racist ideologies is

itself in need of explanation. Racist ideologies or stereotypes can only become accepted

as a result of the failed integration of individuals or groups of individuals into the

recognition order. As Honneth’s analysis of youth racism shows this failure can be

conceived of as a failure in the socialization process of youngsters. But as the analysis

of reification and racism shows, a successful socialization process can also be undone.

People can forget their prior recognition of others.

What to make of these views? The first remarkable element is the lack of social-

theoretical explanations for racism. Racism is diagnosed as a disconnect from the

recognition order but the disconnect itself remains largely unexplained. Honneth is

clear on the social explanations for racism that he rejects. For instance, he insists that

racism is a form of reification that does not derive from processes of economic exchange

(Honneth 2008: 78). What could explain the genesis and effectiveness of racism,

however, remains a mystery. As his critics note, this part of social theory is not exactly

Honneth’s strong suit. Although he acknowledges the need for social-theoretical

explanations for social ills, he tends to forgo providing them himself (Markell 2003: 21;

Zurn 2005: 116-117; Kouvélakis 2019: 484-485).

Of course one might ask why Honneth should do so. We “might think that what

matters is identifying, denouncing, and overcoming misrecognition,” Patchen Markell

writes, “not understanding where it comes from or what it means for its beneficiaries”

(Markell 2003: 21). Yet, the problem with this response, Markell himself adds, is that

understanding where it comes from is important. After all, if we’re interested in

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overcoming misrecognition, we cannot proceed without an understanding of its genesis

(Ibid.). This is certainly the case for racism, Sally Haslanger argues: when it comes to

racism, normative questions concerning the specific wrong of racism depend on our

descriptive explanation for the persistence of racial wrongs. For normative criticism of

racism to be effective, that is, it should be grounded in a theory that explains where

racial inequality, racial injustice and racial wrongs come from (Haslanger 2017: 1-2).

Even more so, I want to argue that there is more going on here than a simple lack

of attention. As I will show in the next section, Honneth’s inability to explain structures

of domination – such as racism – in social-theoretical terms is a result of an essential

characteristic of his theory of recognition. In the words of Michael J. Thompson:

Honneth’s recognition paradigm is “a theory of sociation without society – at least

without a conception of society that has any systemic or structural features with causal

powers” (Thompson 2018b: 572). To be more specific: for Honneth society is made up of

recognition relations all the way down and this blinds him to the way in which systemic

forces can pervert recognition relations (see infra).

If we do introduce this social-theoretical dimension, however, we will end up with a

critical theory of racism that is different from that of Honneth. In the first place, racist

domination will no longer only appear as a principally psychological phenomenon in

which racists are unable to properly recognize racial others. Racist attitudes, that is,

should be explained by (racist) structures of domination and not vice versa. Second, if

we allow for the possibility that political or economic forces influence the recognitive

process, we will no longer be able to uphold Honneth’s strict separation between

relations of recognition and recognitive norms on the one hand, and racism itself on

the other. For Honneth, racism is a phenomenon in which people are unable to inhabit

recognitive norms. And there is, indeed, more than a grain of truth to this idea: racism

often does take the form of a denial of recognition, of the basic humanity of ‘racial’

others. However, in making this partial truth into the whole truth, Honneth overlooks

one thing: that other relations of recognition might sustain structures of racist

domination. Therefore, the relation between recognition and racist domination is more

complex. Some forms of recognition are implicated in the reproduction of racism rather

than being a protective barrier against it.

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6.3.2. Limits to the Recognition Paradigm: Norms and Power

One way into Honneth’s take on the relation between recognitive processes and

structural social forces is his debate with Nancy Fraser (Fraser and Honneth 2003).

According to Simon Thompson, one of the central disputes in Honneth’s debate with

Fraser is the nature of the connection between relations of recognition and economic

factors. Whereas Fraser argues that we can analytically separate economic forms of

domination from instances of disrespect, Honneth argues that the two are inseparable.

According to the latter, then, there is no such thing as economic domination without

some skewed form of valuation being involved (Thompson 2005: 93; also see Zurn 2015:

152). Applied to the question of racism: if, as Honneth takes it, economic racism cannot

function without one form or another of misrecognition, then Fraser’s position – that

economic racism and recognitive racism can be separated analytically – loses its power.

Cultural, political and economic forms of racism would then simply be different forms

of misrecognition.

I would argue that Honneth’s retort is convincing in at least one respect. In this

debate Fraser does imply that racism can, analytically though not empirically, be

separated into economic forms, on the one hand, and recognitive forms, on the other

hand. The problem with this position does not reside in the idea that economic forces

can operate independently of recognitive relations. It is of course perfectly possible that

historical variations in the labour share of GDP are a result of economic fluctuations

as opposed to a change in our recognition of wage labour. What is problematic is that

Fraser loses sight of a third option: that racism as misrecognition plays a crucial role

in the heart of the capitalist economy. Namely: it is vital to the management of the

labour force. It divides the workers among themselves and therefore prevents them

from organizing against their exploitation (Lebowitz 2006: 39; also see Roediger 2017:

121).43 Conversely, this also has implications for the analysis of recognition struggles.

As Joel Olson puts it: “[I]f the political question of capitalism is how to get workers to

work in a system that exploits them, then resistance to the means by which workers

are induced to labour – such as the privileges or terrors of white citizenship – could

challenge the system of exploitation itself” (Olson 2004: 116). In other words, the line

separating struggles for recognition from struggles against economic domination are

not always analytically separable as Fraser sometimes makes it out to be.

43 I should add that Fraser has incorporated this insight in her more recent accounts of racial capitalism

(see Fraser 2016; Fraser 2017; Fraser and Jaeggi 2018: 39-47).

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This does not mean, however, that I completely side with Honneth on this matter.

My disagreement with him lies somewhere else. I grant him that recognitive norms

can play an important role in the economic sphere. Yet, the question then becomes how

we see the causal relations between these norms and economic forces. To put it more

concretely: Do we pay certain people less because we do not value them properly, or

does our skewed valuation of them derive from economic necessities? Without wanting

to decide this question in either of the two directions, it is clear to me that Honneth

discounts the latter option as this would amount to acknowledging that economic forces

can distort relations of recognition. But this is an option he wants to avoid at all costs

(lest we fall back into a Marxist functionalism) (Deranty 2013: 750; Freyenhagen 2015:

135). In other words: Honneth has no problems acknowledging the place of recognitive

norms and cultural values in the economic domain but is wary of flipping the causal

direction. Norms shape the organization of economic forces; economic forces, however,

have no bearing on the modelling or adoption of recognitive norms.

This steadfast refusal, as we already suggested, has problematic consequences. In

the words of Lois McNay: “The most insuperable difficulty in Honneth’s recognition

paradigm […] is that power relations are always viewed as a posteriori effects of a

fundamental psychic dynamic […] where social relations are persistently viewed as

extrapolations from the primary dyad of recognition. This both sentimentalizes social

relations and obscures their complex and abstract nature, in the sense that they are

mediated through latent dynamics of money and power” (McNay 2008: 135; also see

Petherbridge 2013: 191; McNay 2014: 57; Kelly 2018: 116). In this, Honneth’s concept

of recognition differs from those of Sartre and Fanon (among others) for whom relations

of recognition should be placed within determinate social and historical contexts and

the relations of power that inhere in them (Kouvélakis 2019: 462).

Yet, once we do consider the mediation of these dynamics of power, the recognition

paradigm, or at the least recognition monism, becomes less convincing. Like we noted

in the foregoing section: according to Honneth, social pathologies – such as racism –

have their root in a failure to accept and inhabit the democratic-recognitive norms of

modern institutions. Conversely, if people are subjected to forms of racism, they can

point to these recognitive norms to justify their struggle for recognition. However, what

happens if we allow for the possibility that structures of domination capture the

recognition process (Thompson 2018b: 3; Zurn 2003: 525; Kelly 2018: 122)? At this

point, these norms themselves become suspect.

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The underlying assumption of the recognition paradigm, as Michael Thompson

points out, is that “recognitive relations shape a sense of moral awareness about self

and other which […] cultivates a sense of critical opposition to forms of […] disrespect”

(Thompson 2018a: 247-248). But there are good reasons to suspect that structural

forms of domination in our modern societies can thwart this process. The recognitive

norms that a society upholds, and that for Honneth are the precondition of both critique

and resistance, can come to serve this problematic social order. Since they are crucial

to the socialization of individuals, they can also help reproduce these orders by making

them legitimate to those subject to them (Ibid.: 248-253; also see Thompson 2016: 63-

88).

As Thompson argues, this presents two problems for the recognition paradigm.

First, if the source of misrecognition is a structure of domination, then a struggle for

recognition might do little to correct this wrong. In such a case, resistance to

misrecognition will have to involve not only a demand for recognition, but also – and

more importantly – the transformation of the structures that are a breeding ground for

social pathologies (Thompson 2018b: 12-13) (see chapter 7). Second, if relations of

recognition are embedded in structures of domination, then there’s a good chance that

they help justify these structures. Instead of being a condition for criticism and

resistance, then, they might become instrumental in the formation of a normative

consensus around these structures (Ibid.: 13-16).

In the context of this article, I’m mainly interested in the second issue. This is

essentially a problem of ideology. As a starting definition we can speak of ideological

recognition if the addressee is somehow subordinated through her recognition. If

something like ideological recognition exists, this certainly problematizes Honneth’s

recognition paradigm. In fact, in a recent article – ‘Recognition as Ideology’ – he

acknowledges this problem. If a form of recognition helps secure a social form of

domination, he argues, we can no longer assume that recognition is always opposed to

domination. Neither can we assume that the struggle for recognition is inherently

emancipatory (Honneth 2012: 77). He provides the following example: “[t]he pride that

‘Uncle Tom’ feels as a reaction to the constant praises of his submissive virtues makes

him into a compliant servant in a slave-owning society” (Ibid.: 77).

However, fundamentally he believes that such forms of ideological misrecognition

can always be separated from genuine forms of recognition and, more importantly, are

therefore unable to parade as forms of recognition for too long. More precisely, Honneth

argues that an ideological form of recognition – however convincing – has a core of

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irrationality which separates it from genuine forms of recognition. The irrationality of

ideological recognition does not, however, lie on “the semantic surface” (Ibid.: 79) That

is, an ideological form of recognition must at least seem rational for their addressees to

accept them. The reason is that ideologies cannot function if their addressees have

absolutely no reason to accept them.

In the first place, this excludes derogatory forms of address: for example, women

have no reason to feel recognized by an obviously sexist form of recognition. This entails

that an ideological form of recognition must acknowledge a positive feature of the

addressee. Secondly, ideological forms of recognition must be credible, meaning that it

has to “live up to the evaluative vocabulary of the present” (Ibid.: 86-87, cit. 87). To go

back to the ‘Uncle Tom’ example: the praising of submissive virtues might be credible

in a slave-holding society but would no longer be seen as credible in the present. The

final characteristic of a successful form of ideological recognition is that it is

contrastive: the addressee will only be convinced if he or she “feel[s] distinguished in

some special way” (Ibid.: 88).

Having staked out his theory of ideological recognition, Honneth immediately

diminishes the dangers it presents to the recognition paradigm. Even ostensibly

rational forms of ideological recognition, he argues, will sooner or later show their true

face. Therefore, we can still separate them from a genuine and normative form of

recognition. Key to his argument are the concepts evaluative promise and material

fulfilment. Ideological forms of recognition promise something that society – in

material terms – cannot deliver.44 Therefore, they retain a core of irrationality. For

example: successful neoliberal forms of recognition do not involve negative stereotypes.

On the contrary, they acknowledge the best parts of ourselves: our creativity, ingenuity

or resilience. They are also credible given the evaluative vocabulary of the present.

Third, they are contrastive: if I am creative, ingenuous or resilient this means that

there are others who are not.

There is one catch however: neoliberal recognition shows its ideological face,

Honneth argues, once the mismatch between what it promises and what is materially

possible in a neoliberal economy becomes apparent. To be more specific: a form of

ideological recognition promises something which is impossible given the absence of

institutional measures that guarantee the realization of this promise (Ibid.: 91-94). For

44 As Toon Braeckman pointed out to me, this criterion is perhaps too vague to be useful. After all, what

kind of recognition can fully deliver on its promise? Hence, should one extend this reasoning, it might turn

out that most forms of recognition are ideological.

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example: a neoliberal form of recognition could praise us for our flexibility, creativity

and autonomy, but we can question whether a neoliberal society truly rewards these

characteristics. This gap between promise and fulfilment allows us to expose the

ideological character of neoliberal recognition. Once again, Honneth can separate

ideological from genuine recognition and the danger that ideology presents to the

recognition paradigm is played down.

However, as Amy Allen argues, some forms of ideological recognition are not

accompanied by such a gap between evaluative promise and material fulfilment. It is

possible that recognition that subjugates at the same time does reward subjection. She

gives the example of a girl that is brought up being recognized for her feminine beauty

and docility. As a form of ideological recognition, it works because the girl is praised in

a positive way (i.e. she is recognized for her beauty) and to be recognized for these

characteristics is perfectly credible in our current society. Moreover, this recognition is

contrastive: presumably her beauty and docility contrast with the characteristics of

girls who do not care about appearance and are willing to break social norms. However,

the crux of Allen’s critique is that, as she notes, the little girl will probably be rewarded

materially for living up to these norms (Allen 2010: 30). Because of all the relative

advantages involved in this form of recognition, it won’t register as an ideological form

of recognition. And equally important for Honneth’s recognition paradigm: it will also

not prompt a struggle for proper recognition. As long as the girl benefits from this

ideological form of recognition, she will consent to her subordinate position.

But what does this tell us about racism and recognition? Racism might be an

ideology, but according to Honneth it cannot constitute a form of recognition because

it is discriminatory (Honneth 2012: 86). Racist stereotypes do not confer worth, they

deny the worth of certain individuals. Therefore, they already fail the first test of a

successful form of ideological recognition: they lack credibility for their addressee.

However, we could also look at the relation between racism and recognition from

another perspective: we could examine how racism as a structure of domination is

stabilized through the ideological recognition of those who benefit from this form of

social domination. As all of this might still sound abstract, I suggest moving to the next

section where I show how these problems play out concretely in the debate on racial

formation in the USA.

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6.3.3. The Wages of Whiteness: W.E.B. Du Bois on Racial Formation in the USA

Somewhere near the end of his monumental work Black Reconstruction in America,

W.E.B. Du Bois coins the concept of a ‘public and psychological wage’. He does so, as

Joel Olson clarifies, in order to explain the downfall of Radical Reconstruction (1867-

1877) – “the dramatic, rapid, and unprecedented transformation of the mass of slaves

into free human beings, Americans, voters – citizens” following the American Civil War

(Olson 2004: 10-11). This enfranchisement of ex-slaves created a singular situation in

which the labouring class – consisting of black and white workers – suddenly wielded

a considerable political power that endangered the rule of capital. The question Du

Bois tries to answer, then, is how and why this moment came to pass. It is not difficult

to explain why the ruling classes abandoned Radical Reconstruction. As Olson

summarizes, Northern capital recognized that their coalition with the ex-slaves was

untenable and sought rapprochement with Southern elites (Ibid.: 12). The Northern

Republicans enfranchised ex-slaves in a desperate bid to break the electoral power of

the Southern Democrats but understood that this inadvertently led to a revolutionary

situation at odds with their own interests.

What is more difficult to explain is why white and black labourers were unable to

unite in their opposition to the capitalist class. The failure of Radical Reconstruction

was not inevitable: if the white working class had joined the black proletariat in

defence of the gains of Reconstruction, it might have been avoided (Ibid.). Moreover,

one would expect, as Du Bois notes, that they would do so because of a shared a class

interest (Du Bois 1998 [1935]: 700). As noted above: the enfranchisement of black men

gave rise to a drastic increase in the political power of the labouring class. Hence, from

this point of view the white working class had an interest in defending the gains of

Reconstruction. But as it turns out this is not what happened. The “white workers

sided with the elites on the basis of racial interests rather than with Black workers on

the basis of class interests” and thus Radical Reconstruction was ended (Olson 2004:

13; also see Roediger 2017: 64).

In an effort to explain this coalition between white capital and white labour, Du Bois

coins the concept of the psychological wages. We can only understand the wedge

between black and white labour, he argues, if we remember that “the white group of

labourers, while they received a low wage, were compensated in part by a sort of public

and psychological wage” (Du Bois 1998 [1935]: 700). So, while white labourers might

have received low wages, they were given public deference, were admitted freely to

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public parks, were treated with much more leniency by the courts and could send their

children to better schools. Precisely because of this relative advantage, they were

unable to see the interests they shared with the black labourers. White workers, Du

Bois writes, “saw in every advance of Negroes a threat to their racial prerogatives”

(Ibid.: 701). And as a result, Du Bois notes, “[t]here probably are not today in the world

two groups of workers with practically identical interests who hate and fear each other

so deeply and persistently and who are kept so far apart that neither sees anything of

common interest” (Ibid.: 700).

In the concept of public and psychological wages we find the nucleus of Du Bois’

later theory of racism as a structure of power (Mills 2004; Olson 2004: 1-30; Haider

2018: 42-64). In his earlier writings Du Bois still held onto an essentialist

understanding of race as a biological and socio-historical category. However, in his

later writings such as Black Reconstruction (1935) and Dusk of Dawn (1940) – strongly

influenced by the Marx’s writings – he developed a constructivist concept of race that

“reveals the fundamentally political nature of that construction” (Olson 2005: 119-120,

cit. 119; e.g. Du Bois 1998 [1935]: 39). Rather than assuming that power relations are

simply grafted upon a pre-existing division between biological or socio-historical ‘races’,

he tried to show how race was a product of these relations of power. More specifically,

Du Bois pioneered the study of the relations between racism as a structure of

domination and the relations of power that prevail in capitalist society. His analyses

in Black Reconstruction show that the problem of racism is not separate from questions

of class composition (Haider 2018: 44-45).

This does not mean that he simply derives race as a super-structural illusion from

an economic base. Race might be a biological fiction, but as a social construct it is firmly

embedded in social and political institutions (Mills 2004: 36; Olson 2004: 8-9). Neither

does he maintain that racist domination simply mirrors the economic base. It is the

result of a cross-class alliance between white capital and white labour that – while not

operating in complete autonomy from economic incentives – has a dynamic of its own

(Mills 2004: 37; Olson 2005: 122; also Du Bois 1998 [1935]: 102-103). As David Roediger

argues, white workers were not simply duped into accepting the ideology of white

supremacy (thus blinding them to a shared class interest). They played an active role

in the reproduction of this idea because it benefitted them in ways that were

psychological (in the form of status and privileges) and material (in the form of

comparatively higher wages and better public provisions) (Roediger 2007: 9-13; also

see Ignatiev 2003: 230; Mills 2004: 42; Roediger 2017: 64). What it does mean is that

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no theory of racism can afford to ignore racism’s place in the capitalist social formation.

As Du Bois sharply put it, “the economic foundation of the modern world was based on

the recognition and preservation of so-called racial distinctions. In accordance with

this, not only Negro slavery could be justified, but the Asiatic coolie profitably used and

the labour [sic] classes in white countries kept in their places by low wage”” (Du Bois

2007 [1940]).

More importantly in the context of this chapter: this discussion also shows that the

struggle for recognition is or, at the very least, can be ambiguous. On the one hand, the

white worker’s struggle for recognition was entirely justified. It arose from a place of

misrecognition – the disrespect and lack of esteem for the (white) labouring class. In

addition, the gradual recognition of the labour movement could and should be seen as

a step forward in the democratization of society and the emancipation of (white) labour.

In these respects, these forms of recognition were and are genuine: they are positive,

credible and contrastive. More importantly: precisely because the recognition of the

white worker entailed actual material and psychological advantages – however relative

– the gap between evaluative promise and material fulfilment fails to register (see

Hosang and Lowndes 2019: 49).

However, at the same time this recognition, as it was restricted to the white

labourer, was imbricated in structures of domination. The recognition of the white

worker prevented him from acting in solidarity with the black worker and, as a

consequence, drastically narrowed his political horizon. In the words of Du Bois:

“[t]he white serfs as they were transplanted in America, began a slow, but in

the end, effective agitation for recognition in American democracy. And

through them has risen the modern labour movement. But this movement

almost from the first looked for its triumph along the paths of aristocracy and

sought to raise the white servant and labourer on the backs of the black servant

and slave [my emphasis]” (cited in: Olson 2005: 123; also see Singh 2004: 24).

In doing so, these white workers did not only reinforce racist structures of domination,

but also failed to truly challenge their own subordinate place in the social division of

labour. After all, doing so would have required them to develop forms of solidarity with

black and other non-white workers.

Honneth might respond to this by shifting the focus to the (lack of) justification for

these struggles of white workers. Not every struggle that starts from an experience of

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disrespect and exhibits a desire for recognition is justified. In an interview he notes

that his debate with Fraser forced him to come to terms with the possibility of

unjustified recognition claims (Boltanski, Celikates and Honneth 2014: 573). This is,

what Christopher Zurn calls, “the problem of ‘evil claimants’” (Zurn 2015: 90). These

are actors that demand forms of recognition that entail the suppression of others.

Think, for instance, of neo-Nazis: these political movements might demand a form of

recognition, but these are hardly justifiable as their specific demands entail the

subordination of others such as non-white citizens and – in some cases – women.

In order to deal with such cases, Honneth introduces a normative limitation:

“expectations about recognition are justified only insofar as they represent

articulations of the [historically given] orders in which they are embedded” (Ibid.:

574).45 This proviso, he could argue, would allow him to argue that the struggles that

Du Bois is describing, are not justified. However, it is not clear to me that this

normative limitation would allow Honneth to frame the white labourers in the above

example as evil claimants. The historical recognition order in which these struggles

took place did not include the norm of universal equality regardless of race: black

Americans were after all anti-citizens (Glenn 2002: 33). The idea that “American

universalism, and the moral and political primacy it attributes to individual freedom

and civic egalitarianism, have worked to overcome racial division and racism,” Nikhil

Pal Singh notes, “is faulty” (Singh 2004: 20). It is a mistake, that is, to think that racial

domination was only an accidental betrayal of American values, or that the discrepancy

between the two could be amended because these values were self-correcting (Ibid.: 38-

39). This entails, I believe, that the struggles of these white workers for recognition,

both dignity and esteem, while indeed exclusionary towards black workers, would not

45 The addition ‘historically given’ is important: as Honneth notes in a more recent interview, he stands

by the spirit of his early monograph The Struggle for Recognition, but he accentuates the need to

“historicize the forms and spheres of recognition” (Marcello 2013: 210). To be clear: he keeps on to the idea

that the need for recognition is an anthropological constant, but adds that what counts as good or genuine

recognition changes throughout history. This change is already visible quite early on: in a 2002 article,

responding to questions concerning the normative basis of his recognition theory, he already argues that

“these values represent lifeworld certitudes whose character can undergo historical change” (Honneth

2002: 508).

However, Honneth adds a proviso in order to avoid the relativist implications this historical grounding

of the normativity of recognition: that we must assume the existence of historical progress (Honneth 2012:

83). As Amy Allen notes, this proviso is absolutely crucial in Honneth’s work as “it is the idea of historical

progress that ultimately answers the question of why the normative principles that we find within our

existing social world deserve our support” (Allen 2016: 108). This notion of progress, to be clear, is not tied

to an objective concept of teleology as is the case in Hegel’s work (Ibid.: 89). Honneth operates with a

backward-looking concept of progress: the idea that our normative ideals and the institutions which

instantiate them are the result of a cumulative and progressive historical learning process. This notion of

progress allows him to avoid having to rely on ahistorical norms without ending up as a historical relativist

(Ibid.: 13).

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register as unjustifiable from the point of view of the social lifeworld in which they

lived.

In fact, Honneth himself seems to admit as much in a reflection on the idea of

recognition as esteem. In the modern world, he argues, a person enjoys “social esteem

according to his or her achievement as a ‘productive citizen’” (Honneth in Fraser and

Honneth 2003: 141). However, he adds, social esteem “was hierarchically organized in

an unambiguously ideological ways from the start” (Ibid.). The norm that determines

who is or is not worthy of social esteem “represents a moment of material violence

insofar as the one-sided, ideological valuing of certain achievements can determine how

much of which resources individuals legitimately have at their disposal” (Ibid.). The

catch in this passage is the phrase ‘unambiguously ideological’. The question I would

ask is: unambiguous to whom? Were the wages of whiteness unambiguously ideological

in the reconstruction era? From the point of view of a left-wing philosopher writing in

the 2000’s surely they were. From the point of view of the reconstruction-era citizen,

however, this is less likely.

The point I’m trying to make is the following: Honneth’s own (contemporary)

normative judgement does not matter, as it is his professed aim to show that “[i]t is by

way of the morally motivated struggles of social groups – their collective attempt to

establish […] expanded forms of reciprocal recognition – that the normatively

directional change of societies proceeds” (Honneth 1995a: 93). To argue in retrospect

that such forms of recognition were unambiguously ideological (thus not genuine),

Kristina Lepold argues, is to switch to a normativist critical register that undermines

his larger “empirical thesis that struggles for recognition lead in the medium term to

real improvements of collective life” (Lepold 2019: 255).

The wages of whiteness, I argue, were forms of recognition that while they were

ideological, did not register as such for the recognized parties. In fact, it was granted a

long life in the form of the ideology of producerism. This is the idea, Daniel Martinez

Hosang and Joseph E. Lowndes write, that white men, both poor and rich, were

productive, whereas others (such as indigenous people and slaves) were considered

unproductive, dependent and thus ‘parasites’ (Hosang and Lowndes 2019: 23-27). This

long-lived recognitive norm – that a specific group of ‘producers’ deserves esteem and

therefore all of the material advantages that accrue to it – did not only harm ‘non-

productive’ groups. The point of Du Bois’ narrative is that it also prevented forms of

solidarity between white workers and black workers. For Du Bois, Eric Foner notes,

“Reconstruction represented a lost opportunity, a moment when black and white labour

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could have united to seek common goals but failed to do so” (Foner 2013: 412; also Du

Bois 1998 [1935]: 13).

6.4. Conclusion

In this chapter I have attempted to uncover a new dimension to the critique of the

recognition paradigm and, more specifically, recognition-based struggles. In the first

subchapters I’ve reconstructed Axel Honneth’s recognition paradigm. Specific

emphasis was placed on his idea that the history of modern democratic progress is in

essence the history of recognition struggles, of struggles by the oppressed for respect

and esteem. This idea, I believe, already insulates him from a common critique of the

recognition paradigm. Namely, that recognition is problematic because it is granted to

and passively accepted by an oppressed subject. Honneth rightfully places the

conflictual activity of oppressed subjects at the centre of his recognition paradigm.

In the second part of this chapter, I confronted Honneth’s ideas with the case of

racist domination. More specifically, I examined whether the strict correspondence of

recognition and emancipation, and misrecognition and domination, can still be upheld

in the study of racism. I argued that Honneth, who sees racism as a psychological

disconnect from recognitive norms, believes this to be the case. As a result, the

innocence of recognition is maintained. In subsequent subchapters, however, I argued

that these strict separations cannot be upheld, especially in the case of racist

domination. Through an engagement with W.E.B. Du Bois’ analysis of racial formation

in the USA, I argued that recognition can stabilize structures of domination.

In doing so, I also prepared the ground for a twist on the displacement critique of

recognition (e.g. Fraser 1995a; 1995b; Phillips 1997). In essence, I agree with the idea,

central to this critique, that struggles for recognition can and often do displace

struggles for a radical and transformative socio-economic reorganization. However, my

argument differs in two key respects. First, it complicates the historical narrative of

the displacement critique. Generally, it’s assumed that the displacement happens

somewhere in the late-twentieth century as, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and

under the influence of multiculturalism, a kind of particularistic recognition politics

gains ground (e.g. Fraser 1995a: 166; Fraser 1995b: 69; Phillips 1997: 194). I hope to

have shown that matters are more complex: the possibility that a desire for recognition

displaces more radical transformative politics has always plagued the labour

movement (at least in the US).

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Second, it shifts the ground of this critique: the dilemma, as far as I am concerned,

is not recognition or redistribution. It is, rather, recognition or transformation. I argue

this for the following reason: as Honneth himself notes when he responds to such

displacement critiques, distributive measures often are a form of recognition.

Redistribution, that is, can be seen as the recognition of someone’s achievement as a

‘productive citizen’ (Honneth in Fraser and Honneth 2003: 141-142). Confronted with

such an argument, the critique that recognition displaces redistribution loses its bite.

However, if we move the focus to the practice of transformation, things look different.

Like we argued in this chapter, the desire for recognition, especially esteem, and the

material advantages it includes, can prevent solidarity with those that fall short of the

recognitive norm. In this sense, the struggle for recognition can displace

transformative projects.

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7. Abolition before Recognition: Fanon on the Anti-Racist

Politics of Transformation

7.1. Introduction: Anti-Racism and the Recognition-Abolition Dilemma

In the previous chapter we approached the relation between racism and recognition

from the point of view of white supremacy. In this chapter, we will do so from the

position of those subjected to racism. The subjects of racism, Chris Chen notes, face a

particular dilemma: either they respond to their subordination and denigration by

affirming their racial identity; or they seek the abolition of the racial order and its

attendant distinction between (superior and inferior) races (Chen 2018: 933, 946-947;

also Chen 2013: 222). The first strategy is an anti-racist version of recognition politics:

here, the victims of racist domination seek to end their subordination through a

struggle for the recognition of racial difference. In a white supremacist society that

devalues blackness, for instance, a struggle for recognition would aim towards the

recognition of black people. The second strategy moves in a different direction: rather

than seeking the recognition of a given identity, it seeks to abolish identities that it

sees as inherently part of a racist structure of domination. In this case, anti-racist

politics comes to resemble those emancipatory traditions that strove towards their self-

abolition. Think of Marx’s claim that the proletariat is “a class [Stand] which is the

dissolution of all classes” (Marx 1992 [1843-1844]: 256). Or, Marx and Engels’s

assertion that the proletariat having “swept away the conditions for the existence of

class antagonisms and classes generally […] will thereby have abolished its own

supremacy as a class” (Marx and Engels 2015 [1848]: 35). In the radical feminist

tradition we find similar ideas. The radical feminist Shulamith Firestone, for instance,

writes that “the end goal of feminist revolution must be, unlike that of the first feminist

movement, not just the elimination of male privilege but of the sex distinction itself:

genital differences between human beings would no longer matter culturally”

(Firestone 2015 [1970]: 11). This tradition does not seek to abolish sexual differences

in se, but aims to “construct a society where traits currently assembled under the rubric

of gender, no longer furnish a grid for the asymmetric operation of power” (Cuboniks

2015: 6).

Like these traditions, anti-racist movements are confronted with the following

dilemma: ‘Recognition or abolition?’. In the current chapter, I will argue against the

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first and in favor of the second. When it comes to anti-racist struggles it is likely that

the desire for the recognition of their identity will be turned against the oppressed

precisely because they have been oppressed through this same identity (Brown 1995:

52-76; Emcke 2000). “An act of affirmative recognition,” Patchen Markell notes, “might

also unwittingly strengthen the underlying relations of power and domination that

have helped to make people who they are, binding people ever more tightly to the

identities that have historically been the instruments of their subjection, even while

(at least superficially) according those identities newfound respect” (Markell 2000:

498). This makes the abolition strategy more attractive.

I will develop this argument in two steps: first by way of Nancy Fraser and then by

way of Frantz Fanon. Fraser helps us chart the specifics of the recognition-abolition

dilemma. Moreover, she already provides some convincing arguments for the

abolitionist strategy. Her take on this strategy is nonetheless imperfect as it leaves out

one of the most important elements of an abolitionist politics: namely, struggle.

Therefore, we will turn to Fanon who provides both arguments against the struggle for

recognition and a more complete and complex analysis of the struggle for abolition. In

the conclusion, we will examine the relevance of Fanon’s thought for contemporary

anti-racist struggles.

7.2. Nancy Fraser and the Antinomies of Anti-Racist Struggles

7.2.1. Nancy Fraser’s Critique of Iris Young

Fraser develops her theory of perspectival dualism (see infra) to address some

problems she perceives in Iris Young’s theory of oppression. In Justice and the Politics

of Difference Young works out her theory of structural oppression – a form of oppression

that is “systematically reproduced in major economic, political and, cultural

institutions” (Young 1990: 41). More specifically, she insists on the multifaceted

character of structural oppression – the fact that it is not reducible to a single set of

criteria. All oppressed people are unable to develop and exercise their capacities, but

the condition of being oppressed can take many different forms and none of these are

more fundamental than the others (Ibid.: 40, 63). Oppression, Young further specifies,

has five faces: that of exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural

imperialism, and violence. The first three “occur by virtue of the social division of

labour” (Ibid.: 58): exploitation exists where people exercise their capacity to labour

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under the control of and for the benefit of others; marginalization is a form of

oppression in which people are expelled from the division of labour and cannot

participate in socio-economic life; and the concept of powerlessness describes the

experience of lacking control in the workplace (Ibid.: 48-58). Cultural imperialism, on

the other hand, refers to the experience of having the perspective of one’s social group

made invisible and stereotyped. It involves, Young cites W.E.B. Du Bois, the necessity

of “measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and

pity” (Ibid.: 58-61, cit. 60). The fifth and last face of oppression is that of systematic

violence. What matters most here is not the simple individual acts of violence but the

structural fact that people are systematically subjected to violence because they belong

to certain social groups. Therefore, it is closely connected to a social and cultural

context that makes the violence acceptable and possible (Ibid.: 61-63).

What is important in the context of this chapter is that Young underlines the plural

character of oppression. If we reduce all existing forms of oppression to a single cause,

she argues, we will end up discounting the importance of other ways in which a group

might be oppressed. For instance: the orthodox Marxist tradition has often denied the

importance of the specific experience of racist oppression. As it reduces the concept of

oppression to that of class-based oppression, it is unable to clarify the experience of

being stereotyped and made invisible because of one’s ‘race’. In other words, it is

important to understand the relative autonomy and specificity of different forms of

oppression. This does not, however, require an attempt to construct “an account of

separate systems of oppression for each oppressed group” because this has the opposite

effect of failing to grasp “the similarities and overlaps in the oppression of different

groups” (Ibid.: 63-64). The goal of a plural concept of oppression, Young argues, is that

of providing criteria with which we can evaluate groups’ claims of being oppressed.

This might mean that a group is oppressed in one specific way. But it is equally possible

and even likely that certain social groups are subjected to different forms of oppression

(Ibid.: 63-65).

The nub of Nancy Fraser’s critique of Young’s position is that she (a) implicitly

models her concept of a social group on that of the ethnic group and (b) understates the

difference between cultural and economic forms of oppression. As a result, she

underestimates the strategic tensions between different forms of the struggle against

oppression. Starting with the first: a social group, in Young’s theory, has three

important characteristics. First, social groups exist prior to individuals: “one finds

oneself as a member of a group, which one experiences as always already having been”

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(Young 1990: 46). Second, a social group can be “differentiated from at least one other

group by cultural forms, practices, or way of life” (Ibid.: 46). And third, group

differentiation is “an inevitable and desirable aspect of modern social processes” (Ibid.:

47). This entails that the goal of justice is not to eliminate social groups (even if they

are oppressed groups) but to value group differences without oppression. The problem

with this concept of the social group, Fraser argues, is that it muddles the distinction

between different types of groups such as ethnic groups, “races”, genders and social

classes. Even more so, Young implicitly models the concept of the social group on that

of the ethnic group (Fraser 1995a: 173).46 This is most apparent in the third

characteristic of a social group: the idea that social groups are desirable, and that

emancipatory politics should pursue the recognition of these groups. However, as

Fraser makes clear, this might be an appropriate strategy for an ethnic group. But the

struggles of other types of groups aim to undermine group differentiation. Class

struggle, for instance, involves the goal of undermining or even eliminating class-based

differences (Ibid.: 173; also see Olson 2004: 89).

Similar political problems arise because of Young’s failure to properly differentiate

cultural and economic forms of oppression. Take the category of cultural imperialism:

as Fraser argues, cultural imperialism often has both cultural and economic aspects.

This is the case if cultural dominance – the universalization of a particular culture at

the expense of others – is rooted in economic dominance. In a case like this there might

be a tension between the cultural politics of recognition and the politics of economic

restructuring. That is, some might try to combat the cultural imperialism by trying to

get their stereotyped or invisible culture recognized. But others might do so by

attempting to undermine the economic differences that give rise to cultural dominance.

A failure to recognize the differences between economic and cultural forms of

oppression might cause a blindness to the tension between different strategies of

opposing oppression (Ibid.: 176-177).

46 Interestingly, under the influence of Sartre she later proposes a distinction between social collectives as

series and social collectives as groups. Groups are held together by a shared project and the mutual

recognition of its members that they are engaged in such a project. Members of serial collectives, on the

other hand, “are unified passively by the objects around which their actions are oriented or by the

objectified results of the material effects of the actions of others” (Young 1994: 724). Gender and race,

Young argues, can be conceived both as series and group. They exist as series as long as they are passively

unified by a shared material history of patriarchy or racism. Yet, if they self-consciously organize

themselves in response to these conditions they become a group (Ibid.: 735).

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7.2.2. The Problem of Bivalent Collectives

In her article ‘From Redistribution to Recognition?’ Fraser further develops her

perspectival dualism. As a first clarification: Fraser’s dualism is ‘perspectival’ because

her distinction between the cultural and the economic is analytical rather than

ontological. In the real world, she writes, culture and economics are intertwined. But

we should attempt to separate the two analytically “for heuristic purposes” and to

“clarify […] the central political dilemmas of our age” (Fraser 1995b: 70; Fraser and

Honneth 2003: 63-64). These dilemmas are a result of the differing logics of the

remedies for cultural and economic injustice (recognition and redistribution,

respectively). Calls for recognition, she argues, often take the form of “calling attention

to, if not performatively creating, the putative specificity of some group, and then of

affirming the value of that specificity” (Fraser 1995b: 74). Struggles against economic

oppression, in contrast, “often call for abolishing economic arrangements that underpin

group specificity” (Ibid.: 74).

As Fraser recognizes, these differing logics do not automatically create political

dilemmas. If a social group experiences a pure form of either cultural or economic

oppression, no impasse will present itself. For instance, if we posit the existence of a

social group that experiences oppression solely for cultural-valuational reasons, it is

clear which remedy is called for. Fraser gives the example of gays and lesbians: it is

the privileging of the cultural norm of heterosexuality that explains the forms of

oppression that they are subjected to. Even if the devaluation of homosexuality has

material and economic consequences, the roots of homophobia are not economic. That

is, in a capitalist society there is no economic rationale for homophobia. Therefore, the

struggle against homophobia should aim for the recognition of homosexuality (Ibid.:

77-78).

However, some social groups experience both economic and cultural forms of

oppression. Both patriarchy and racism are structures of domination that consist of

cultural and economic elements. Gender and “race”, Fraser argues, are therefore

bivalent collectivities: they include both economic and cultural forms of oppression.

This entails that “neither redistributive remedies alone nor recognition remedies alone

will suffice” (Ibid.: 78). In the context of this chapter we will focus on racist domination.

As we noted in the previous chapter, racism can manifest itself in economic forms: non-

whites are more likely to be working low-paid, low-status jobs; are more likely to be

excluded from the labour market; and are more vulnerable to forms of expropriation.

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If this were the whole story, Fraser writes, the solution would be clear: “race” as a

status of economic subordination should be abolished. However, racism also operates

on a cultural level: non-white and non-European cultures, ways of life and norms are

made invisible, stereotyped and disparaged. As a result, non-white citizens are unable

to participate as equals in the public sphere and civil society. Rather than abolishing

“race”, however, the cultural aspect of racism requires the valorization of group

specificity. The remedy to the denigration of African Americans, for instance, is a

proper recognition of their cultural contributions. Yet, as Fraser notes, this creates a

political dilemma: “How can anti-racists fight simultaneously to abolish ‘race’ and to

valorize racialized group specificity?” (Ibid.: 80-82, cit. 82).

Before, we can discuss Fraser’s proposed solution to the dilemma, we should devote

some space to the debate that unfolded in the pages of the New Left Review. In two

reply-articles, Iris Young and Judith Butler challenged Nancy Fraser’s dichotomizing

of culture and political economy. Young focuses on the Fraser’s ‘dilemma’: how do we

know, she asks, if this is really a fundamental political tension rather than a superficial

one that is merely an artefact of Fraser’s own theoretical dichotomies? Often enough

recognition struggles have a deep impact on the political-economic structure. She gives

the example of indigenous Latin-American peasants: their struggles are not easily

divided in a cultural (or recognition-based) and an economic (or distribution-based)

element. To be more specific, their struggle concerns “the cultural interpretation of the

most basic terms of political economy: land, natural resources, property, tools, labour,

health, food” (Young 1997: 155; also see Coulthard 2014: 19). Similarly, Butler asks

whether the neat distinction between culture and economy works in the case of gays

and lesbians. “Normative gender,” she argues, “serves the reproduction of the

normative family” (Butler 1998: 40). As the reproduction of the family is, as Fraser also

recognizes, central to the capitalist mode of production, LGBTQ-struggles are – again

– not easily categorized as ‘merely cultural’.

Fraser’s response, which I take to be convincing, is twofold. First, she argues that

the existence of examples where recognition- and economy-based struggles overlap

does not tell us anything about all those other instances where this is not the case. Of

course, it is possible that struggles for recognition and struggle for redistribution

neatly converge. But there are equally cases where this does not happen, and it makes

little sense to disavow the political difficulties this brings along. Perspectival dualism,

hence, allows us to become more aware of and reflexive about the strategic difficulties

that bivalent groups face (Fraser 1997: 129; Fraser and Honneth 2003: 61). Second, the

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mere fact of a convergence of recognitive and distributive struggles tells us little about

the effectivity of these movements. It does not suffice, she argues, “to point out that

some who press claims for the recognition of cultural differences hope thereby to

promote economic restructuring; rather, one must go on to ask whether such hopes are

well-founded or whether they are likely to run aground” (Ibid.: 129). Similarly, she

responds to Butler that it might be the case that LGBTQ-struggles have material

implications, but since sexual preference structures neither the social division of labour

nor the mode of exploitation there is little chance that these struggles threaten the

capitalist mode of production (Fraser 1998: 146). As Anne Phillips notes in a reflection

on the debate: the distinction between culture and economy is ontologically shaky, but

Fraser’s perspectival dualism is useful because it enables us to think about political

dilemmas. It gives us a way of reflecting on the possible conflicts between equally

valuable political goals (Phillips 1997: 150).

7.2.3. A Way out of the Dilemma?

There is, however, a way to soften the dilemma faced by bivalent groups. But this

involves, as Fraser acknowledges, questioning some of her own implicit assumptions.

More precisely, she asks whether it is always true that distributive strategies de-

differentiate groups and recognitive strategies always enhance group differentiation.

For instance: some distributive struggles can have the effect of remedying the

consequences of class inequality, while leaving not only the existence of classes intact

but even reinforcing their specificity. After all, some welfare provisions specifically

target the poor – both positively (by determining who deserves help) and negatively

(by policing their activities) (Fraser 1995b: 82, 85). The fact that the politics of

redistribution does not automatically lead to group de-differentiation implies that a

further distinction must be made. Here Fraser introduces the distinction between

affirmative and transformative approaches to the politics of recognition and

redistribution. Affirmative approaches remedy the inequitable outcomes of social

arrangements without changing the underlying framework that generates them.

Transformative approaches, on the other hand, restructure the underlying framework

to prevent these inequitable outcomes from arising in the first place (Ibid.: 82).

To give examples of both: when it comes to the politics of redistribution an

affirmative strategy would be to redress end-state maldistribution. Liberal welfare

state politics are a good example of an affirmative redistribution strategy. Such a

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welfare state does not seek to abolish classes but seeks to curb the problematic

consequences of class inequality. It does so by reallocating goods and services to the

poor and the exploited. On the other hand, a transformative politics of redistribution –

as exemplified by the politics of socialism – would aim to undermine the class-

differentiation. In this case, the goal is not to remedy the consequences of class-

differentiation but a restructuring of the relations of production so that classes can

disappear (Ibid.: 84-86). A similar distinction could be made within the politics of

recognition. An affirmative recognition strategy seeks the positive valuation of a given

identity. An example would be the African American politics of black nationalism. A

transformative recognition strategy, on the other hand, aims to deconstruct cultural

differences. The classical example of this strategy is that of queer politics that aims to

undermine gender dichotomies (Ibid.: 83, 90).

What this conceptual clarification and these examples show, then, is that whether

a political strategy tends toward group differentiation or group de-differentiation has

little to do with the fact that it is either recognition-based or redistribution-based.

What is decisive is the choice between affirmative and transformative strategies: the

former tend to reinforce the differences between social groups, whereas the latter tend

to undermine these differences. But this suggests that there is a way out of the

recognition-redistribution dilemma. Affirmative redistribution politics and affirmative

recognition politics would be compatible as both reinforce group differences. And “the

transformative redistribution politics of socialism seems compatible with the

transformative recognition politics of deconstruction [as] both tend to undermine

existing group differentiations” (Ibid.: 88). To apply this idea to anti-racist politics: an

anti-racist movement can both hold onto the goal of abolishing class differences and

the goal of undermining the stark distinction between a superior white civilization and

an inferior black civilization at the same time as both strategies seek to undermine

group difference (Ibid.: 91). Equally, anti-racist movements can choose to pursue

affirmative strategies: the African American politics of affirmative action and the

politics of black nationalism are likewise compatible as they both depend on the

reinforcement of African American group identity (90). The introduction of the

affirmative-transformative distinction hence allows Fraser to soften the political

dilemmas faced by bivalent collectivities.

But doesn’t this simply replace one dilemma with another: namely, that of having

to choose between affirmative and transformative strategies? Here Fraser’s response

is unambiguous: transformative strategies that undermine group difference are

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preferable to affirmative strategies. First, affirmative remedies to a form of oppression

leave the structure that produces the oppression in the first place intact. Affirmative

action for African Americans, for example, makes “surface reallocations again and

again” without engaging the “deep level at which the political economy is racialized”

(Ibid.: 90). Fraser sometimes calls this the problem of displacement: the possibility that

group specific remedies that aim to alter the unjust outcomes produced by a structure

of domination, divert attention and energy away from politics that attempt to

transform this structure (Fraser 2000a: 110-112; also see Coulthard 2014: 19). Second,

affirmative strategies can over time develop unintended side-effects such as the

stigmatization of the receiving party (Ibid.: 85). To return to the affirmative action

example: the attempt to redress racial inequality through job quotas or educational

quotas might have the unintended side-effect of underlining racial difference and

marking black people as “privileged recipients of special treatment” (Ibid.: 90). Or take

the example of welfare recipients: if the groups that receive special welfare provision

remain the same, they will be seen as inherently deficient – as ‘welfare scroungers’

(Fraser and Honneth 2003: 77). Third, affirmative strategies also have the effect of

reifying collective identities: the valorisation of group identity along a single axis leads

to the suppression of intragroup conflict and masks power inequalities within such

groups (Ibid.: 76; Fraser 2000b: 23). Fourth, Fraser prefers the transformative

strategies of socialism and deconstruction as “this combination avoids fanning the

flames of resentment” (Fraser 1995b: 91). This last argument is mainly strategic then.

The central idea behind the ‘resentment’ argument is that political strategies that

emphasize group specificity, tend to invoke a negative reaction on part of other groups

(dominant groups, in particular). An example would be the theory of white backlash:

the idea that white people react negatively to racial progress, especially if this progress

is achieved through group specific measures.

7.2.4. Fraser’s Theory of Transformative Politics: An Evaluation

On most points I tend to agree with Fraser’s endorsement of transformative politics. I

especially appreciate her focus on abolishing status inequalities (both economic and

cultural) as this prioritization aligns with the project of abolition-democracy. Not the

abolition of difference in se, that is, but the abolition of those differences that are both

produced by and reproduce structures of domination (such as ‘racial’ difference under

racial capitalism). Nonetheless, I will argue that there are a few problems with her

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theory, all of which are caused by her – to some extent justified – suspicion towards

identity politics. As we argued above, Fraser prefers transformative strategies because

they sidestep the undesirable consequences of the affirmation of group identity such

as resentment, the displacement of transformative economic politics and group

reification. However, she fails to acknowledge the importance that the experience of

racial oppression plays in anti-racist politics. Hence, in the current section I will not

question her preference for transformative politics but will explore the cost of removing

all reference to racial identity within such a politics.

A first problem results from her particular definition of recognition politics. Fraser

defends a status model of recognition that she opposes to an identity model of

recognition. The latter position is attributed to Charles Taylor and Axel Honneth. In

the identity model, “recognition is taken to be a matter of self-realization” and

misrecognition is construed “in terms of impaired subjectivity and damaged self-

identity” (Fraser and Honneth 2003: 28). The status model, on the other hand, sees

misrecognition as a phenomenon where “some individuals and groups are denied the

status of full partners in social interaction simply as a consequence of institutionalized

patterns of cultural value in whose construction they have not equally participated and

which disparage their distinctive characteristics or the distinctive characteristics

assigned to them” (Ibid.: 29). In this model all reference to damaged self-identity or the

possibility of self-realization is removed. What matters is the objective existence of

institutionalized forms of subordination that prevent actors from participating in social

life on an equal basis. The advantages of this model are plain: first, removing all

reference to damaged identity and introducing the norm of parity of participation

allows her to circumvent the problem of ‘bad claimants’ (Zurn 2003: 532; also see

previous chapter [3.3.]). For instance: it may be the case that poor whites are damaged

in their identity and that a racist identity gives them a sense of self-esteem, but

according to Fraser this does not mean that we should accept this as a justified

recognition claim (Ibid.: 38). Second, the status model does not derive the justification

of recognition claims from a model of undamaged identity that entails a thick concept

of self-realization. Such a concept of self-realization is not suitable given the modern

condition of value pluralism. Another advantage of the status model is that is therefore

not sectarian (Ibid.: 30).

However, Fraser also offers another argument for the superiority of the status model

and this argument is problematic. Removing all reference to damaged identity, she

argues, has the benefit of locating “the wrong in social relations, not in individual or

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interpersonal psychology” (Ibid.: 31). Locating the wrong in individual or interpersonal

psychology, she argues, “is but a short step to blaming the victim, as imputing psychic

damage to those subject to racism, for example, seems to add insult to injury” (Ibid.:

31). This argument is shaky to say the least. First, because it is not clear why locating

the wrong of misrecognition in individual or interpersonal psychology is ‘but a short

step’ to victim-blaming. It is perfectly possible to locate the wrong of misrecognition

both in social structures and the psychological relations with which they are intimately

entwined but without blaming the victims for this wrong. Second, and relatedly, this

argument establishes a false dichotomy: it is not apparent why we have to choose

between either locating misrecognition in social relations or in interpersonal

psychology. The reason why anti-racist thinkers like Fanon (see infra) have often paid

so much attention to intrapersonal psychology is precisely because the institutional

relations of subordination characteristic of colonial and racist societies produce

psychological effects – the inferiority complex of the subordinated – that help reproduce

these structures. Hence, as Glen Coulthard argues, “any psychological problems that

ensue, although social constituted, can take on a life of their own, and thus need to be

dealt with independently and in accordance with their own specific logics” (Coulthard

2014: 37). In such cases, the mere removal of institutional forms of subordination (this

being Fraser’s solution) is important but insufficient. For instance: a racist society

could be transformed by removing all forms of institutional subordination, but this

would “not guarantee a change in the subjectivities of the oppressed” (Couthard 2014:

37; also see Zurn 2003: 534).

This immediately leads to a second critique: Fraser’s focus on the removal of

objectively verifiable obstacles to parity of participation also fails to appreciate the

importance of struggle. At no point does she specify who abolishes status subordination

or in what way this is accomplished. What matters for her is that status subordination

is eliminated, but she remains agnostic on the ‘who’ and ‘how’ of this process. However,

as we will see in the section on Fanon, the struggle against misrecognition and

economic subordination waged by the oppressed is intrinsically valuable and an

essential element of the emancipatory process. Partly, this is the case because of the

abovementioned inferiority complex: it is through struggle that the oppressed regain

some sense of self-worth. But struggle is also essential because it reduces the chance

that oppressors make concession on their own terms. As Anita Chari notes, “the state

as well as those who identify with the state, occupying positions of power within it, will

have the interest and the ability to set the terms of the struggle” (Chari 2004: 116).

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Therefore, part of the struggle is waged over the framework that organizes political

claims to the advantage of the powerful.

Finally, I would like to question Fraser’s preference for the strategy of

deconstruction. For Fraser deconstruction is a form of transformative recognition

politics. As she herself acknowledges, the “idea of deconstructive recognition may

sound to some like an oxymoron, as it mixes Hegelian and Derridean motifs” (Fraser

and Honneth 2003: 75). But nonetheless she insists that it has a precise political

meaning: deconstructive political strategies undermine those cultural dichotomies that

are inherently oppressive. For instance: American society is structured around a

white/black distinction and this distinction is inherently oppressive as it establishes a

cultural status-hierarchy in which being (considered) white or being (considered) black

determines your social standing. One response to this predicament would be to

accentuate the value of black culture – as is the case in the black nationalist movement

(or, in another context, the Négritude movement). But Fraser prefers a deconstructive

approach in which anti-racist movements subvert identity distinctions rather than

enhancing them (Ibid.: 75-76). This could involve “engaging in cultural agitation aimed

at propounding a lively sense of the constructedness and contingency of all group

classifications” (Fraser 2000b: 27). But it could also have more concrete institutional

implications. For instance, political actors can try to undermine administrative

classifications: if citizens are compelled to identify as either male or female, a

deconstructive politics could strive to introduce other classifications or remove the need

to identify along these lines (Ibid.: 27).

A first problem with this preference for deconstructive strategies is already noted

by Fraser herself. Somewhat ironically, she writes, deconstructive politics – if it is to

mobilize people – depends on group formation which can, in turn, lead to group

reification. For instance: in order to destabilize the male-female distinction or the

homo-hetero distinction, ‘queers’ – people that do not accept these distinctions – have

to be mobilized. But of course, this creates group dynamics of its own (Fraser 1995b:

83n31). Second, I would also argue that it is not entirely clear that or why these

strategies are more successful at preventing the rise of resentment. To give a

contemporary example: the queer politics of subverting gender distinctions – even as

innocuous as asking whether boys and girls should play with different toys – sometimes

have the effect of intensifying resentment and group separation. This is not to say that

deconstructive politics cause this fanatic investment in male of female identities, or

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that they are to blame for it. But simply to note that there is no unequivocal evidence

proving that queer politics are more effective when it comes to preventing resentment.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the oppressed often don’t have the option of

adopting an ironic or relativizing attitude towards their identities (Fraser 1995b:

91n44). Again, this will become clearer in the section on Fanon (see infra). As he notes,

it is hard to escape the colour of your skin if you are oppressed precisely because of your

skin-color. Hence, it is perverse to ask of the oppressed to adopt an ironic attitude

towards their identity if the society they live in constantly reminds them that they are

inferior or dangerous because of this same identity. To give a contemporary example:

the American movement for Black Lives (or, BlackLivesMatter) has often been urged

by outsiders to adopt the slogan ‘AllLivesMatter’. The problem with this injunction is

not that the latter slogan is false or nonsensical on an abstract level. The slogan is

problematic because the movement for black lives contests the fact that black

Americans are much more likely to be killed by the police. Therefore, African

Americans have no other option but to affirm the specific importance and worth of black

lives. Of course, they might strive to make their skin-colour irrelevant in a future

society that is no longer racist, but in the meantime they must make their skin-colour

into the starting point of their politics.

7.3. Frantz Fanon contra the Politics of Recognition

In the thought of Fanon we will find both a more fundamental critique of the politics

of recognition and a more complex take on the struggle for abolition. Before we dive

into this analysis, however, a few remarks are in order. First, we must note that this

analysis will mainly focus on Black Skin, White Masks. This does not mean I will ignore

The Wretched of the Earth, his other major work. But it entails that it will be read in

function of the analysis of Black Skin. The reason for this choice is that, as Glen

Coulthard argues, The Wretched was written in the context of an blatantly violent

colonial regime and one of the most gruesome anticolonial struggles – the Algerian war

of independence (1954-62). Black Skin, on the other hand, is more suited to the analysis

of racism and recognition in liberal democratic regimes that operate not only through

naked force but also through ideological apparatuses. Second, a short remark

concerning Fanon’s language: throughout his oeuvre, he regularly invokes the

opposition between ‘white man’ and ‘black man’. I will employ the same wording but

with two caveats: one, although we need to bracket the question of race and gender in

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this chapter, we should be aware of the obviously gendered nature of Fanon’s language.

Two, it might seems strange that a thinker whose goal is the abolition of racism and

its distinction between races, makes use of a language that continuously restates this

distinction. However, we must be aware that Fanon is not writing from the position of

a color-blind liberalism. The irrelevance of race might be the objective of an anti-racist

politics, but as of yet ‘race’ is an undeniable political factor. Hence, it is only by

becoming aware of racist domination that we can work towards the “material abolition

of ‘race’ as an indicator of structural subordination” (Chen 2013: 222).

Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks is perhaps one of the first and without doubt one

of the most acute works on racism as nonrecognition and oppression. Using methods

and concepts borrowed from Hegel, phenomenological, existentialist and Marxist

philosophy, Fanon developed a method – both idiosyncratic and wholly original – that

allowed him to dissect racism through a mixture of autobiographical self-examination,

philosophical analysis, literary criticism, psychiatric study, and political theory. The

heart of this work is, arguably, its fifth chapter. In ‘The Lived Experience of the Black

Man’ Fanon describes his experience of being fixed by the gaze of the Other. It is

centred around a well-known vignette: a white child, accompanied by its mother, sees

Fanon and shouts “Look! A Negro! Maman, look a Negro; I’m scared!” (Fanon 2008:

91). It is at this moment that Fanon realizes that he is not who he thought he was. He

is fixed by the gaze of the Other and reduced to an “object among other objects” (Ibid.:

89). Until this moment he had the luxury of not having to see himself as a black man,

but in the white world and under the weight of the white gaze he is reduced to his

blackness. From now on he is forced to look at himself in the third person: he creates

for himself a “historical-racial schema” using data provided by “the white man, who

had woven me out of a thousand details, anecdotes, and stories” (Ibid.: 90-91).

In the following subchapters, I want to unpack this scenario into three elements

that are central to Fanon’s philosophy of racism. Namely, the ideas that: (a) ‘race’ is a

historical construct that is imposed by the racist, (b) this racial ascription is

accompanied by a hierarchy of values that establishes the superiority of the white man

and reduces the black man to a state of non-being and that (c) this inferiority – whose

origin is social – is eventually interiorized by the black man.

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7.3.1. Racial Ascription and the Shifting Colour-Line

To start with the first: not unlike Du Bois (see previous chapter), Fanon holds that

‘race’ is a social construct. A ‘Negro people’, he argues, does not exist (Fanon 1967: 18).

More precisely, Fanon argues that “[i]t is the racist who creates the inferiorized”

(Fanon 2008: 73; also see Fanon 2001: 28). To emphasize this artificiality of ‘race’, he

regularly points out that the confrontation with his blackness comes as a shock to the

black man. “The black man,” he writes, “is unaware of it as long as he lives among his

own people; but at the first white gaze, he feels the weight of his melanin” (Ibid.: 128).

The influence of Jean-Paul Sartre is evident in these passages. On a surface level

we see direct references to Sartre’s study of racism in Anti-Semite and Jew. For

instance: Fanon takes note from his argument that the Jew is simply one whom others

consider a Jew – that it “is the anti-Semite who makes the Jew” (Sartre 1976: 49; also

see Cheyette 2005). But, as Peter Hudis argues, Black Skin equally transforms ideas

present in Being and Nothingness. In particular, it develops Sartre’s argument that

humanity has no pre-determined fixed essence and that we “become what we are

through the form of interactions with others” (Hudis 2015: 30). As Anita Chari further

clarifies, Sartre’s insistence on the impossibility of mutual recognition would prove

particularly apt in the context of (colonial) racism. Sartre follows Hegel in arguing that

a sense of self can only develop through the recognition of an Other. But against Hegel

he argues that this relationship of recognition can neither be transparent (i.e. allow

me to realize my ‘true’ self), nor be a condition for the possibility of freedom. On the

contrary, “the look of the other, which renders me the Other’s object, is viewed as a

constraint upon my freedom of action” (Chari 2004: 113-116, cit. 116). It is this focus

on the problematic nature of the Other’s gaze that becomes so important to Fanon. It

helps to clarify how the white colonial gaze ‘fixes’ the black man and is interiorized by

him (Bentouhami-Molino 2014a, 36; Hudis 2015, 31). He is, as Fanon puts it,

“overdetermined from the outside” (Fanon 2008: 95).

Less recognized, Hourya Bentouhami-Molino writes, is the influence of Maurice

Merleau-Ponty in whose works Fanon discovered a new way of thinking about

embodiment and the importance of lived experience. The encounter with Merleau-

Ponty allowed him to approach the body not merely as a natural object to be studied

by a disinterested science but also through the lived experience of alienation,

disorientation and trauma (Benthouhami-Molino 2014a: 36). As Black Skin and his

other psychiatric writings show, the phenomenon he was most interested in is that of

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an alienation that results from having to live for others in a racist society (Ibid.: 38-39).

As Fanon is at pains to point out, acts of racial ascription thwart the construction of

the black man’s body-schema – the “slow construction of myself as a body in a spatial

and temporal world” that “creates a genuine dialectic between my body and the world”

(Fanon 2008: 91). His bodily sense of self is displaced, that is, by “an epidermal racial

schema” that forces the black man to exist “in triple” (Ibid.: 92). Once he enters the

white world, a black man can no longer navigate the world naturally. He is constantly

aware of his blackness and this affects his capacity to orient himself in the world

(Idem). What these passages show, then, is that under the influence of racism the black

man’s sense of bodily integrity is imperilled (Martel 2017: 99). Racial ascription is not

only an abstract phenomenon but is lived and experienced in the body.

Moreover, this epidermal racial schema is a historical schema (Fanon 2008: 91). To

be more precise, the need for racial ascription is not inherent in the human condition

but rather a product of history (Hudis 2015: 32). Fanon illustrates this with the

example of the Malagasy. Before the arrival of the Europeans in Madagascar, the

Malagasy were perfectly content to live their “‘Malagasyhood’” (Fanon 2008: 78).

Malagasy did not see themselves as being Malagasy or as being black, they simply lived

their ‘Malagasyhood’. But with the arrival of the European their “psychological horizon

and mechanisms” were disrupted. From this point on, the Malagasy existed “in relation

to the European” (Ibid.: 77).

This does not entail, however, that once established this colour-line can no longer

shift. In an article called ‘West Indians and Africans’, Fanon describes how the

imposition of the white-black juxtaposition creates divisions within the ‘coloured’

world. He shows how the West-Indian – convinced that he was a European – felt the

need to show that he was fundamentally different from the African. As Fanon points

out, precisely because the West-Indian “was black, he was obliged – as a normal

reaction in psychological economy – to harden his frontiers in order to be protected

against any misapprehension” (Fanon 1967: 20). In contrast with the white man who

“could allow himself certain liberties with the native” because the difference from the

African “stared one in the face” (Ibid.: 20), the West-Indian had to constantly remind

both himself and the world that he was in fact not black but a ‘European’. However,

during and after the second World War a remarkable transformation took place. A

combination of elements – a steep rise in the white population living on Martinique;

the growing coarseness of this new population’s racism; the influence of Aimé Césaire

who defended the importance and value of Pan-African identity – contributed to a crisis

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in the West-Indian identity. It required, Fanon writes, that the “West Indian totally to

recast his world, to undergo a metamorphosis of his body” (Ibid.: 20-24, cit. 24).

Expelled from European civilization by the white population and attracted to the Pan-

African values defended by Césaire, the West-Indian was pushed toward a

“valorisation of what he had rejected” (Ibid.: 24). By 1945, Fanon concludes, “the West-

Indian […] is a Negro” (Ibid.: 26). What this shows, then, is that the colour-line can

shift historically under the influence of social and political forces.

7.3.2. Fanon on Nonrecognition

The latter example immediately brings us to the second element: the white-black

distinction establishes a hierarchy of value. It is this aspect that explains why Fanon

is regarded as a thinker of (non)recognition. In excruciating detail, he depicts the

mundanity of racism – the day-to-day reiteration of black inferiority. Central to this

operation is the idea than only white man is truly a human being and that what is left

for the black man is to strive towards being white. According to Fanon, this shows

itself, for instance, in the importance attributed to the French language. The “more the

black Antillean assimilates French,” Fanon writes, “the whiter he gets – i.e. the closer

he comes to becoming a true human being” (Fanon 2008: 2). Conversely, as white people

speak pidgin to the black man, they “imprison” him and put him in his place (Ibid.: 17-

18, cit. 18). Speaking pidgin to a black man is indicative of an attitude of condescension

that – perhaps intentionally – fails to recognize his intelligence (Gordon 2015: 28).

What this example implicitly shows is that just as the colour-line shifts historically,

the justifications for the superiority of white people change throughout history. As

Fanon points out, the crude biological racism that is supposed to give scientific proof

of the inferiority of black men, is soon replaced by a more ‘refined’ cultural racism. The

latter, in turn, takes many different forms: from the idea that there are people without

culture to ideas of cultural superiority. Racism is thus a flexible structure: it “has had

to renew itself, to adapt itself, to change its appearance. It has had to undergo the fate

of the cultural whole that informed it” (Fanon 1967: 31-32, cit. 32).

Yet, despite Fanon’s nuanced analyses of historical shifts in the race-line and the

justifications for racism, he holds onto a Manichaean view of racism. Again, the

influence of Sartre is unmistakable. In Anti-Semite and Jew, the latter argues that

anti-Semitism is a “form of Manicheism” as it sees the world through the lens of a

“struggle between the principle of Good and the principle of Evil” – two principles

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between which “no reconciliation is conceivable” (Sartre 1967: 28-29; also see Cheyette

2005: 9). Similarly, in a sequence of pointed statements that make up the introduction

to Black Skin, Fanon writes “that a Black is not a man”; that he lives in “a zone of

nonbeing”; and that “there are two camps: white and black” (Fanon 2008: xii). This

argument is further intensified in The Wretched of the Earth as he argues that “the

zone where the natives live is not complementary to the zone inhabited by the settlers”

(Fanon 2001: 30); that these zones “obey the principle of reciprocal exclusivity” (Ibid.);

and that “the native […] represents not only the absence of values, but also the

negation of values” (Ibid.: 32).

Fanon does not attribute a trans-historical status to these distinctions. He simply

registers how racist and colonial societies produce these strict distinctions between

White and Black, white being and black non-being, white values and blackness as a

negation of values. This makes him, as George Ciccariello-Maher points out, a theorist

of nonrecognition: for the black man there can be no struggle for recognition as he lacks

the standing that would allow him to be considered as a party in the conflict. Therefore,

“for recognition to even appear on the horizon, racialized subjects must first storm the

fortified heaven of Being itself” (Ciccariello-Maher 2017: 55-58; also see Macherey 2014:

73-74; Gordon 2015: 69). But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. What’s important at this

point is that Fanon should be seen as a thinker of nonrecognition rather than a thinker

of misrecognition. Misrecognition constitutes a failure of recognition that results from

power asymmetries. Nonrecognition, on the other hand, constitutes an intentional

rejection of reciprocity on part of the dominant party or class (Klikauer 2016: 42-43).

Racism as misrecognition would take the form of a dominant white culture

unintentionally failing to properly value black culture. But this is not how racism

operates according to Fanon: the white world has no intention of recognizing black

people on an equal basis in the first place. As the white world has no intention of

recognizing his humanity, there is no ground – that is, the assumption of mutuality

and reciprocity – on which a successful struggle for recognition could be waged (see

3.3.).

7.3.3. The Sociogeny of the Black Man’s Alienation

Eventually, and this is the third element, this nonrecognition is interiorized by those

subjected to it. Black Skin, Fanon argues, is primarily an analysis that is psychological

– it is a study of the inferiority complex of the colonized (Fanon 2008: xiv). Subjected

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to the White gaze, Fanon notes, he starts to adapt his own behaviour: “I arrive slowly

in the world; sudden emergences are no longer my habit. I crawl along […] I slip into

corners, my long antenna encountering the various axioms on the surface of things”

(Ibid.: 95-96). As Lewis Gordon notes, the words being used here – ‘crawling’; ‘slipping

into corners’; ‘long antenna’ – purposely evoke the experience of being treated as if you

were subhuman (Lewis 2015: 50). And this experience cannot but have psychological

consequences: “[a] normal black child, having grown up with a normal family, will

become abnormal at the slightest contact with the white world” (Fanon 2008: 122).

Fanon’s initial object of criticism on this question is the work of Octave Mannoni. In

particular, he attacks the latter’s argument that the germ of the inferiority complex of

the colonized is (a) already latent in them from childhood and (b) exists prior to

colonization (Ibid.: 65-66). Fanon, true to his mode of analysis, turns the tables:

inferiorization, he argues, “is the native correlative to the European’s feeling of

superiority” (Ibid.: 73). It is instilled in the colonized as “a host of information and a

series of propositions slowly and stealthily work their way into an individual through

books, newspapers, school texts, advertisements, movies, and radio and shape his

community’s vision of the world” (Ibid.: 131). Confronted with the European colonizers

and their claim to supremacy, the colonized have two options: they can try to adapt to

this situation and develop ‘dependent behaviour’, or they can reject this relationship of

dependency, as Fanon did, but risk suffering a psychological crisis (Ibid.: 42, 74).

One of Fanon’s main theoretical innovations is that he refuses to approach mental

disorders in a societal vacuum. The “alienation of the black man,” he writes, “is not an

individual question. Alongside phylogeny and ontogeny, there is also sociogeny” (Ibid.:

xv; also see ibid.: 26, 77, 199). In order to understand mental disorder, we should look

not only at natural development (phylogeny) or familial and childhood experiences

(ontogeny) but also at “the social determinants that impact the formation of selfhood”

(Hudis 2015: 35). When it comes to black alienation, Fanon wastes no time specifying

the nature of these social determinants: black alienation finds its ground in a colonial

and racist system of exploitation (Fanon 2008: 199). He summarizes the sociogeny of

the inferiority complex in the following pithy formula: “First, economic. Then,

internalization or rather epidermalization of this inferiority” (Ibid.: xv; also see Fanon

1967: 13).

Passages like these raise the question of Fanon’s Marxism. The evidence is, I would

argue, ambiguous and conflicting. At times his proclamations come close to a vulgar

materialism. In ‘Racism and Culture’, first published in 1956, he writes that “[t]he

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perfecting of the means of production inevitably brings about the camouflage of the

techniques by which man is exploited, hence of the forms of racism (my emphasis)”

(Fanon 1967: 35). But in the same article he also remarks that racism “is never a

superadded element” and that the “social constellation” is “deeply modified by racism”

(Ibid.: 36). This is why he suggests in The Wretched of the Earth that in order to

understand colonialism – but also, we might add, racial capitalism – “Marxist analysis

should always be slightly stretched” (Fanon 2001: 31). It seems, then, that we can

attribute a form of unorthodox or ‘decentered’ Marxism to Fanon (Hudis 2015: 9-10;

Hudis 2018; Bentouhami-Molino 2014). This is a form of Marxism that does not only

pay attention to the exploitation and resistance of the white salaried working class in

the West, but also to the expropriation and resistance of the racialized unemployed and

the peasant class in the West and the colonies. It does not start from some pure logic

of capital but approaches capitalism as a social formation in which cultural and

psychological factors likewise play a determining role.

All of this is important not because it allows us to classify Fanon, but because it has

political implications. “The black man,” he writes, “must wage the struggle on two

levels: whereas historically these levels are mutually dependent any unilateral

liberation is flawed, and the worst mistake would be to believe their mutual

dependence automatic” (Fanon 2008: xv). Black alienation (or the psycho-existential

complex) and economic subjection are tightly entwined – are central elements of the

social formation we call racial capitalism – but cannot be reduced to each other. This

entails that any political strategy that seeks to attack only one of these in the hope

that the other will fall along is misguided. As Fanon says, the struggle has to be waged

on both levels. In the two following chapters I will show why this is the case. In (3.4.) I

will argue that a struggle for recognition – taken on its own – is both insufficient and

problematic. But I will equally argue that a colour-blind struggle on the economic level

will not suffice. I do so in (3.5.) where I return to Fanon’s critique of Sartre’s essay

Black Orpheus.

7.3.4. The Critique of Recognition

Fanon’s status as a thinker of recognition is contested. Charles Taylor famously labeled

him a precursor and inspiration to the movements demanding recognition (Taylor

1994: 65). But more recently Fanon’s writings have more often been used against the

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politics of recognition (Oliver 2001; Chari 2004; Lentin 2006; Hallward 2011; Macherey

2014: 66-91; Coulthard 2014; Martel 2017). In what follows, I will defend the latter

position. More precisely, I will argue that Fanon is a critic of the politics of recognition.

But two provisos are in order: first, although he is critical of the politics of recognition,

he is also aware of the damaging consequences of nonrecognition. Some critics of the

politics of recognition omit or belittle the damages wrought by nonrecognition but

Fanon is definitely not one of them. It is precisely because of his insights into this form

of suffering that he mistrusts the politics of recognition. The experience of

nonrecognition, that is, instills a desire for recognition that can be manipulated by

oppressors (see infra). Second: he does not dismiss recognition in abstracto.

Nonrecognition is horrible precisely because a “world of reciprocal recognitions” – “a

human world”, as he specifies – is both desirable and valuable (Fanon 2008: 193;

Coulthard 2014: 43). However, as I will argue, Fanon questions whether a struggle for

recognition is the best strategy to achieve this state of mutual recognition.

A first reason why he mistrusts the politics of recognition is that colonial and racial

domination skew the desire and struggle for recognition. As Kelly Oliver notes: “[t]he

desire to be seen, to be recognized, is the paradoxical desire created by oppression. It

is the desire to become objectified in order to be recognized by the sovereign subject to

whom the oppressed is beholden for his or her own self-worth” (Oliver 2001: 24; also

McBride 2013: 38). Black Skin is full of analyses of this mechanism in its everyday

operation. For example: in a few personal passages, Fanon similarly describes how the

experience of nonrecognition led him to a futile pursuit of recognition. His initial

reaction to this nonrecognition is to attempt “to make myself white; in other words: to

force the white man to acknowledge my humanity” (Fanon 2005: 78). This remarkable

leap of thought already shows that this game – the struggle for recognition – is rigged:

becoming human equates to becoming white. In order to become “a man among men”

he would have to receive recognition of his humanity from a white world that

determines the borders of humanity (Ibid.: 94). Confronted with racist nonrecognition

he decides to attack this form of irrationality with the force of reason: “[l]ike all good

tacticians I wanted to rationalize the world and show the white man he was mistaken”

(Ibid.: 98). But this strategy to receive recognition fails as “they were countering […]

my rationality with the ‘true rationality’” (Ibid.: 111; also see Hallward 2011: 107n5).

By proving his rationality he hopes to show that he is an equal human but the standard

of rationality is simply moved out of his reach. Confronted with the failure of this

strategy, he returns to his heritage seeking recognition by asserting himself as a

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‘traditional’ black man (Ibid.: 95). “Since there was no way we could agree on the basis

of reason,” he notes, “I resorted to irrationality” (Ibid.: 102). He looks for recognition by

embracing a certain idea of what the black way of life is: an aptitude for ‘intuition’, the

ability to decipher the meaning of the cosmos, peaceful coexistence with or even

complete immersion in the natural world. All of these, gifts that the white world lacks

(Ibid.: 102-107). For a moment this strategy seems to work: “[a]t last I had been

recognized; I was no longer a nonentity” (Ibid.: 108). However, “[m]omentarily taken

aback, the white man explained to me that genetically I represented a phase” (Idem).

As Fanon attempts to reclaim his heritage – to seek recognition by emphasizing the

worth of ‘typical’ black culture – the white world puts him in his place by telling him

that it has long transcended this phase of human evolution. “I couldn’t hope to win,”

he concludes (Ibid.: 111; also see Kruks 2001: 100-101). The first problem with the

politics of recognition, then, is that in a racist society the ideal of and desire for mutual

recognition are present, while all ways towards achieving this ideal are blocked for

racialized subjects. In such a society, Anita Chari argues, the promise of recognition

becomes a disciplinary strategy: “holding out the promise of equal and undistorted

recognition while defining the terms by which the colonized individual may be

recognized” (Chari 2004: 117).

Fanon’s deals his most devastating blow to the recognition paradigm, however, in

‘The Black Man and Hegel’ (a subchapter of Black Skin). Here, he explains why Hegel’s

master-slave dialectic – a dramatization of the struggle for recognition – is closed off

for the black man. To start with Hegel: as Robert B. Pippin argues, his theory of

recognition – of which the Herrschaft und Knechtschaft chapter is a part – is primarily

a theory about the “nature and very possibility of freedom” (Pippin 2000: 155). It is not

primarily – as is sometimes assumed – a transcendental theory about self-awareness.

Nor is it a theory about the formation of social identity. The theory of recognition,

Pippin argues, purports to explain why and in what way a subject must be recognized

by others in order to be free (Ibid.: 156). This is what is at stake, then, when Hegel

writes that “[s]elf-consciousness exists in and for itself when, and by the fact that it so

exists for another; that is, it exists only in being acknowledged” (Hegel 1977 [1807]:

111).

This state of mutual recognition, however, must be preceded by a life-and-death

struggle. “They must engage in this struggle,” Hegel writes, “for they must raise their

certainty of being for themselves to truth, both in the case of the other and in their own

case. And it is only through staking one’s life that freedom is won” (Ibid.: 114).

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However, this struggle between two individuals risking death is not the be-all and end-

all of the struggle for recognition. After all, the death of one of the parties defeats the

purpose of this struggle: “death is the natural negation of consciousness, negation

without independence, which thus remains without the required significance of

recognition” (Idem). The defeated party, that is, must remain alive in order to “live for

or to be for another” (Ibid.: 115). Their relation must become that of master and slave

(or, in a different translation, lord and bondsman). However, this state is equally

unsatisfactory as the “outcome is a recognition that is one-sided and unequal” (Ibid.:

116). To be more precise, the “object in which the lord has achieved his lordship has in

reality turned out to be something quite different from an independent consciousness”

(Ibid.: 116-117). The recognition of the master by the slave – a dependent consciousness

– is insufficient. This necessitates another turn of the dialectic: the slave must become

“conscious of what he truly is” (Ibid.: 118). The key to this process is the slave’s work:

“consciousness, qua worker, comes to see in the independent being [of the object] its

own independence” (Idem). This results in an ironic reversal of the relation of

dependence: while the slave gains independence, the master becomes dependent on the

slave’s labour, all the while failing to transcend the stage of meaningless consumption

– of a “satisfaction that is only a fleeting one, for it lacks the side of objectivity and

permanence” (Idem). At this point, we are still far from the achievement of authentic

recognition: the slave has achieved independence not through the recognition of the

master but through his own work. However, as Robert Williams points out: the

becoming-independent of the slave is certainly an further step in a dialectic which will

end in the “affirmative reciprocal relation to the other that is the telos of the concept

of recognition” (Williams 1997: 67).

Fanon, however, questions whether there is such a telos. The core of his critique is

that despite the semblance of asymmetry in the master-slave dialectic, Hegel’s

paradigm of the struggle for recognition is based on “an absolute reciprocity” (Fanon

2008: 191; also see Sekyi-Otu 1996: 56-59). As George Ciccariello-Maher clarifies,

despite the fact that there is at one point an asymmetry between master and slave, the

struggle for recognition takes place between two parties with equal standing and either

one of them could prevail (Ciccariello-Maher 2017: 55). Moreover, the story doesn’t end

in the subjection of the slave to the master. Eventually, it is the slave who achieves a

form of independence and autonomy through his labour, further underscoring “the telic

primacy of the norm of reciprocity” (Sekyi-Otu 1996: 58-61, cit. 58). In other words:

while the struggle for recognition is beset by failures, its eventual resolution in a state

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of mutual recognition is never in question. For Hegel, Ciccariello-Maher writes, “this

struggle is a characteristically circular affair, and this circularity is but a different way

of grasping the symmetry of his point of departure” (Ciccariello-Maher 2017: 55). In

the context of colonial and racist societies, however, this reciprocity is absent. Fanon

writes the following: “[f]or Hegel there is reciprocity; here [i.e. in the context of

colonialism] the master scorns the consciousness of the slave. What he wants from the

slave is not recognition but work” (Fanon 2008: 195n10). In other words, the first

condition for a successful struggle for recognition is missing as the master simply does

not want or need the slave’s recognition. Hence, he sabotages the dialectic: as Fanon

writes, “[i]f I shut off the circuit, if I make the two-way movement unachievable, I keep

the other within himself” (Ibid.: 192). The result is that while “[f]or Hegel, the slave

turns away from the master and turns toward the object. Here the slave turns toward

the master and abandons the object” (Ibid.: 195n10). Thus, this critique returns –

though in a theoretically more abstract form – to the problems outlined above: the

intentional withholding of recognition creates in the subordinated party a desire to be

recognized by his oppressor. However, at the end of this section Fanon adds another

twist to this reasoning. He explains that this turn to the master is problematic because

it compels the oppressed to become reactional. Rather than becoming “actional” –

becoming self-determining – black man is constantly and fruitlessly trying to win the

white man’s recognition (Ibid.: 1997; also see Chari 2004: 118 & Hallward 2011).

Fanon’s next critique further develops this idea of the black man being ‘acted upon’

as opposed to acting as a self-determining subject. He notes that the white man can

also recognize the black man “without a struggle” (Ibid.: 194). In a peculiar reading of

the history of emancipation, he writes that “[h]istorically, the black man, steeped in

the inessentiality of servitude, was set free by the master. He did not fight for his

freedom” (Idem). This critique raises two questions: first, how do we square the

criticism of the white master’s nonrecognition of the black man (also see 3.2.) with this

second critique of a recognition granted but not fought for? And second, what do we

make of Fanon’s obviously partial reading of the history of the emancipation from

slavery? To start answering the first question: I would argue that the thesis of

nonrecognition and that of a partial top-down recognition are not as incompatible as

might seem at first sight. We should ask whether this partial top-down recognition

that Fanon describes necessarily includes the notion of the black man as an equal

human being. First, the white master can set the black man free without wanting or

needing his recognition in return. After all, he is already recognized by his fellow white

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masters and non-slaveholding white men (Patterson 1982: 99). In this sense, this form

of recognition is not genuinely reciprocal: there is no existential need on part of the

white masters to emancipate black men because the white masters are already

recognized. Therefore, this form of emancipation – the granting of formal freedom –

can only be seen as an inauthentic form of recognition. As Fanon approvingly cites

Hegel: “The individual, who has not staked his life, may, no doubt be recognized as a

person, but he has not attained the truth of this recognition as an independent self-

consciousness” (Fanon 2008: 194; original quote in Hegel 1977: 114). Which brings us

to a second point: given the above, top-down recognition can be seen not as a step

towards mutual recognition but as a strategy to avert a struggle. “When the black man

happens to cast a savage look at the white man,” Fanon writes, “the white man says to

him: ‘Brother, there is no difference between us.’” (Fanon 2008: 196). The “black man,”

he adds, “knows there is a difference. He wants it.” (Idem). On first reading this

addition is puzzling: why would the black man want his humanity put into question?

The reason is that not having had to fight for his freedom, he can never be quite sure

“whether the white man considers him as consciousness in-itself-for-itself” (Ibid.: 197;

also Gordon 2014: 139-140). The problem, then, is that by giving the black man his

freedom – in the shape of formal equalities – the white man also denies him a chance

to prove his humanity through struggle. “Absent struggle,” Ciccariello-Maher writes,

“the formal passage from slavery to freedom did not entail a substantive shift in mutual

self-consciousness, in either how the former slaves perceived themselves or were

perceived by others” (Ciccariello-Maher 2017: 65; also see Martel 2017: 107).

But this brings us to the question concerning Fanon’s reading of the history of

emancipation. In particular, it seems strange to claim that black slaves did not fight

for their freedom. Orlando Patterson, for instance, emphasises that rather than

accepting the degradation of slavery, slaves fought for honour and dignity. It is true

that masters held out the promise of dignity and freedom as a means to discipline the

slaves. But they did so in response to slave struggles (Patterson 1982: 100-101) Equally,

W.E.B. Du Bois regularly emphasises that the post-Civil War emancipation of slaves

was a result of their own actions. In particular, he argues that what he calls ‘the

general strike’ – a half million slaves escaping the plantation system, thus shutting it

down – was crucial for the defeat of the slaveholding South (Du Bois 1998: 55-83). Even

more surprising, it passes over the Haitian revolution which, as Susan Buck-Morss

famously argued, informed Hegel’s master-slave dialectic (Buck-Morss 2000: 842-865).

To some extent, these are facts that Fanon acknowledges but he does so half-heartedly.

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“From time to time,” he argues, “[the black man] fights for liberty and justice, but it’s

always for a white liberty and a white justice, in other words, for values secreted by

his masters” (Fanon 2008: 195). Hence, as Ato Sekyi-Otu notes, we should see Fanon’s

misreading of the history of slave rebellion as a wilful misreading (Sekyi-Otu 1996:

59).

This alters the question then: we must not ask whether he misreads this history but

why he intentionally does so. Glen Coulthard suggests that Fanon does so because he

felt that these struggles were not transformative enough, that they failed to break with

the structures of colonial and racist power (Coulthard 2014: 39). Fanon’s remark that

black people fight for ‘white liberty’ and ‘white justice’ confirms this reading. I suggest

that we can understand it in three ways. First, it refers to the aforementioned

reactional stance of the oppressed. They fight for a given set of recognitive principles –

the values espoused by their masters – without asking whether these forms of

recognition will alleviate their oppression. To say that a struggle for white values is

not transformative enough, then, is to say that the colonized are unable to establish

themselves “as creators of the terms, values, and conditions by which they are to be

recognized” (Idem). Melvin Rogers calls this the ‘paradox of recognition’: a phenomenon

in which the non- or misrecognized seek recognition – a sense of self-worth – in the

same institutions and through the same values that are the source of their moral injury

(Rogers 2009: 185, 191-197). Second, underlying this ‘paradox of recognition’ is a

further problem that relates to the structure of authority inherent in the form of

recognition. To demand recognition of a person or institution, Cillian McBride notes,

involves acknowledging the authority of this same person or institution. Paradoxically,

in order to receive recognition, the subordinated must first accept the authority of the

institution or person responsible for their subordination. Hence, “[r]emedying [the

recognitive] deficit through the bestowal of recognition on the marginalized group does

nothing to address the more fundamental inequality of power which characterizes their

relationship” (McBride 2013: 37-39). Third, this line of reasoning also returns us to our

argument at the end of the previous section (3.3.). Namely, that the struggle against

racial oppression should be waged on two levels – the economic and the psychological.

Thus, if Fanon argues that struggles for ‘white values’ are not transformative enough,

we can also interpret him as saying that these struggles fail to attack the economic

and psychological bases of colonialism and racism. After all, he writes, “[g]enuine

disalienation will have been achieved only when things, in the most materialist sense,

have resumed their rightful place (my emphasis)” (Fanon 2008: xv).

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7.3.5. Fanon on Abolition and Self-Recognition

The politics of recognition is a cul-de-sac according to Fanon but what is its alternative?

Ultimately, the problems of the politics of recognition derive from the conditions in

which it plays out. The dichotomy between white and black men and the economic,

political and cultural hierarchies this entails, distort the desire for and thwart the

attempt to gain recognition. Fanon’s alternative, hence, is to focus on the social

formation that produces these status distinctions and its attendant psychological

complexes. His position can be summed up with a line of Aimé Césaire’: “‘The only

thing in the world worth starting: the end of the world, for heaven’s sake’” (cited in

Fanon 2008: 76). This is an idea that keeps recurring in his writings. It appears when

he argues that there can be no solution to racism that foregoes “restructuring the

world” (Ibid.: 63); when he writes that “universality resides in this decision to recognize

and accept the reciprocal relativism of different cultures, once the colonial status is

irreversibly excluded (my emphasis)” (Fanon 1967: 44); when he compares the process

of decolonization to “a whole material and moral universe which is breaking up”

(Fanon 2001: 34); contends that “[t]he destruction of the colonial world is no more and

no less than the abolition of one zone [i.e. that of the colonizer]” (Ibid.: 31); or describes

the decolonization as a “struggle which aims at a fundamentally different set of

relations between men” as a result of “not only the disappearance of colonialism but

also the disappearance of the colonized man” (Ibid.: 198). Leaving aside the different

contexts in which these statements appear, I would argue that they converge on a

single idea: that the first priority of an antiracist strategy is to abolish the material

and cultural status distinctions that structure colonial and racist societies. Fanon

advises against seeking recognition as it is the oppressor (e.g. colonist or white

supremacist) that sets the terms of the struggle for recognition and argues for a politics

that seeks to abolish the distinction between oppressor and oppressed (Sekyi-Otu 1996:

61, 97; Schaap 2004: 532; Chari 2004: 120; Ciccariello-Maher 2014: 9).

Here, we can start to draw parallels with Fraser’s project. First, both Fanon and

Fraser mistrust the politics of recognition. Both argue that the pursuit of recognition

stands in the way of political projects that seek to transform structures of domination.

Their rationales for criticizing the politics of recognition, however, differ. Fraser

focuses on the problems of displacement, reification and resentment: the attempt to

have one’s particular identity recognized stands in the way of transformative politics

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because it locks people into a form of group essentialism that blocks the formation of

broad emancipatory coalitions. Fanon’s critique, on the other hand, is more

fundamental. In a racist society the desire for recognition is problematic not only

because it clashes with the project of forming broad emancipatory coalitions but also

because it thwarts the desire for self-determination on part of the oppressed and

promises something – i.e. equal recognition – that it simply cannot deliver given the

relations of domination in place. Second, they are both critical of the role that identity

plays in the politics of recognition but, again, do so for different reasons. The main

problem for Fraser – apart from the strategic concerns outlined above – is that the

reification of group identity occludes in-group inequalities of power. Fanon

acknowledges this danger but mainly questions the origin of recognized identities. The

recognition of the oppressed is little else than the top-down imposition of an alien

identity that locks them into the value system of their oppressors. However, as we will

see further on, Fanon has a less distinctly negative appreciation of identity politics. On

the contrary, some form of identity politics will be necessary in the struggle against

racism. However, this function cannot be performed by identities that are imposed by

the oppressors. Finally, they share a preference for abolition politics: the main goal of

an anti-racist politics is to transform society so that all differences that are indicative

of structural domination disappear. This does not necessarily entail that all forms of

difference disappear; it seeks to abolish status differences such as race, class and

gender as differences central to economic, political and cultural domination.

This being said, there are a few important differences between Fanon and Fraser’s

conceptions. First of all, the former puts more emphasis on the importance of struggle.

The transformation of society starts with the internal transformation of the oppressed

as they struggle against their oppressors. Second, the distinction between the politics

of abolition and the politics of recognition is not as strict in Fraser’s work as it is in

Fanon’s. This is partly because her critique of the politics of recognition is less

fundamental: there is nothing inherently problematic about the politics of recognition,

it’s simply that its political and strategic effects are ambiguous. But we can also explain

this lack of strong demarcation as a result of her own reworking of the politics of

recognition. After all, she suggests that a transformative politics of recognition – that

circumvents the problems of an identitarian politics of recognition – exists and could

also result in the abolition of status differences. Fanon, on the contrary, is clearer about

the priority of abolition. The politics of recognition are irredeemably tainted in a racist

social formation and therefore the only option left is to transform society so that both

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“Whites and Blacks” are no longer “locked in the substantialized ‘tower of the past’”

(Idem). Of course, this more single-minded position can be explained by the context in

which Fanon wrote. He rightfully felt that mutual recognition is impossible in a

colonial society, so the elimination of the status of colonizer and colonized was a

conditio sine qua non of mutual recognition (e.g. Fanon 2015: 476-480). However, it is

not impossible to translate this position outside of the Algerian colonial setting. This

colonialism simply embodied the most brutal, openly coercive and Manichaean version

of racist domination. However, as Glen Coulthard notes, Fanon’s analysis of racism,

recognition and nonrecognition can also be applied to contemporary colonial and racist

societies that are reproduced through less overtly violent means (Coulthard 2014: 16).

To which I would add the specification that his analysis remains applicable as long as

the form of racist domination under consideration includes a form of nonrecognition

that obstructs the dialectic of recognition (hence necessitating a prior politics of

abolition).

The third difference between Fanon and Fraser’s abolition politics, however, is

important as it relates to our criticisms of Fraser in (2.4.). Even though they both argue

that the goal of anti-racist politics is to abolish racial difference, Fanon insists that the

affirmation of black identity plays an important role in this politics. At first sight this

claim appears to be contradictory: it belies his critique of the politics of recognition and

identity. However, his position is more complex and in order to show this we have to

return to the critique of Sartre that is developed in chapter 5 of Black Skin. Here, he

criticizes Sartre’s Black Orpheus – the introduction to a book of Négritude poetry. To

repeat: the Négritude movement, started in the 1930’s, aimed to drive out the

inferiority complex of the colonized through a form of race-consciousness and self-

recognition – the affirmation of their history, culture and experience. An important

part of Black Orpheus is dedicated to exploring the relation between Négritude and

class struggle as instantiations of an emancipatory movement. Both white workers and

black people, Sartre writes, are “a victim of the capitalist structure of our society”

(Sartre 1964: 18). However, given a specific history of the dehumanization of black

people, he argues, we cannot assume that they will simply join the white working class

in a coalition against capitalist domination. Since “he [i.e. the black man] is oppressed

within the confines of his race and because of it, he must first of all become conscious

of his race” (Idem). Négritude is an indispensable “moment of separation or negativity:

this anti-racist racism is the only road that will lead to the abolition of racial

differences (my emphasis)” (Idem). In other words: although Sartre maintains faith in

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a common struggle of all the oppressed, he understands the need for a movement –

such as the Négritude movement – that emphasizes the specific (i.e., not universally

shared) value of blackness.

However, while Sartre appreciates the importance of this moment of separation, he

makes it secondary to the logic of class. First, he clarifies that whereas race

consciousness is a matter of subjectivity, class is a matter of objective position – the

former is concrete and particular, while the latter is universal and abstract (Ibid.: 19,

49). Second, he writes that the “subjective, existential, ethnic notion of negritude

‘passes,’ as Hegel says, into that which one has of the proletariat: objective, positive

and precise” (Ibid.: 48). In other words: black people should first become conscious of

the worth of blackness. But this moment can only last so long as they eventually

discover the ‘objective content’ of their struggle: the fact that they are engaged in a

worldwide class struggle (Idem). Hence, Sartre writes, Négritude is “for destroying

itself, it is a ‘crossing to’ and not an ‘arrival at,’ a means and not an end” (Ibid.: 49). In

other words: the building of race-consciousness is an important step in the

disalienation of black people and therefore it is a precondition for a collective struggle.

However, once it has performed this function it must immediately abolish itself

(Coulthard 2014: 138).

Reading these pages, Fanon writes, “I felt they had robbed me of my last chance”

(Fanon 2008: 112). He had tried to have himself recognized by the white world by

proving his rationality and it had failed. Then tried to have himself recognized by

returning to the value of typical black culture which was equally futile. Finally, he tries

to “claim [his] negritude intellectually as a concept” (Ibid.: 111) but Sartre tells him

that it is only a phase in a dialectic. Taken by itself Fanon’s lament appears strange.

For one, it is not clear why he would defend the Négritude movement if he is so critical

of the concept of ‘typical black culture’ (see infra). Second, if Sartre argues that the goal

of this movement is to abolish itself in order to prepare for the “realization of the

human being in a raceless society” (Sartre 1964: 49) it looks like we are not that far

removed from Fanon’s own ideas. To put it differently: the idea of Négritude as an end

in itself (rather than a means) seems incompatible with the claim that Fanon is a

thinker of the abolition of racial difference.

To address the first issue: it is indeed the case that Fanon is critical of attempts to

build an anti-racist movement on the idea of a ‘black essence’. On the one hand, the

reclamation of a tradition black way of life will – in itself – be insufficient to change a

racist structure of domination (Kruks 2001: 96). On the other hand, he regularly points

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out that there is no such thing as a black essence in the first place. Given the

geographic dispersion of black people there is little that unifies them or could constitute

a single essence: “the black experience,” he argues, “is ambiguous, for there is not one

Negro – there are many black men” (Fanon 2008: 115 & 150, cit. 115). More

importantly, however, he refuses to be locked into the past. “In no way,” he writes,

“does my basic vocation have to be drawn from the past of peoples of color” (Ibid.: 201

& 204, cit. 201). This position is partly justified on the ground that under colonialism

an indigenous “culture, once living and open to the future, becomes closed, fixed in the

colonial status, caught in the yoke of oppression” (Fanon 1967: 34; also see Gordon

2015: 129). Under the influence of colonial domination, that is, the native culture

becomes mummified (Idem). Therefore, if the native culture is in part a creature of

colonial society, it is doubtful whether it can function as the starting point of resistance.

However, we could also – as Glen Coulthard does – interpret these claims as a

continuation of the critique of reactivity. The Négritude movement returns to a past

culture that is despised by the colonizer in order to reclaim it as valuable. However, in

doing so they simply react to the value judgement of the colonizer – they invert the

terms of the colonial binary but leave the binary itself intact (Coulthard 2014: 142; also

see Fanon 2008: 202; Pithouse 2003: 121; Macherey 2004: 83).

Given the above, it is clear that Fanon’s relation to Négritude is at the very least

complicated. However, despite his own misgivings he felt that this movement was

valuable and that Sartre had failed to fully appreciate this. As Sonia Kruks argues: for

Fanon, “Négritude is at once untenable and yet necessary” (Kruks 2001: 101). The main

target of his criticism is Sartre’s invocation of dialectics (Coulthard 2014: 144;

Bernasconi 2012: 346; Bernasconi 2017: 105-109). White supremacy, the latter argues,

is the thesis and Négritude the moment of negativity. Yet, as a negative moment,

Négritude is not sufficient in itself and must give way to the synthesis which is in this

case the international class-struggle (Sartre 1964: 49). Race, Sartre writes, “is

transmuted into historicity, the black Present explodes and is temporalized” – it is

“inserted into Universal History” (Ibid.: 47).

Again, all of this seems close to what Fanon is arguing but details matter. He writes:

“For once, this friend, this born Hegelian, had forgotten that consciousness needs to

get lost in the night of the absolute, the only condition for attaining self-consciousness”

(Fanon 2008: 112). Further on adding that, “black consciousness claims to be an

absolute density, full of itself, a state pre-existent to any opening, to any abolition of

the self by desire” (Ibid.: 113). As different commentators have suggested, Sartre’s fault

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is not that he is wrong per se but that he told the truth (Kruks 2001:102; Coulthard

2014: 141-144; Ciccariello-Maher 2017: 68). Fanon does not deny that the Négritude

movement would be a passing moment. Rather, he felt that stating this as a truth in

advance or claiming that it is a matter of objective knowledge would drain the

Négritude movement of its vitality. “In any case I needed not to know. This struggle,

this descent once more, should be seen as a completed aspect,” he writes, adding that

the “dialectic […] shatters my impulsive position” (Fanon 2008: 114). We can

understand this passage as underlining the necessity of self-recognition. The first

barrier to self-emancipation is the inferiority complex of the racialized subject.

Therefore, to overcome this internal barrier, these subject must engage in a form of

self-recognition. To be clear: they should not seek recognition from their oppressor or

the state but turn their back on these instances and recognize themselves (Lentin 2006:

61; Coulthard 2014: 42-45, 140; Hudis 2015: 53).

The problem with Sartre’s text is that it does not acknowledge this need but

intellectualizes it as being no more than a phase. As Ciccariello-Maher writes, why

would someone “embrace an identity already deemed transitory from the outset”

(Ciccariello-Maher 2017: 68)? The key to understanding this particular critique of

Sartre is the concept of lived experience (Lentin 2006). As we argued in (3.1.), Fanon

was influenced by Merleau-Ponty’s account of embodied and lived experience. Yet, the

lived experience of a black man is different from that of a white man. “Jean-Paul

Sartre,” Fanon writes, “forgets that the black man suffers in his body quite differently

from the white man” (Fanon 2008: 117). In other words: Sartre fails to grasp what it

takes for a black man to leave such a state of internalized inferiority. Fanon, on the

contrary, insists on the importance of “black impulsiveness” [l’enthousiasme noir]

(Ibid.: 113), the need “to lose myself totally in negritude” (Ibid.: 113-114) and the wish

“to make myself known” (Ibid.: 116).

Nonetheless, it is clear that when push comes to shove, Fanon maintains a position

not far removed from Sartre’s. We already laid out his doubts regarding Négritude: an

unreflexive fetishizing of the black past would end up in political deadlocks. It’s no

coincidence that the conclusion to Black Skins opens with a quote from Marx’s The

Eighteenth Brumaire to the effect that “[t]he social revolution cannot draw its poetry

from the past, but only from the future” (cited in Fanon 2008: 198). True, the

revaluation of cultural and historical achievements of black people plays an important

role in the jumpstarting of the anti-racist struggle. However, the moment cultural self-

recognition comes into conflict with the project of transforming the cultural, economic

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and political social relations constituting a racist social formation, Fanon clearly

believes the latter is more important (Kruks 2001: 103-106; Coulthard 2014: 144-149;

Hudis 2015: 78-79, 94-95). After all, his own stated goal is: “through the particular,

reach out for the universal” (Fanon 2008: 174).

To conclude this section, we will clarify the temporal structure of Fanon’s anti-racist

politics. Here, we follow Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s analysis of identity politics

in their book Commonwealth. The first task of identity politics is to make “visible the

brutally real but too often hidden mechanisms and regimes of social subordination,

segmentation, and exclusion that operate along identity lines” and it can do this by

“reappropriating identity” (Hardt and Negri 2009: 329). However, these first steps

involve a certain danger: identity politics can mobilize people but immobilizes the

process of political transformation the moment “identity […] ceases to be a means and

becomes and end” (Ibid.: 330). When people become too invested in their ‘true’ identity,

the project of the transformation of society is blocked. This much should be clear from

our discussions of Fanon’s critique of the struggle for recognition and the Négritude

movement. Hence, the third step of an emancipatory politics is that of the “self-

abolition of identity” (Ibid.: 332). In the case of an anti-racist politics, Hardt and Negri

claim, this entails “not only the destruction of racial hierarchy but also the abolition of

race as we know it” (Ibid.: 336). The subordinated are thus saddled with a difficult task:

on the one hand, they can only escape their inferiority complex through practices of

self-recognition. However, given the immobilizing tendencies unleashed by the search

for a ‘true’ or ‘authentic’ identity, they also have to be willing to abolish these same

identities. If the goal of an anti-racist politics is to transform society – to rid it of racial

subordination – it also must be willing to risk a part of its self.

7.4. Conclusion

In this conclusion, I would like to show how elements of Fanon’s abolitionist politics

are relevant to and operative in contemporary anti-racist politics. In particular, I focus

on what is perhaps one of the most significant anti-racist movements of the moment:

the Movement for Black Lives, or Black Lives Matter (BLM). What’s interesting about

BLM is that it walks the tightrope between the politics of self-recognition and the

politics of abolition.

First, a little bit of background: the BLM movement emerged between 2012 and

2014 in the context of a string of police killings of black US citizens. The movement, an

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“assemblage of dozens of organizations and individuals”, quickly gained traction in the

wake of the 2014 Ferguson uprising (Ransby 2018: 5-7, cit. 5). Its core message,

encapsulated in what is both a name and slogan for the movement, is that black lives

matter: this being in the first place a response to the disregard for black citizens’

humanity as evidenced in the depressing regularity of police violence. Over time,

however, this starting point would be extended to more issues than just police violence:

the devaluation of black lives, their misrecognition, is not only present in the

institution of the police, but also in other institutions and aspects of US society (such

as the prison-industrial-complex, labour and housing market, education, etc.).

Predictably, the slogan of the movement gave rise to the accusations of identity

politics, particularism, and even anti-white racism (Havercroft and Owen 2016: 751).

Why, the objection went, would you say that black lives matter, shouldn’t all lives

matter? Of course all lives matter, Barbara Ransby responds, but “this movement was

responding to the systematic devaluation of Black life in particular”: “[i]f we were all

equally vulnerable, there would be no need to underscore the importance of Black life”

(Ransby 2018: 74). The slogan ‘black lives matter’ thus politicizes the debate on racism.

It rejects the ideology of post-racialism: the idea that racism is a thing from the past

and that racist structures of domination no longer exist (Pierce 2019: 16).

The politics of BLM, I already suggested, is twofold: it combines self-recognition and

abolition strategies. To start with the first: in response to the nonrecognition of black

citizens, it engages in a politics of self-recognition. One of the main motifs of the

movement is the assertion of black identity: the dual acknowledgement that “blackness

is rooted in a particular political and historical context with bloody roots in the

transatlantic slave trade, colonialism, slavery and Jim Crow” and there are also

“positive aspects of a shared connection to an African American past [such as]

resilience, resistance, and collective survival practices” (Ransby 2018: 98). The slogan

‘black lives matter’ is not only directed at white US citizens, but also, perhaps foremost,

at fellow black citizens. It provides, Ransby writes, “a counternarrative to the barrage

of messages that insist the lives of the Black urban poor do not matter” (Ibid.: 50).

Yet, there is always a danger that self-recognition ends up becoming an obstacle to

transformative politics. Some liberal commentators, like Mark Lilla, argue that this is

indeed what is happening. The movement belongs, he argues, to a generation of self-

sabotaging left-wing political movements that are more invested in romantic ideas

about the authentic experience of identity than focused on a political horizon of

citizenship, solidarity and equal rights (Lilla 2018: 75-97). At one point, Lilla, himself

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hardly a Marxist, even laments the passing of the old Marxist vision of the

transformation of society: at least it kept its “eyes focused on the horizon,” he writes,

whereas with the new identity politics “all eyes have turned within” (95-96, cit. 95).

Yet, looking at the budding research on the Movement for Black Lives, it is clear

that it suffers no lack of transformative visions. One of the striking developments is

the impulse BLM gave to the prison abolition movement. The organization Critical

Resistance (CR), founded by Angela Y. Davis and Ruth Wilson Gilmore in 1997, was a

crucial influence on BLM (Ransby 2018: 16). The analysis informing CR is that the US

prison-industrial-complex plays a crucial role in the domination of black citizens. One

of its primary functions is to use punishment as a way to solve social problems that

other institutions cannot or do not want to solve (Davis 2011: 18, 20; Gilmore 2007: 88-

126). In doing this, law enforcement and the criminal justice system play a

questionable role: inordinately targeting black men, accelerating both the growth of

mass incarceration and the disenfranchisement of black citizens (Alexander 2010: 178-

220).

In opposition to this structure of racism domination, CR – and BLM in their wake –

decided that the end of racist domination could not be accomplished without the

abolition of prisons. Therefore, they developed a vision and project for the creation of

an ‘abolition democracy’. The idea, Angela Davis clarifies, is borrowed from W.E.B. Du

Bois. He, in turn, coined it as he discerned that the legal abolition of slavery did not

achieve the comprehensive abolition of slavery. In order to accomplish the latter, Du

Bois argued, a host of economic, political, and educational institutions had to be in

place so that former slaves had the means to participate as full citizens (Davis 2011:

43; also Kelley et al. 2018: 582). Something similar applies to the prison abolition

movement, Davis explains: its aim can only be accomplished through “the creation of

an array of social institutions that would begin to solve the social problems that set

people on the track to prison, thereby helping to render the prison obsolete” (Davis

2001: 44; also Heiner 2007; Ransby 2018: 201; Kushner 2019).

Far from getting bogged down in a sterile identity politics, these tendencies within

BLM initiated a transformative project. Their horizon is that of a deep transformation

of the institutions – both legal, political, and economic – that support or sustain a racial

hierarchy.

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Second Transition: Insurgent Citizenship and the Question of

Violence

In chapter three we reconstructed Balibar’s concept of insurgent citizenship. This

citizenship should be understood as the exercise of the right to resist one’s domination.

Furthermore, we demonstrated in chapters four to seven that this kind of resistance

comes in two (sometimes) conflicting modalities. In what follows, the question will shift

from that of modalities to that of means. To be more precise: we will examine whether

the exercise of insurgent citizenship is necessarily non-violent.

Like we noted in the introduction (see B.iii.), this question is not foreign to the

political theory of Balibar. To be more precise: he argues that both modalities of

insurgent citizenship have a tragic aspect which consists in “the possibility that politics

of emancipation and transformation that combat barbarity produce other forms of

barbarity” (Balibar 2015a: xv). As will become clear in the following pages (especially

section 8.3.), the question of the relation between insurgent citizenship and violence is

a constant question for him.

One further question should be addressed: do the following chapters have further

implications for the central argument made in sections two and three? Does the

question of violence have a bearing on the distinction between emancipation and

transformation? The reader will notice that the recurring casus is that of the riot. I do

not believe that we can strictly categorize the riot as either a politics of emancipation

or as politics of transformation. That is to say, depending on the riot both modalities

could be in play. However, I can say this: if a form of insurgent politics is confronted

with the question of violence if it demands a state to live up to its proclaimed principles,

then it is very likely that the question becomes even more urgent if one strives to

transform those principles.

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Part Four: (Non)Violent Insurgent Citizenship?

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8. At the Outer Limits of Democratic Division: On Conflict and

Violence in the Works of Chantal Mouffe and Étienne Balibar

8.1. Introduction

We are living in an age of riots and urban revolts. As Mustafa Dikeç recounts: in 2001

Cincinnati erupted into riots of an order not seen since the 1992 Los Angeles riots; in

2005 France saw a string of riots on a scale not seen since 1968; Greece (2008), London

(2011), Stockholm (2013) and Istanbul (2013) followed; and most recently the cities of

Baltimore (2015), Milwaukee and Charlotte (2016) did as well (Dikeç 2017: 1). These

riots, Dikeç argues, speak to the failure of liberal democracies – to the tension between

the ideals of equality and liberty that they uphold and the empirical realities of

inequality that give rise to these forms of revolt (Ibid.: 218). As the institution of liberal

democratic citizenship is being hollowed out, new figures of citizenship emerge.

This paper is not mainly concerned with the specificities of this age of riots. My

interest with a possible repose by democratic theory to the emergence of this rioter-

citizen. This interest began from two conflicting politico-philosophical interpretations

of the French riots. On the one hand, the French philosopher Étienne Balibar wrote an

essay in the wake of these riots in which he carefully examined the conflicting

tendencies at the heart of these riots. A riot, he argued, is characterized by political

and anti-political elements. It is up to activists and political thinkers to understand

the riot and reinforce its political tendencies (Balibar 2014a: 231-258). The Belgian

philosopher Chantal Mouffe, on the other hand, restricted herself to a few disapproving

paragraphs. Riots, she wrote, are a blind form of violence that erupts in response to a

crisis of political representation (Mouffe 2013: 121-122).

I propose to connect these judgements to the philosophical positions that produce

them. What’s striking, then, is that both authors work in a similar philosophical

tradition: that of radical democratic theory. In other words, here are two prominent

thinkers who attach great importance to political conflict. According to them conflict is

of central importance to a democracy. I would suggest, then, that their different views

on riots derive from a tension within this radical democratic thinking.

On the one hand, conflict is the very soul of a radical democracy. Against the

tendency to neutralize political problems with technocratic means, the radical

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democrat argues that without political conflict there is no democracy. Neither, argues

the radical democrat, can democracy persist in the absence of struggles against

domination. On the other hand, the radical democrat is also a democrat and this

implies that she sees the need for a shared and stable political space. After all, if

political conflicts escalate it will be harder for citizens to see their opponents as co-

citizens. Radical democrats are thus well aware of the dangers of a civil war – a conflict

in which shared rules of engagement lose their value and citizens can no longer see

each other as political opponents. The result is a circulation of violence and the

impossibility of (democratic) politics (Traverso 2017: 64-100).

Radical democracy is haunted by this danger and is therefore compelled to install

some provisos. In order to prevent the conflict that they value from escalating, radical

democrats subject it to certain limits. In this chapter, I will argue that the latter

precautionary principle can turn against the central insights of radical democratic

theory. The fear of a violent conflict can lead to the misrecognition of certain kinds of

struggles against exclusion and domination (such as, for instance, riots).

Mouffe, I will argue, succumbs to this temptation: in her earlier works she still gives

centre stage to radical conflicts, but in her later works on agonistic democracy we will

see that her (Schmittean) concern with the escalation of violence turns against her

earlier radical democratic insights into the value and necessity of political conflict. This

leads her to denounce more radical or violent forms of conflict such as riots or revolts.

Having demonstrated this, I will turn to the work of Balibar. In his writings on civility

and violence we find a way to hold on to the insights of the radical democratic tradition

without necessarily ignoring or belittling Mouffe’s legitimate concerns with violence.

8.2. Chantal Mouffe: The Threat of the Untamed Conflict

Chantal Mouffe’s name is inextricably connected to the notion of democratic conflict.

Her position in the politico-philosophical landscape is tied to her claim that most social

and political philosophies either supress or ignore conflict. Her own theories of radical

and agonistic democracy, on the other hand, leaves ample room for political conflict.

However, her notion of political conflict and the justifications for the importance of

a certain kind of conflict are subject to subtle yet significant changes. Before we can

criticize her theory, we must show how the relation between conflict and democracy

evolves throughout her work.

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8.2.1. Laclau and Mouffe: Antagonism, Hegemony and Radical Democracy

The first formulation of this relation can be found in Hegemony and Socialist Strategy

(co-authored with Ernesto Laclau) (Laclau and Mouffe 2014 [1985]). This volume is

conceived as an attempt to apply insights garnered from the post-structuralist

tradition to the study of politics and society. One of the central axioms of their approach

is that there is no such thing as society as an objective “thing-in-itself”. Social entities

and the relations among them can only become accessible for us through an act of

discursive articulation. More precisely: they argue that social objects do not have an

objective essence but can only become accessible to us to the extent that they are

articulated in relation to other objects (Laclau and Mouffe 1987: 85). This process of

discursive articulation occurs when unarticulated elements enter into a chain of

signifiers, or – in the terminology of Laclau and Mouffe – when they are transformed

into articulated moments. Here, they borrow from the linguist Ferdinand de Saussure:

identity is relational. The identity of a sign is dependent on its relations to other signs

in a closed system (Ibid.: 92-93). In turn, this structuralist framework is subjected to

Derrida’s poststructuralist critique: discursive articulation is not only necessary, but

also – and paradoxically – impossible. The discursive articulation among different

elements can never become a closed system as “all discourse is subverted by a field of

discursivity which overflows it” (Laclau and Mouffe 2014: 99). Polysemy, that is, the

ambiguous character of a signifier and thus its capacity to refer to many different

signifieds, precludes the definitive closure of a discursive structure. The

transformation of unarticulated elements into articulated moments will therefore

never be completed (Ibid.: 99-100).

Laclau and Mouffe appropriate two concepts to carry out the translation of these

abstract ideas into social theory: ‘antagonism’ and ‘hegemony’. The concept of

antagonism stands for the idea that negativity is constitutive of society and can

therefore never be overcome (Mouffe 2013: 130). The construction of society as a

unitary object, Oliver Marchart clarifies, is impossible because of the aforementioned

surplus of signification. It is only by excluding this surplus that something like a

‘society’ can constitute itself. Yet at the same time, this surplus, this field of

discursivity that overflows it confronts society with its lack of a fundamental ground

(Marchart 2007: 136-139). In Laclau and Mouffe’s own words: antagonism “is a relation

wherein the limits of every objectivity are shown” and therefore antagonisms

“constitute the limit of society, the latter’s impossibility of fully constituting itself”

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(Laclau and Mouffe 2014 [1985]: 112). Up to this point they follow Derrida’s critique of

the metaphysics of presence: society can never fully coincide with itself. However,

where Derrida and his followers commit themselves to this deconstructive moment,

Laclau and Mouffe also include a constructive moment (Wenman 2013: 185).

Hegemony functions as the constructive element of their theory. The impossibility of

society – its lack of an ultimate organizing principle – is not the endpoint of this theory.

They recognize the need to create some form of order (Laclau and Mouffe 2014 [1985]:

112, 115). This is where the concept of hegemony comes in: it is through hegemonic

practices that a (contingent) social order comes into being. (This is, to be clear, no

creatio ex nihilo: hegemonic articulation is always the articulation of something.) What

this entails is that there is no such thing as a social order that is not political. The

constitution of social objectivity is an act of power that excludes (Mouffe 2005: 17).

After all, if order is created in a context of indeterminacy, it is bound to foreclose other

possible articulations of social objectivity (Mouffe 2013: 131).

It is on this terrain that Laclau and Mouffe construct their theory of radical

democracy. It is an attempt to carry on the Marxist concern with emancipation – the

struggle against inequalities and relations of subordination – in a world that is at odds

with the premises of classical Marxist theory. To be more precise: if take these

poststructuralist ideas seriously, some of the central assumptions of orthodox Marxism

can no longer be wielded. First of all, it is no longer possible to assume the ontologically

privileged position of the proletariat. On the contrary: “there are a variety of possible

antagonisms in the social, many of them in opposition to each other” (Laclau and

Mouffe 2014 [1985].: 117). Not only does the anti-essentialist framework call into

question the social-scientific concept of class struggles. We have also arrived at a

moment in history in which many new antagonisms (e.g. ecological, feminist, anti-

institutional, anti-racist, etc.) proliferate (Ibid.: 143-155). Second, to the extent that

antagonism and hegemony are constitutive of social reality, it is no longer possible to

hold on to a view of communist society as “a transparent society from which

antagonisms have disappeared” (Ibid.: xxiv).

Therefore, the project of emancipation will have to be waged on different terms.

First of all, Laclau and Mouffe no longer assume that relations of subordination

automatically give rise to struggles against it. After all, certain relations of

subordination – in which one agent is subjected to the decisions of another – are

perfectly ‘natural’ within particular discursive formations. As long as women are seen

as naturally subordinate to men, the relations of subordination between men and

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women cannot yet become a site of antagonism. It is only “in the terms of a different

discursive formation, such as ‘the rights inherent to every human being’, that the

differential positivity of these categories can be subverted and the subordination

constructed as oppression” (Ibid.: 138).

This last example is not chosen at random: in Hegemony and Socialist Strategy the

democratic revolution has an important role to play. The modern revolutions, Laclau

and Mouffe argue, give birth to a democratic discourse that is based on the values of

freedom and equality. In light of these democratic values, it becomes possible to

construct different relations of subordination as relations of oppression (Ibid.). In other

words: it becomes possible to make “social relations, hitherto considered apolitical

[into] loci of conflict and antagonism” (Mouffe 1993: 77). This entails that, in contrast

to classical Marxism, Laclau and Mouffe accept the principles of liberty and equality

as the horizon of modern emancipatory struggles (Decreus an Lievens 2011: 691).

The democratisation of citizenship is the process in which the existence of these

democratic values allows political actors to question and contest more and more of

these relations of subordination. The task of the left, Laclau and Mouffe argue, is to

deepen and extend this democratic revolution (Laclau and Mouffe 2014 [1985]: 160).

However, as we see an increase in the kinds of relations that become the object of these

democratic struggles, and class struggles are supplemented with feminist, anti-racist,

and ecological movements, resistance is also more often waged on a particular (as

opposed to collective) basis (Ibid.: 148). Hence, it is necessary to build a radical

democratic project that can connect all of these different struggles. The crucial element

of a radical democratic project is the attempt to establish a ‘chain of equivalence’ among

the different democratic struggles that traverse society. Concretely the goal is to create

a reciprocal identification among these different struggles through an articulation (in

terms of a hegemonic interpretation of the democratic principles) of their mutual

antagonism to oppressive forces (Ibid.: xii-xiii, 77-78).

8.2.2. Mouffe and the Critique of Normative Liberalism I: Agonistic Democracy and

Radical Pluralism

Whereas the concept of antagonism is initially employed in this deconstruction of the

Marxist project, we see a shift in Mouffe’s later works on agonistic democracy. The first

aspect of this shift is that the poststructuralist concept of antagonism is supplemented

with a concept informed by the work of Carl Schmitt. The second aspect of this shift is

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that the object of her critique is no longer classical Marxism,. She instead critiques the

normative liberal theories of John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas, on the one hand, and

the technocratic discourse of post-politics, on the other. A third and final aspect is the

integration of radical democracy into the theory of agonistic democracy. More precisely:

the latter is an analytical theory of democracy that accounts for the centrality of

agonism, antagonism and hegemony in democratic politics. The former is an ethico-

political project that Mouffe endorses in which the expansion and deepening of the

democratic principles of equality and liberty is central. However, it is but one of the

many ways in which the democratic principles can be interpreted in an agonistic

democracy (Decreus, Lievens and Mouffe 2011: 687-689).

To start with the first shift: as Oliver Marchart argues, we can say that already in

Hegemony and Socialist Strategy two different – though not necessarily incompatible

– definitions of antagonism are at play. On the one hand, we have a ‘real antagonism’

which stands for the impossibility of society. But, on the other hand, Laclau and Mouffe

also work with a second concept of ‘symbolic antagonism’. This is the antagonism that

accompanies identity formation and is a form of symbolic inscription (Marchart 2013:

308-312). Let’s return to the example of radical democracy: this new identity can only

be created insofar as an equivalence is created among different democratic struggles.

In order for this to happen, however, ‘something identical’ – underlying their reciprocal

differences – has to be expressed. And this ‘something’ is that which makes them stand

out from their oppressor. What makes this aspect of identity formation antagonistic is

the fact that ‘the other’ (in this case the oppressor) becomes both a condition of

possibility and impossibility of ‘my’ identity (in this case that of the radical democrats)

(Wenman 2003: 60).

Looking back on this shift, Mouffe argues that indeed there are two definitions of

antagonism at play here. However, she proposes that the category of ‘real antagonism’

– that indicates the limit of every objectivity – be replaced by that of ‘dislocation’.47

Antagonism, on the other hand, is firmly located within the symbolic order – it is the

symbolic inscription of a dislocation. For example: at one point a colonial society will

fail to fully constitute the identities ‘colonizer’ and ‘colonized’ (i.e. a dislocation). In

turn, this enables the attempt to inscribe this dislocation in the symbolic order

antagonistically. The former ‘colonized’ can now identify anew as ‘liberation fighters’

47 This formulation was initially proposed by Ernesto Laclau in New Reflections on the Revolutions of our

Times (Laclau 1990: 3-89).

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against the ‘colonial occupiers’. It is this latter definition, she argues, that becomes a

priority in her later works (Decreus and Lievens 2011: 682).

In these later works on agonistic democracy (starting with The Return of the

Political), she develops this concept of antagonism through an engagement with Carl

Schmitt. Here, Mouffe contends, we discover “the specificity of the political in its

dimension of conflict/decision” (Mouffe 1993: 2). Schmitt’s lesson is threefold: first, he

teaches us that in politics we cannot do without collective forms of identification in

which a ‘we’ is delimited from a ‘them’. Therefore, politics does not primarily concern

the interactions between individuals (as liberalism has often argued) but the conflict

between collectives. Moreover, a we/them relation can always become a friend/enemy

relation. This entails that as the ‘enemy’ puts our very existence into question, this

relation is potentially violent (Mouffe 1993: 3; 2005: 11). Second, from this necessity to

distinguish a ‘we’ and a ‘them’, it follows that political communities – also democratic

communities – always in- and exclude (Mouffe 2000: 42-45). In this sense, Schmitt’s

concept of the political concretises a dimension that is already present in the concept

of hegemony: that hegemonic practices bring a political order into being but do so

through the exclusion of other possibilities (Mouffe 2005: 18). Schmitt’s third and final

lesson is that the decision that grounds the friend/enemy distinction is itself without

ground. It cannot be justified with reference to a universal consensus based on reason

(Mouffe 2005: 12). As decisions concerning the principles of political association cannot

represent an impartial standpoint, they should be seen for what they are – namely,

political decisions (Mouffe 2000: 47).

It is this dimension of antagonism – or, ‘the political’ – that is disavowed in the

normative, liberal theories of democracy of John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas. These

theories assume that a rational consensus concerning essential moral-political

principles is the horizon of democratic politics. This does not mean that they deny the

reality of conflict. On the contrary: normative liberal theories are in part a response to

the likelihood of conflict that accompanies modern pluralism. The problem is that they

assume that this conflict can be neutralised. They believe that it is possible to reach a

reasonable agreement on the public principles ordering our society and do this by

relegating substantive differences in worldviews to the private domain (Mouffe 1993:

122-128; 2000: 19-20).

Mouffe’s own theory of agonistic democracy, on the other hand, tries to incorporate

and disarm this dimension of antagonism. It acknowledges that antagonism is

ineradicable, but also realizes that it is incompatible with a modern pluralist

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democracy in which citizens should not see each other as enemies but as political

opponents. Therefore, the democratic process should be agonistic: it should allow for a

conflict between political projects (or, collective forms of identification) but the we/them

distinction that this conflict entails should be relativized. In such an agonistic relation,

“the conflicting parties, although acknowledging that there is no rational solution to

their conflict, nevertheless recognize the legitimacy of their opponents” (Mouffe 2005:

20). According to Mouffe, this model of agonistic democracy is superior in two ways. On

the one hand, it is more genuinely pluralistic (i.e. a democratic-normative argument)

(see infra). On the other, as it does not disavow the logic of antagonism, it is less likely

to fall prey to its dangers (i.e. an analytical realist argument) (see section 2.3.).

Let’s start with the first argument. For the theory of agonistic democracy, Mouffe

argues, pluralism is an axiological principle: “[i]t is taken to be constitutive at the

conceptual level of the very nature of modern democracy and considered as something

that we should celebrate and enhance” (Mouffe 2000: 19). The normative liberal

theories, on the other hand, pay lip service to the ideal of pluralism but, when push

comes to shove, shy away from embracing a true plurality of political identities. If we

bracket the differences between the theories of Rawls and Habermas, we see that both

in their own manner fail to acknowledge and incorporate the principle of pluralism.

The rationale for this flight is their aspiration to ground the legitimacy of liberal-

democratic institutions and their underlying values in a rational ethical consensus.

However, given the incompatibility of substantive moral doctrines in modern societies,

they can only accomplish this by excluding these views from the political domain. In

Rawls’ case this is done by imposing a strong separation between the public and private

domains; and in the case of Habermas by divorcing the procedural and the substantial

– through an uncoupling of political and ethical issues which can be settled in a

deliberate fashion from substantive moral issues for which this is not possible (Mouffe

2000: 90-93).

The problem with this position, Mouffe argues, is not exclusion per se, but that

Rawls and Habermas present the exclusion of certain interpretations of the principles

of the political association as justified from an impartial moral standpoint. They do not

deny that the harmonious political orders that they argue for, exclude or coerce certain

political actors, but take it that these forms of coercion and exclusion are stripped of

their problematic aspects. After all, if the principles that animate a liberal political

order are the result of a reasonable dialogue, they only exclude those citizens that are

unreasonable. Thus, if exclusion and coercion are involved, they are perfectly justified.

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Political liberalism, Mouffe argues, makes it look like problems such as exclusion,

violence and coercion can be driven out of our societies or, at the least, be rationalized

(Mouffe 1993:141).

However, by covering up the political decision at the basis of these liberal orders,

Rawls and Habermas fail to do justice to the fact that a genuine pluralism entails that

there is a “diversity of ways in which the ‘democratic game’ can be played” (Mouffe

2000: 73). It is impossible, Mouffe argues, to neatly separate the procedural from the

substantial. Democratic procedures, that is, already “presuppose the acceptance of

certain values” (Ibid.: 91). Therefore, we will have to accept that there is no sole

rationally acceptable way of playing the democratic game. In other words: we can no

longer isolate the democratic ‘rules of the game’ from contestation (Wenman 2003: 62).

In turn, this is important because if we “present the institutions of liberal democracy

as the outcome of a pure deliberative rationality [, we] reify them and make them

impossible to transform” (Mouffe 2000: 32). If a political regime is seen as the only

reasonable alternative, then resistance to and critiques of this regime can only be

perceived as irrational. Yet, if we take the poststructuralist critique of rationalism

seriously, then we should also accept the likelihood of blind spots in purportedly

rational political orders (Mouffe 1993: 123; 2000: 31). In this respect, the liberal

normativism is problematic and not genuinely pluralistic because it forecloses on the

possibility of alternative interpretations of the democratic principles that are not

already contained within the sphere of ‘rational’ political visions.

8.2.3. Mouffe and the Critique of Liberalism II: Agonistic Democracy and the

Sublimation of Antagonism

In addition to this normative-democratic argument, there is also an analytical-realist

critique of normative liberalism. This argument goes as follows: the disavowal of

antagonism is not only problematic from the standpoint of the principle of pluralism,

it is also potentially dangerous. The empirical side of this realistic critique is developed

in Mouffe’s analyses of Third Way and technocratic post-politics. What these political

projects share with liberal normativism, is a focus on consensus and a suspicion

towards the political. The attempt to oust political conflict from the public sphere is,

however, counterproductive. People feel the need to identify themselves with political

projects that are distinct from each other. If the democratic process fails to satisfy this

desire, it paves the way for problematic, antagonistic forms of identification. This

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gives rise to more intensely antagonistic and even violent forms of conflict (such as

terrorism, right-wing populism and riots) (Mouffe 2005: 21, 64-89). In contrast, an

agonistic democracy provides an outlet for conflicts and passions (Mouffe 1993: 5-6). It

sublimates – as opposed to disavowing or supressing – the antagonistic dimension

(Mouffe 2000: 107n31). The crucial point that both the normative theory of liberalism

and technocratic post-politics miss, is that a certain kind of conflict plays an integrative

role in modern democracies (Ibid.: 113).

In order to understand this argument, we have to investigate the Schmittian concept

of antagonism anew. Until now we have mainly demonstrated that Mouffe sees value

in the concept of antagonism and its emphasis on collective identification and political

decision. However, following Schmitt, she also sees danger in antagonism: “he was no

doubt right,” she writes, “to warn against the dangers that an antagonistic pluralism

entails for the permanence of the political entity” (Mouffe 2005: 16). As Mark Wenman

notes, Schmitt does not only argue that antagonism is constitutive of the nature of the

political. He also stresses that it poses a security threat and therefore has no place

within the political association (Wenman 2013a: 193; 2013b: 94). One reason for the

exclusion of intra-associational antagonism is its incompatibility with the authority of

the state. For Schmitt, there cannot be an antagonistic pluralism concerning the

principles of legitimacy “without the political reality of the state automatically

disappearing” (Mouffe 1993: 131). The second reason, as Johanna Oksala clarifies, is

that the friend-enemy distinction refers to the “the real possibility of physical killing”

(Schmitt cited in: Oksala 2012: 60). As antagonism includes the risk of violence it also

has to be expelled from the political association because it “would lead to a civil war”

(Decreus and Lievens 2011: 683).

It is at this point, however, that Schmitt and Mouffe go their separate ways. While

both acknowledge the antagonistic dimension of politics, the latter decides that

democratic pluralism and the acknowledgment of antagonism are reconcilable.

Schmitt’s solution to the danger of antagonism is to expel antagonism outside the

demos. It is through a displacement of antagonism onto the international political

sphere that the unity of the people and the stability of the political association is

safeguarded. Internally, homogeneity is maintained, while the friend-enemy

distinction is reserved for nation states (Mouffe 2000: 54). In contrast: an agonistic

democracy allows for division and pluralism within the political community. The

reason it is able to do so is that conflict in a parliamentary system is able to sublimate

antagonisms. Referring to Elias Cannetti’s analysis of the parliamentary system,

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Mouffe notes how it “uses the psychological structure of opposing armies and stages a

form of warfare which has renounced killing” (Mouffe 2005: 22).

Here, Ben Cross argues, Mouffe defends the theory of agonistic democracy against

both liberal normativism and Schmitt on political realist grounds. What makes this

form of democracy superior is that it is able to sublimate the antagonistic dimension

and is thus more stable than both. Against her liberal opponents she argues that a

rational consensus can never safeguard the stability of a modern democracy. By

relegating passionate attachments to the private sphere and suppressing conflict, they

end up creating problems that are far worse – such as far-right populism or religious

terrorism. Against her other intellectual opponent – Schmitt – she argues that

insulating the political community from internal conflicts, creates a breeding ground

for destabilizing forms of partisanship. One can only stabilize a democracy by turning

democratic institutions into an outlet for political conflicts and thus by making them

into apparatuses for transforming antagonistic conflicts into agonist ones (Cross 2017:

182-185; also see Mouffe 2005: 22-23).

8.2.4. The Ambiguity of Agonistic Democracy and the Problem of the Rioter

This solution, however, is not without its problems. After all, not all forms of

antagonism can be sublimated in an agonistic democracy. Mouffe admits as much:

there are certain antagonistic actors, she writes, that cannot find a place in an agonistic

democracy. “Some demands,” she explains, “are excluded not because they are declared

to be ‘evil’, but because they challenge the institutions constitutive of the democratic

political association” (Mouffe 2005: 120-121). With these actors, then, we remain in a

relation of antagonism.

Again, this requires explanation. For an agonistic democracy to function there has

to be some kind of ‘conflictual consensus’. There has to be a “common symbolic space

among opponents who are considered as ‘legitimate enemies’” (Mouffe 2005: 52). A

political position is compatible with this conflictual consensus as long as it meets a

substantial and a formal criterion. The substantial criterion is an “adhesion to the

ethico-political principles of liberal democracy”. Democratic citizens must accept both

the equality and liberty of all (e.g. accepting that all citizens regardless of gender, race

or class have a right to political participation). The formal criterion is that we treat

political actors that also adhere to these principles but defend another interpretation

as ‘adversaries’. An adversary, Mouffe clarifies, is “somebody whose ideas we combat

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but whose right to defend those ideas we do not put into question” (Mouffe 2000: 102;

also see Rummens 2009: 377-391).

In accordance with this scheme, two kinds of political actors should be treated as

antagonists. On the one hand, there are those political actors that fail to meet the

substantial criterion. Examples are Islamist extremists or neo-fascists. Positions that,

say, fail to acknowledge the liberty and equality of women are unacceptable in an

agonistic democracy. Therefore, we remain antagonistic towards those actors that

stubbornly hold onto anti-democratic demands (Mouffe 2013: 13-15).

On the other hand, there are actors who might meet the substantial criterion – and

thus make democratic demands – but do not meet the formal criterion because their

actions are not agonistic (Oksala 2012: 64). This criterion, I would argue, is vague and

therefore potentially problematic. As long as we assume that political actors who fail

this criterion also fail the former one, this stance remains intuitive. It is not very

difficult to see why violent neo-fascist groupings should be excluded from the

democratic space. However, the question becomes more difficult once we introduce the

possibility that democratic demands – the demand for equal rights or struggles against

oppression – are made in ways that are not strictly speaking agonistic because they

are violent or coerce, discipline or punish political opponents (Breen 2009: 140; Olson

2009: 87-90; Oksala 2012: 64). Recent research on radical and uncivil disobedience

reveals that and how citizens have opposed oppression in uncivil ways throughout the

history of modern democracy and still do so to this day. Principled disobedience as

resistance against oppression, Candice Delmas argues, is not always peaceful: militant

suffragettes smashed windows and heckled opponents, rioters destroyed property and

confronted the police, and strikers deployed force against strike-breakers (Delmas

2018: 38, 45, 65-66).

We start to see the tensions in Mouffe’s thinking when confronted with this

question. As we demonstrated earlier (in sections 2.1. and 2.2.), she is acutely aware of

phenomena like power, exclusion and domination. Moreover, she recognizes the need

to contest relations of domination and “to problematize the constitution and shape of

[the] common political space” (Norval 2007: 159). If not as an agonistic democrat, at

the least as a radical democrat. However, at the same time she struggles with her

Schmittean heritage (see section 2.3.). As some critics note, her agonistic solution to

the Schmittean problem of intra-associational antagonism cannot entirely escape its

conservative framing (Oksala 2012; Wenman 2013a: 197-201; Wenman 2013b;

Sommerer 2018). There are many times that Mouffe accepts Schmitt’s linking of the

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problem of antagonism, on the one hand, and the danger presented by the human

inclination towards violence and aggression, on the other. This is visible in her

argument that “‘the state of nature’ in its Hobbesian dimension can never be

completely eradicated but only controlled” (Mouffe 1993: 6) and the contention that

“the social order will always be threatened by violence” (2000: 131; also 2005: 3, 25-26;

2013: 4, 47). The reason that this framing is conservative is that it accepts the human

propensity for violence as a given against which a certain form of political order has to

protect us. In turn, this framing that compels Mouffe to describe “[p]olitics, as the

attempt to domesticate the political, to keep at bay the force of destruction and to

establish order” (Mouffe 1993: 141) and leads her to be wary of more intense forms of

resistance that “tear up the basis of civility” (Mouffe 2000: 104).

This ensures that the notion of a democratizing violence becomes hard to imagine

within the confines of Mouffe’s conceptual schema. For Mouffe, violence can constitute

a democratic space: after all, the democratic space came into being through a violent

revolution against an undemocratic order. But once this shared democratic space exist,

violence must be sublimated in agonistic conflict. What happens to violence that cannot

be sublimated, however, remains unclear. With violent, undemocratic forces – such as

islamist terrorists – we remain in an antagonistic relationship. That much is clear. The

democratic demand, action or practice that is asserted in a violent manner, however,

is strictly speaking an anomaly for Mouffe.

I argue that this tension is most visible than in her treatment of riots. At different

points, Mouffe gives some version of her argument that riots are “a sheer expression of

blind violence without any specific claims” that are the result of a lack of political fora

in which dissent can be expressed (cit. Mouffe 2013: 12; Decreus and Lievens 2011:

698; Hansen and Sonnichsen 2014: 268). The aforementioned tension is visible in the

following way: on the one hand, and in line with her critique of exclusion, Mouffe

refrains from blaming the rioters. After all, the crisis of democratic representation is

to blame. Yet, in line with her concern with the sublimation of antagonism, she is

unwilling to grant the riot a democratic role given the dangers its violent and

antagonistic character presents.

However, as different political thinkers have already indicated: riots might look like

they have no positive political or democratic content, yet some of them do (Badiou 2012;

Clover 2016; Kaulingfreks 2016; Dikeç 2017) (also see chapter 9). Mustafa Dikeç, who

investigates riots in different democratic countries, writes the following: riots “are

neither preconceived nor organised, and they are not articulated as collective efforts

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aimed at transforming the established order [my emphasis]” (Dikeç 2004: 191). In this

respect, the riot cannot be seen as an organised justice movement. Dikeç nonetheless

emphasizes that we cannot consider these riots in isolation from democratic demands.

In the West, riots are often a reaction to a situation of injustice (Ibid.). They often arise

in situations where there is some sort of exclusion (in the form of concentrated poverty,

police violence, discrimination or segregation) (Dikeç 2017: 6). Hence, the fact that

these riots are seen as apolitical is often a result of the way in which the state frames

them rather than any intrinsic characteristic (Dikeç 2004: 192-200). Of course, the

violence that explodes in the form of riots is not necessarily emancipatory or democratic

(Dikeç 2017: 174). Riots are ambiguous, Stephen D’ Arcy argues, which makes it

important to distinguish the different forms that they take. Some of these are

unjustifiable: authoritarian riots, for instance, reinforce relations of domination (e.g.

Kristallnacht or the 1919 Chicago race riots). Recreative riots (e.g. hooliganism) are

also hard to justify (D’Arcy 2014: 131-132; also see Kirkpatrick 2008). The “grievance

riot”, however, can be seen as emancipatory: such a riot contests a relation of

subordination (e.g. police violence, structural unemployment, or racism) (Ibid.).

One could respond that citizens have other, non-violent means of contestation at

their disposal such as engagement in the public sphere, protests, or civil disobedience.

But this overlooks the fact, Candice Delmas notes, that rioters use violence precisely

because “they are not allowed to participate on civil terms” (Delmas 2018: 65).

Moreover, political riots are at times simply more successful than civil protest “in

projecting the seriousness of the problem, in part by threatening further disruption”

(Ibid.: 65-66). Indeed, as recent research shows, the riot is a form of political

disobedience with a specific strategic rationale. Rioters erect blockades in order to

disrupt economic circulation (Clover 2016); they threaten “the state with a breakdown

of its claim to authority [and thus create] a strong incentive to listen to what the

unheard have to say” (D’ Arcy 2014: 133-137, cit. 136); and communicate and express

anger at the persistence of injustice, exclusion and subordination (Delmas 2018: 65;

Pasternak 2019: 391).

This raises the question of whether we can accept the democratizing potential of

riots without giving short shrift to Mouffe’s concerns about the dangers of violence and

antagonism. This is material for the following section: here, I will argue that we can

find supplementary concepts that allow us to bridge these concerns in the thought of

Étienne Balibar.

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8.3. Étienne Balibar: Civilizing the Insurrection

8.3.1. Conflict and Normativity: The Many Faces of ‘Equaliberty’

Although we have already treated Balibar’s concepts in depth, it is important to now

quickly recapitulate how exactly he envisions the connection between conflict and the

democratization of citizenship. In the first place, we should note that Balibar’s thought

has a great deal in common with Mouffe’s. Both recognize the importance of conflict in

a democracy, position themselves as adherents of the unfinished project of political

modernity, and try to balance the critique and upholding of political universalism. In

addition, they can be identified as radical democrats that initially developed their

theories from within the Marxist tradition (see Ingram 2015).

Nonetheless, there are also important differences. Balibar does not wield an

abstract theory of ‘the political’: he assumes that politics has many different faces. In

his Three Concepts of Politics, we already saw, he discerns at least three concepts of

politics. This position entails that, in contrast to liberals, he refuses to reduce politics

to a discussion of rights and, in contrast to Marxists, he refuses to reduce it to class

struggle. Politics concerns both classically liberal themes like juridical freedom and

equality, and the material conditions in which the concrete realisation and deepening

of these values is possible (Balibar 2002a: 1-39; Balibar and Wallerstein 1991: 3). In

addition, this stance entails, as I will show further on, a greater openness to the

diversity of political strategies. Where Mouffe reduces democratic politics to a certain

version of the agonistic conflict, Balibar argues that emancipatory politics calls for a

mixture of political forms (Balibar 2015a: 106-107).

Why will democratic citizenship remain illusory without conflict? At the onset of the

French Revolution, Balibar argues, an ideal was called into life that forms the kernel

of democratic citizenship. This ideal he calls ‘the proposition of equaliberty’ (la

proposition de l’égaliberté). This rather awkward play on words allows him to question

the artificiality of an often-made distinction: the assumption that liberty as a liberal

value is opposed to equality as a socialist value. Freedom without equality, Balibar

contends, is an illusion and vice versa. Specifically, this means that “[…] the (de facto)

historical conditions of freedom are exactly the same as the (de facto) historical

conditions of equality” (Balibar 2014a: 48). Equaliberty dictates that every single

situation in which the freedom or equality of citizens are suppressed, is unacceptable.

More precisely, “there is no example of conditions that suppress or repress freedom

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that do not suppress or limit – that is, do not abolish – equality, and vice versa” (Ibid.:

49). However, the implications of this proposition are far-reaching. That is why Balibar

proposes a subtle but significant nuance: equaliberty is a negative universal. Each

attempt to give a concrete, institutional form to this ideal will fall short of it.

Consequently, modern citizens must recover this ideal again and again (Ibid.: 50).

In turn, this explains the importance of conflict. If not a single historical form of

democratic citizenship is able to live up to the ideal of equaliberty, this entails that

democratic citizenship is always built on forms of exclusion and domination. That is

why citizens have to recover this ideal from time to time – confronting the forms of

exclusion and domination on which their citizenship is built. However, those citizens

that have a strong interest in maintaining these forms of oppression, exclusion and

inequality, will do so. There is no such thing, Balibar argues, as a natural disposition

to keep up and preserve equaliberty: “[t]he dominant never give up their privileges or

their power voluntarily” (Ibid.: 5). Political conflict is therefore that which makes the

further extension of this ideal possible. Conflict enables us to open up democratic

citizenship to those that are excluded from it, to implement it beyond the nation state

and extend it to formerly ‘apolitical’ domains of society (Ibid.: 157). Since this task will

forever remain unfinished, conflict will always be necessary to drive forward the

democratization of citizenship.

8.3.2. The Politics of Civility

However, this conflictual democratic citizenship has a certain relation to danger.

Specifically: “In order to save themselves or remain alive as a community of citizens,

the city must run the risk of destruction or anarchy” (Balibar 2014a: 284). If we want

to fulfil the promise of democratic citizenship, we must jeopardize our peaceful co-

existence from time to time (Balibar 2005a: 127).

Nonetheless, this does not mean that we can reproach Balibar for being reckless. He

is acutely aware of the dangers that accompany political conflict. There is, as he notes,

a tragic aspect to his views on politics. We should hold up the promise of democratic

citizenship and this entails transforming the status quo and the forms of structural

violence that characterize it. Yet, at the same time the emancipatory struggle can

produce forms of violence of its own that threaten to undermine it (Balibar 2009b: 10).

This is an idea that Balibar develops in his critical study of the Marxist tradition.

One of the paradoxes of Marxism is that, on the one hand, it gives us a fresh perspective

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on the relation between economic structures and violence and, on the other hand, has

a distorted vision on the relation between emancipatory politics and violence (Balibar

2010a: 251). A dominant tendency in the Marxist tradition, Balibar argues, accepts the

illusion of a ‘counterviolence’. This is the idea that revolutionary violence can avoid

reproducing aspects of the structural violence it opposes. In this idea exists a tension:

one the one hand, the revolution is seen as a necessary means to create a new social

and political order that is freed from the violence that suffuses our current order. But

on the other hand, the only means to realize this aim, is the violent overthrow of the

powers, institutions and apparatuses that keep our violent order in place. In this sense,

the revolution is the ‘last violence’ that will eradicate all violence from this world. For

Balibar, this idea is illusory as it assumes that an emancipatory insurrection can

realize its aims by violently eliminating the oppressing class and its apparatuses of

violence, without itself succumbing to (and therefore reproducing) the violence that it

employs (Balibar 2015a: 6-7). For example: we find this idea in Marx’s statement that

“force [Gewalt] is the midwife of every old society which is pregnant with a new one”

(Marx 1976: 916). The intuition implicit in this statement is that the destruction,

violence and suffering that accompany revolutionary change, can be neatly

transformed into emancipation, progress and a society free from violence (Balibar

2015a: 6-9). To reiterate: politics, and certainly emancipatory politics, is tragic. On the

one hand, the status quo is never acceptable. But on the other hand, political change

risks producing forms of violence that have a cruel character. In such cases, politics is

made impossible because the shared political space collapses under the weight of

hostilities (Balibar 2009b: 62).

This last idea has to be specified because it brings Balibar closer to a problematic

central to Mouffe’s philosophy as it shows that he acknowledges that a conflict can

become so intense that politics – also insurgent politics – is made impossible. In doing

so he introduces the (corresponding) concepts ‘cruelty’ and ‘extreme violence’. Cruelty

is a specific type of violence that is both inextricable from politics (political action

always risks producing cruelty) and a limit to politics (once it is produced, it eliminates

the conditions of possibility of politics). To specify the latter: cruelty is a limit to politics

because it is inconvertible. This means that cruelty can never lead to progress or lead

to constructive change. This extreme violence is inconvertible, Balibar further

specifies, because it eliminates the “human in man” (Ibid.: 52). On the one hand, for

the victims of extreme violence “it is virtually impossible […] to imagine or present

themselves in person as political subjects capable of humanity by emancipating

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themselves” (Ibid.: 57). It is a form of violence that is so unbearable to its victims that

it affects their capacity for political action. Balibar gives the example of ultraobjective

cruelty: a kind of structural violence that reduces men to ‘disposable human beings’. If

people are forced to live on the streets or populations are deprived of vital medications

purely as a result of an economic logic, we speak of ultraobjective cruelty. For people

who are subjected to this kind of violence, Balibar writes, it is difficult, perhaps

impossible, to see themselves as political actors (Ibid.: 52, 56-57). On the other hand,

the use of cruelty also corrupts the character of its perpetrator. In the exercise of

extreme violence, it becomes difficult for actors to conceive of another aim than to

destroy ‘the other’(Ibid.: 95). Take the Nazi extermination camps: here, the exercise of

violence become so extreme, the exercise of cruelty so intense, that it can no longer be

seen as political.

What makes Balibar’s introduction of the concept of cruelty interesting is that it

introduces a conceptual distinction within the concept of violence. After all, not all

forms of violence deserve to be called ‘extreme’ (Balibar 2015a: 21). In this respect,

Balibar admits, his thought is indebted to Max Weber: it is not impossible that the

limited exercise of violence might prevent a far worse violence. Yet, this also entails

the need to develop a political ethic that is appropriate to this tragic (because violent)

nature of political action. Political actors must cultivate a political sensibility

appropriate to a world that often is violent, meaning that they have to learn when to

avoid violence, but also—if necessary—when to resort to violence (Balibar, 2009b: p.

28-29; also see Balibar 2014a: 284). In this respect, Balibar not only provides us with

a more complex theory of violence (as opposed to Mouffe’s more monolithic approach).

But he also has a provisional theory of how to prevent the deterioration of political

action (including forms of violent political action) into cruelty. This is a second

advantage over Mouffe’s approach: after all, as we noted above she has no theory of

how to transform violent forms of antagonism into forms of agonism. Apart, that is,

from reiterating that antagonistic conflict is less likely to occur as long as there is

agonistic conflict.

This political ethic goes under the name of strategies of civility. Every emancipatory

politics, Balibar argues, calls for these strategies that aim to reduce the violence bred

by political change. Its first important characteristic of civility, is that it is something

that political movements impose on themselves. It is not something that is enforced by

a state that sets limits to political conflict (Ingram 2015: 226-227). Moreover, civility

“does not necessarily involve the idea of a suppression of ‘conflicts’ and ‘antagonisms’

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in society” (Balibar 2004a: 116). It is up to political movements themselves to find ways

of changing society for the better without letting violence get out of hand.

This entails that civility operates on different levels. On the one hand, emancipatory

movements try to civilize state and economy. Because state and economy can sustain

forms of cruelty, emancipatory movements need to civilize them from the bottom up.

This means that these movements force state and market to perceive citizens as human

beings – not as ‘enemies of the state’ or ‘disposable humans’. On the other hand, these

movements – and certainly revolutionary ones – owe it to themselves to civilize their

revolution. After all, this is the only way in which they can keep their resistance alive

(Balibar 2015a: 131). It breaks the mimetic circle in which the resistance against

violence and exclusion takes on extremely violent forms that undo its effectivity

(Balibar 2015b: 67).

The history of these movements teaches us that not a single strategy is able to

balance these different tasks. Violent resistance is often not able to temper its excesses

and is thus bound to succumb to a state whose means of violence always exceed its

own. Meanwhile, non-violent strategies do not always succeed in bringing those in

power to their knees. This is why a mix of strategies – violent and non-violent,

strategies aimed at and withdrawn from the state – is always necessary (Balibar

2015a: 93-126). The example of the riot nicely exemplifies these ideas. The riot, Joshua

Clover argues, is often split into two movements. One the one hand, there is a side that

occupies itself with those activities that typify the riot: confrontation with the police,

looting, violence to public and private property, etc. On the other hand, there is also a

side that moves towards political protest. This side employs a discursive logic: it

articulates a wrong, makes demands, or attempts to convince fellow citizens. The

inclination, Clover notes, is to see the second movement as the ‘good’ (because non-

violent) one. However, only the combination of the two sides – that also stand for two

strategies – can together explain why riots sometimes work. The force and coercion

exercised by the first group, make it all the more necessary for the state to listen to the

second group’s demands (Chelgren and Clover 2018).

8.3.3. The Becoming-Insurrectional of the Riot

In the current section, I will give these foregoing propositions a more concrete form. To

do this we will have to return to the introduction to this article: the French riots and

Balibar’s reflections on them. Let us reiterate president Nicolas Sarkozy’s reaction:

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rioters are criminals and the proper political response is the strict enforcement of the

public order. Balibar, however, arrives at a different conclusion: riots stem from a

situation of exclusion and oppression and therefore they cannot be apolitical. More

precisely: although it is an open question whether the actions of rioters are political,

we cannot deny that the riot is a political event (Balibar 2014a: 234). He characterizes

the situations from which riots arise as states of ‘internal exclusion’. This is a type of

exclusion that is characterized by the fact that the excluded can neither be wholly

accepted by, nor wholly expelled from the community of citizens. The form assumed by

internal exclusion is hence that of a differentiated citizenship. A citizenship, that is, in

which access to (and the full exercise of) rights is not equally distributed and structural

forms of racism and economic domination reduce certain citizens to second-class

citizens (Ibid.: 201-202; 249-250).

Given these circumstances, the riot can be described as an “anti-institutional

violence that aims to ‘break down the gates’ of the space of citizenship” (Balibar 2015b:

66). This violence, however, can be counterproductive. First, because it takes place on

uneven terrain: rioters often can do little to resist the overwhelming power of the state.

Second: states often refer to the violence of riots to justify their own violence (Ibid.).

Lastly: it’s still an open question to what extent the violence of riots is political. As

Balibar writes: one of the first things he noticed about the French riots was its partly

self-destructive character. Wasn’t it their ‘own’ schools, ‘own’ community centres and

‘own’ cars that went up in flames (Balibar 2014a: 236)?

However, as opposed to Mouffe, Balibar refuses to give up on the riot. We must try

to understand, he writes, how politics can emerge from its opposite – anti-politics (Ibid.:

251). In different terms: How can we politicize the riot which is driven both by political

and anti-political tendencies? For a start: we cannot deny that there’s a certain

strength in riots and this strength is precisely the force of its negativity – the force of

refusal. Because the riot arises from forms of injustice and domination that cannot be

easily resolved within the existing political order, it confronts a society with its

shortcomings and blind spots. At the same time, its greatest strength is also at once a

weakness. The negativity of the riots can also prove to be its undoing (Ibid.: 256).

This is essentially, I would argue, a question of the proper strategies of civility. After

all, it requires us to consider how a movement that arises against forms of domination

can be kept from succumbing to its own violence and the violence of the state. What is

striking, then, is that Balibar’s recommendations always point in the direction of

strategies that, on the one hand, are developed from the bottom up and, on the other

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hand, do not aim to compromise the radicalism of the riot. Neither the state or nor the

political parties are responsible for curtailing the riot. What must be realized is a

becoming-political or becoming-insurrectional of the riot. This is the process in which

the political demands of rioters are echoed by and translated to other revolts (Ibid.:

255). An arresting example of this process is the emergence of the Black Lives Matter

movement. On August 9th, 2014 policeman Darren Wilson shot and killed the Afro-

American teenager Mike Brown in the city of Ferguson. This would prove to be the

final straw in one of the poorest neighbourhoods in the region. Peaceful protest quickly

gave way to riots. What makes the uprising interesting, however, is how other political

actors responded to the riots. What could easily have remained limited to a short

outburst of anger, was – through a diversity of strategies such as direction actions,

organizational work and occupations – transformed into a mass movement against

racism, mass incarceration, poverty and police violence. And all of this was done

without making concessions to the political order (Taylor 2016: 153-190).

8.4. Conclusion

Rather than summarize the argument, I want to conclude with a reflection on its

relevance to our overarching argument on insurgent citizenship. We argued that the

radical democratic theories of Mouffe and Balibar exhibit a tension between the desire

for a thriving democratic conflict and the necessity to circumscribe this conflict. This

tension is replicated in their respective concepts of citizenship. To start with Mouffe:

throughout her oeuvre, she holds on to a definition of citizenship that emphasizes

active political involvement (and not only legal status). In particular, she supports a

radical democratic form of citizenship: social agents act as citizens if they contest

relations of domination by referring to the principles of liberty and equality (Mouffe

2018: 47-48). However, she also recognizes that this is but one form of citizenship:

“there can be as many forms of citizenship,” she writes, “as there are interpretations

of [the principles of liberal democracy]” (Mouffe 1993: 84). Hence, in order to keep the

political community from disintegrating, we need an “idea of commonality, of an ethico-

political bond that creates a linkage among participants in the association” (Ibid.: 66).

In other words, the radical democratic citizen is caught between two citizen-roles: (a)

that of the radical democratic citizen confronting domination and (b) that of a fellow

citizen to others who are no radical democrats and might oppose their ideas and

actions.

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This involves constraints on the political principles that radical democratic citizens

can defend and the means that they can use to achieve their goals. For Mouffe, I

argued, the means-question is especially tenuous: in the later stages of its

development, Mouffe’s democratic theory presupposes the incompatibility of

democratic action and violence. This influences her preferred choice of political

strategy such as her recent defence of a left populism that aims to transform the state

from within through a non-violent engagement with the institutions of representative

democracy (Mouffe 2018). It also precludes violent and coercive forms of insurgent

democratic action. Violence can constitute a democratic space (in a revolution against

a non-democratic regime) and it can protect this space against anti-democrats. But

once the democratic space is constituted, democratic violence is strictly speaking an

anomaly. Different forms of radical democratic citizenship such as uncivil

disobedience, revolts and riots thus disappear from view.

Obviously, whether this is a problem depends on your beliefs concerning the

admissibility of citizen violence. You may belief that the use of violence is unworthy of

a citizen. However, I argue that it might be warranted in certain cases such as riots in

which second-class citizens contest their exclusion. Riots exist at the crossroads of two

contemporary but opposing movements. They arise in response to an ongoing de-

democratization of citizenship: the hollowing out of social citizenship, the racist

policing of second-class citizens in the banlieues, and the crisis of political

representation. But riots can also have the effect of democratizing citizenship as they

contest these tendencies and the relations of subordination they result in. Under this

interpretation, the rioter is an instance of Balibar’s figure of the active citizen who

“openly confront[s] the lack of democracy in existing institutions and transform[s] them

in a more or less radical manner” (Balibar 2015b: 124). Of course, the riot is but one

strategy for the democratization of citizenship. Yet Balibar gives us a glimpse of what

it would mean to increase – and not restrict of reduce – the radicalness of the riot.

Strategies of civility allow us to do this by increasing the longevity of these revolts.

Confronted with political subjects that jeopardize the peacefulness of the community

of citizens, we should ask whether their resistance has an emancipatory or democratic

kernel. Our task is to reinforce it.

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9. Shutdown! On the Right to Riot and the Question of Violence

9.1. Introduction

In the previous chapter, we argued that Mouffe is unable to make room for riots (among

other forms of violent political action) in her democratic theory. However, as I

acknowledged in the conclusion, this critique would lose its bite if we cannot

demonstrate the political value of riots. If riots are insignificant, then Mouffe’s inability

to accommodate them would hardly be worth mentioning. In the current chapter, I will

argue that there is a case to be made for certain types of riots.

I do this in five steps: first, I will establish a few definitions concerning the nature

and stages of the riot. In a second step, we will show that the riot is political, though

we also argue that this does not entail that it is always defensible. This last question

will be discussed in section three: there is, I argue, a thing like a right to riot but it

arises in specific circumstances. In the final sections four and five, I will examine the

nature of violence in riots. As becomes clear in the third section, political theorists

working on riots are concerned with the moral calculus of violence (‘When is it

justified?’). But this means that they fail to explain in what different ways riots are

violent. In these last sections, I show that the answers to this question are more varied

than is assumed.

9.2. What is a Riot? Some Preliminary Definitions

We cannot set out without there being some initial definitions in place. In the first

place, we must determine what a riot is. Right away, this question of definition raises

a host of problems. For one, Jonathan Havercroft notes, it is not very often than one

decides to organize a riot. People organize strikes, civil disobedience actions, or protest

marches. To say that a certain event is a riot, on the other hand, is often a judgement

after the fact. Nonetheless, we can derive at least one important characteristic from

this: the riot is spontaneous (Havercroft 2016: 7). Its spontaneity, however, should not

be mistaken for the complete absence of rules of conduct: there are, as Bal Sokhi-Bulley

points out, certain rituals to which rioters adhere (Sokhi-Bulley 22016: 333). Mass

disobedience is a second characteristic: the public transgression of laws and the

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defiance of state authority are engaged in by a sizeable crowd (Abu-Lughod 2007: 12;

D’Arcy 2014: 145). This is simply to point out that one cannot riot on one’s own.

The third, and final characteristic is that of violence: a riot involves violence, either

in the form of the destruction of public and private property, or in the form of

confrontations with the police (Havercroft 2016: 14). This last characteristic is

contentious. Those who are sympathetic to (certain) riots tend to downplay its

significance. Natasha Lennard, for instance, argues that “[o]nly when rendered in the

language of capital are the acts of smashing store and cop car windows sufficient to see

a protest deemed ‘violent’” (Lennard 2019: 39). In a similar manner, Joshua Clover

argues that the notion that the destruction of property is violent, involves a set of ideas

that are neither timeless nor natural (Clover 2016: 11). These reservations are, I

believe, completely justified.

However, I also follow Jonathan Havercroft when he argues that the inclusion of

violence in the definition can be defended on practical grounds. For one, it helps us

distinguish riots from deliberately non-violent forms of disobedience or resistance.

Second, the inclusion of violence should not be seen as an immediate indictment of the

riot. Indeed, violence can, as we will argue further on, be justified or called for in certain

circumstances. But in order to make these kinds of distinctions, one has to acknowledge

that the riot is violent (Havercroft 2016: 14). In this way we arrive at a preliminary

definition of the riot: it is a spontaneous, public defiance of state authority and its laws,

by a crowd of people who engage in violent actions (often the destruction of property or

confrontations with the police).

The next problem we must confront is that the people implicated in riots often tend

to resist the label. The problem, journalist Katy Steinmetz writes, is that it conjures

negative images and associations. Therefore, when we value an insurrectional episode,

we prefer to use words like ‘rebellion’, ‘revolt’, or ‘uprising’, which all suggest

organization and political purpose (Steinmetz 2019). This tends to happen to episodes

that, once the smoke clears up and the political stakes become clearer, are appreciated

as landmarks in the history of democratization. Nevertheless, I would insist on the use

of the concept of the riot: it allows us to discriminate between such episodes. There are

certain things that characterize a riot, such as the specific combination of spontaneity,

publicness and the destruction of property, which are not necessarily present in all

revolts or uprisings.

This is not to say that the boundaries between riots and uprisings are strict. In the

previous chapter, we suggested that riots can and sometimes do transform into

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organised insurrections or uprisings. The main components in this transformation are

time, space, and subjectivity. Of all political theorists, Alain Badiou has done the most

to develop categories to think about this question. For him, there are three stages:

there are immediate, latent and historical riots (Badiou 2012: 16-43). Immediate riots

have three characteristics: first, they are spearheaded by young men. In the initial

stages of a riot, after a spark has light its fire, it is young men that most often start to

riot (Ibid.: 22-23). Second, these young rioters restrict themselves to one

neighbourhood. It might be true that the immediate riot is imitated in other

impoverished neighbourhoods around the country. Yet, this is exactly Badiou’s point:

“an immediate riot spreads not by displacement, but by imitation” (Ibid.: 24). To be

clearer: if we say that the immediate riot is restricted in terms of space, we mean to

say that it is not extended to other areas that are either richer, or of ‘greater public

importance’. The different immediate riots remain locked within the neighbourhoods

where they arise. Third, it is negative in the sense that the immediate riot is not

animated by a positive political vision. The immediate riot, Badiou writes, “destroys

and plunders without a concept” (Ibid.: 21-25, cit. 21).

Often, the riot stops in this phase: most remain within this stage of immediacy.

However, at times the lifetime of the riot is extended. The crucial stage here is that of

the latent riot: “it is when an immediate riot extends to sectors of the population which,

by virtue of their status, social composition, sex or age, are remote from its constitutive

core that are genuine historical dimension is on the agenda” (Ibid.: 24). This changing

social composition of the riot is supplemented with a spatial displacement. The latent

riot, that is, is no longer limited to its birthplace (often the banlieue or the ghetto): its

participants engage in the occupation of other places (such as airports, or other

strategic locations) (Ibid.: 30-31). Its main importance for Badiou, however, is that it is

a precursor to the historical riot. Here, the process initiated in the immediate riot is

extended in space and time: “a riot becomes historical when its localization ceases to

be limited, but grounds in the occupied space the promise of a new, long-term

temporality; when its compositions stops being uniform […]; when, finally, the negative

growling of pure rebellion is succeeded by the assertion of a shared demand” (Ibid.: 35).

The strength of Badiou’s argument is that it pays attention to the diverse

temporalities of the riot and is able to highlight how spatial extension allows the riot

to endure. However, there is also a downside to this strict delimitation of ‘stages’ and

its insistence that the earlier stages are “more nihilistic than political” (Ibid.: 33). For

Badiou, in the end – in this he remains true to his central philosophical writings – the

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riot only becomes political as it becomes historical and starts to accord with and

organized around the Idea (Ibid.: 88). This Idea – the Idea of Communism or the Idea

of Equality – “refers to a kind of historical projection of what the historical becoming

of a politics is going to be” (Ibid.: 63-64). However, by interpreting the riot solely in

terms of this Idea, the earlier moments of the riot, the immediate riots, are depreciated.

This is problematic for at least three reasons: first off, some of the most important riots

of the last thirty years – the LA riots, London, Paris, Fergusson and Baltimore – have

despite their importance, never truly reached the state of the historical riot

(Ciccariello-Maher 2018: 75). Second, it is not always the case that the endurance of

the riot accords with its organization around an Idea and the long-time occupation of

a public space. The “broken parade of riots that have rocked Thessaloniki and Athens”,

for example, could not be described as a historical riot yet they kept “unfolding,

unevenly but continuously as months turn into years” (Berns and Clover 2012). Third:

as I will argue later (in sections 2, 4 and 5), riots are almost immediately political.

Immediate riots and latent riots are political, just not in the way that historical riots,

uprisings or revolutions are. Since historical riots and uprisings often start as

immediate riots, and since most of the historically important riots never reach these

later ‘stages’, it is important to examine the kind of politics they involve.

9.3. On the Political Nature of Riots

The first challenge for a political theory of riots, as the previous chapter already

showed, is to prove that riots are political in the first place. To repeat: Mouffe argues

that the recent waves of riots are not political but should be seen as episodes of

senseless violence (Mouffe 2013: 121-122). In this she is not alone: Slavoj Žižek equally

describes the 2005 French riots as “an outburst with no pretence to vision” (Žižek 2008:

74; also see Treadwell, et. al. 2013). The riots, he writes, are a passage a l’acte – “an

impulsive movement into action which can’t be translated into speech or thought and

carries with it an intolerable weight of frustration” (Ibid.: 76; also Treadwell et al.

2013). Nevertheless, these analyses are still sympathetic. Both acknowledge that the

meaninglessness of riots is a symptom of a more fundamental problem. For both Mouffe

and Žižek, senseless violence is a result of the lack or absence of discourses and

organizations able to represent or translate unarticulated grievances.

Those in positions of power, in contrast, rarely adhere to such a principle of

charitable interpretation. For instance: Nicolas Sarkozy, interior minister during the

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2005 French riots, called for a police crackdown on riots, calling the rioters ‘rabble’ and

‘scum’ [racaille] (Henley 2005). This is a perfect example of what Mustafa Dikeç calls

“the pathological framework” (Dikeç 2017: 6). It reduces the riots to a sign of human

pathology instead of locating it in socio-political circumstances. This pathological

framework has a long pedigree: it goes back to those nineteenth-century observers for

whom the “rioting crowds were […] the collective signs of irrationality, marginality,

uncontrolled and violent emotions and lack of moral sense” (Ibid.). This framework,

Dikeç adds, is far from dead: rioters are stilled called ‘scum’, ‘feral’ or ‘criminals’ (Ibid.:

7). The pathological framework derives the riot from the corrupted nature of rioters.

To return to Sarkozy’s remarks: the French word ‘racaille’ is stronger than the English

‘scum’, it comes close to calling a group subhuman (Pulham 2005). In short: to call

rioters ‘racaille’ is to reduce their actions to their inability to act as full humans. Yet,

the problem of this pathological framework, Dikeç argues, is that it cannot explain the

‘why’ and ‘when’ of riots. Riots, that is, happen in specific periods and in specific places.

Therefore, we should shift to a political framework: riots, revolts and urban uprisings

are “political in that they expose patterns, dynamics and structures of exclusion and

oppression that have become routinized a normalized” (Dikeç 2017: 7). This is not the

same as justifying every single riot, or approving of every single act committed in a

riot. It simply attests to a commitment to examine riots as responses, however

imperfect, to social and political conditions.

Neither does this shift entail that the political import of riots is instantly clear.

Dikeç is the first to acknowledge this: riots do not lend themselves to approaches that

study “the ways in which collective actors articulate claims around the notion of

justice” (Dikeç 2004: 192). Tommie Shelby argues along similar lines: ghetto riots are

a form of “impure dissent” which means that they are “politically ambiguous and

morally dissonant” (Shelby 2016: 253). This being said, the apolitical tendencies and

political ambiguity of riots are often overstated. Even more so, Dikeç argues: in

response to riots – which present a challenge to the public and social order – a state-

led effort to articulate these revolts arises. This discursive articulation of riots, rioters,

and the banlieues or ghettos in which they take place, affects the way in which the

claims of rioters are heard. It transforms “voices into noises” (Dikeç 2004: 192).

Here, Dikeç draws on Jacques Rancière’s concept of the ‘distribution of the sensible’

(see section 4). In Rancière’s own definition: the distribution of the sensible “refers to

the manner in which a relation between a shared common (un commun partagé) and

the distribution of exclusive parts is determined in sensory experiences,” adding that

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this distribution determines “what is visible and what not, […] what can be heard and

what cannot” (Rancière 2010: 36). Dikeç adapts this concept for his research into riots

(Dikeç 2007: 16-24). In particular, he tracks how the French state, responding to a long

history of riots and uprisings in the French banlieues, created a new image of the

banlieue through statistics and social-scientific concepts. This reconfiguration of the

banlieue, he argues, represented it as a place of danger, and its inhabitants as in

constant need of surveillance, repression, and intervention (Dikeç 2004: 197-200).

Forms of resistance against the living conditions in these banlieues or structural police

violence, on the other hand, were represented as social disturbances, as failures on part

of the banlieusards to accept the role and place allotted to them (Ibid.: 205).

Something similar is observed by Sina Kramer in her examination of the 1992 LA

Riots. The question Kramer tries to answer is how an uprising that was for many of

the participants clearly political, somehow failed to register as such for (white)

conservative and liberal reporters and politicians. That is, the question is “how [the

riots’] unintelligibility is produced” (Kramer 2017: 155-156, cit. 156). In retrospect,

riots occasionally appear as intelligible political claims or as a contestation of unjust

conditions. Typically, Kramer writes, these riots – such as the 1765 Stamp Act Riots

in the US or the Parisian Réveillon riots – become intelligible in light of the large-scale

revolutions that ensue. However, the LA Riots were made unintelligible “through the

lens of race” (Ibid.: 156-157). First, a rhetorical convergence between these riots and

blackness occurred: the LA riots, which were multiracial in composition, where mainly

represented (and therefore seen) as black riots (Ibid.: 161). Anti-black racism, in turn,

distorted the perception of these riots and the circumstances in which they arose. The

riots, as is well-known, were sparked by the acquittal of the four police officers who

brutalized Rodney King. What’s striking about this acquittal, Krames argues, is that

the actions of these police officers were caught on tape. In other words: police violence

against an African American citizen was not recognized as such in court. This

perceptual scheme also informed the reception of the riots: as the injustice against

which the rioters agitated was not understood as such, their acts were equally

perceived as illegible (Ibid.: 165-166; also Rakia 2013).

In those cases where studies were carried out after the fact (i.e. after large-scale

riots had taken place) it was often found that the motivations of rioters – though

complex – were political. As Avia Pasternak notes, the 1968 Kerner Report, carried out

in the wake of the 60’s US urban riots, concluded that the riots responded to racial

segregation, discriminatory treatment by the police, and widespread social and

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economic deprivation. Similar conclusion followed from investigations into the 2005

French riots and the 2011 London riots (Pasternak 2018: 391-392). The Reading the

Riots-report, performed by The Guardian journalists and LSE researchers after the

London riots, concluded on the basis of 270 interviews that “at heart what the rioters

talked about was a pervasive sense of injustice” (Lewis et al. 2011: 24).

That riots are political, however, does not entail that their political content is always

emancipatory. When political theorists approach the topic of political and principled

disobedience (see infra), they’re often attracted to those cases in which the political

content of these actions is emancipatory (e.g. the disobedience of the civil rights

movement). However, not all forms of principled disobedience take this progressive

form. Lynch mobs and frontier justice are, as Jennet Kirkpatrick has shown, equally

principled and political. Here, people break the law and do so for political reasons but

these reasons are reactionary. The aim, that is, is to keep certain structures of

domination, exclusion or oppression intact (Kirkpatrick 2008: 1-90). Something similar

could be argued for riots: the riots that I will tackle in this chapter have a content that

is emancipatory but not all riots have this characteristic. If we write about riots,

Alberto Toscano argues, we should take into account that some riots are reactionary.

He gives the example of US white race riots: forms of spontaneous mob violence that

aimed to reinforce white supremacism (which includes lynch mobs, or riots against

desegregation or to keep non-white residents out of ‘white’ neighbourhoods) (Toscano

2016: n. 12).

Here, we must return to some distinctions made in the previous chapter where we

introduced Stephen D’Arcy’s threefold classification of riots: authoritarian riots that

reinforce relations of domination (e.g. Kristallnacht or the 1919 Chicago race riots);

recreative riots that have no political content (e.g. hooliganism); and grievance riots

that contest oppression (e.g. the 1960’s US urban riots) (D’Arcy 2014: 131-132). To be

fair, these are ideal-typical classifications: few riots neatly coincide with one of these

categories. For instance: the LA riots could be classified as grievance riots but there

were also elements of pointless destruction (i.e. recreative rioting) and elements of

interracial violence such as the targeting of Korean American stores (i.e. authoritarian

rioting). In turn, some instances of apparently senseless violence (i.e. recreative

rioting) might have an obscured political content (i.e. grievance rioting) (Kaulingfreks

2015: 117-146). This classification allows us to see that there is more to rioting than

pointless destruction (that is, not all riots are instances of recreative rioting). Yet, it

also shows that pointing out the political nature of the riot only gets us so far: that

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riots are political does not in itself make them commendable. Hence, it is not enough

to argue that riots are political, we must also show at which point they are justifiable.

9.4. On the Right to Riot

In this section, I argue that there is a right to riot under certain circumstances. I

will do so through an examination of the concept of uncivil disobedience. This was

created at the intersection of two related concerns. First, a growing frustration with

the limits to the liberal view of civil disobedience which is seen as unnecessarily

restrictive and lacking in descriptive accuracy (e.g. Douzinas, 2013; Laudani, 2013:

112-120; Celikates 2014; Celikates, 2016). This idea of principled disobedience,

Candice Delmas argues, is overdetermined by one-sided readings of the history of the

civil rights movement (Delmas 2018: 24-26). It was given form in John Rawls’s take on

civil disobedience as a “public, nonviolent, conscientious yet political act contrary to

law usually done with the aim of bringing about a change in the law or policies of the

government” (Rawls 1999 [1971]: 320).

The problem with this narrative and definition, Delmas writes, is that it distorts the

complex history of the civil rights struggle. For instance: the civil rights struggle did

not only involve M.L. King and his followers, but also the Black Panther Party, Marxist

liberation movements, Black feminism, the Nation of Islam and various others. These

groups were far more radical both in political vision and the means they were willing

to use. King’s tactic of non-violent resistance (and it was a tactic, not a moral precept)

only gained traction in contrast to these groups’ willingness to resort to violent action

(Delmas 2018: 30). In other words: through the dominance of the liberal civil

disobedience paradigm, other principled and political forms of disobedience were left

unacknowledged.

This brings us to the second concern: there are some acts of disobedience that we

value or at least understand as political in character, that do not appear particularly

civil. Examples of the latter are: suffragists’ window-smashing; militant and violent

forms of abolitionism; the Sea Shepherd’s anti-whaling operations; famine-struck

campesinos raiding agribusiness; DDoS attacks; and, of course, riots (Mancilla 2012;

Adams 2018; Delmas 2018; Pasternak 2018). All of these actions lack the (appearance

of) civility that is characteristic of non-violent civil disobedience. Yet, an increasing

number of political theorists are unwilling to drop these activities from consideration.

In this situation, two paths could be taken: either we could stretch the category of civil

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disobedience, or we could introduce another concept. Hourya Bentouhami-Molino, for

example, chooses the first road: she argues that a subaltern type of civility can and

should be opposed to bourgeois civility. This means that wildcat strikes and forms of

civil disobedience that upset the norms of bourgeois civility would also be considered

as civil disobedience (Bentouhami-Molino 2015: 131-141). Or, one could, as Robin

Celikates does, argue that the strict ban on non-violence be lifted. Certain forms of

violence such as the destruction of property or forms of coercion are compatible with

the concept of civil disobedience (Celikates 2013).

The problem with this project of redefinition, Delmas argues, is that the concept

‘civil disobedience’ can only be stretched up to a certain point.48 She makes this critique

on the ground of phenomenological accuracy: a theory of disobedience should take into

account the point of view of those who disobey. The problem with these extended, more

permissive theories of civil disobedience is that they fail to grasp the intentions of those

that stray from the usual civil disobedience script. If disobedients use violence, commit

sabotage, or create disorder, they often do so deliberately and at times consciously

contrast their actions to more civil forms of disobedience. Incivility, Delmas argues, is

the point: “agents may see themselves, and seek to be perceived, as radical and

provocative rather than civil” (Delmas 2018: 38; also Hooker 2016: 465). Thus, instead

of trying to include these different forms of disobedience under the umbrella of civil

disobedience, we must introduce a different concept: that of uncivil disobedience. This

concept can help us make sense of those actions that are disobedient and principled,

but violent (e.g. window-smashing or rioting); covert (e.g. providing sanctuary for

illegal immigrants); non-public (e.g. anonymous hacking); or purposely offensive (e.g.

guerrilla performances) (Mancilla, 2012: 9; Delmas, 2016: 685; Adams: 2018; Delmas

2018: 17).

To pick up the thread of our argument: I argue that grievance riots could be seen as

forms of principled, uncivil disobedience. In the previous section, we demonstrated that

some riots are of a political nature. Hence, although the participants might not always

or immediately have a clear image of their political intentions, we can nonetheless say

that grievance rioting is a type of principled disobedience (as opposed to unprincipled

crime). However, because of their violent nature, riots cannot be understood as

instances of civil disobedience. The latter, Avia Pasternak argues, in general expresses

48 William E. Scheuerman defends a version of this critique but does so from a different perspective. For

him, the problem with these radical democratic theories of civil disobedience is that they stretch the

concept too much. For him civil disobedience is intrinsically related to the ideal of the rule of law: citizens,

that is, disobey to uphold the rule of law (Scheurman 2018: 140-154).

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respect for the authority of the state. For instance: civil disobedients freely submit to

their arrest. Rioters, on the other hand, “conceal their faces, verbally abuse the police,

flee and clash with them” (Pasternak 2018: 394). Of course, this makes them harder to

justify. This become apparent in the objections against riots: riots are said to cause

unnecessary harm; it is objected that they are unproductive or counterproductive; and

lastly, the violence of riots, it is argued, is often misdirected (Ibid.: 387).

In the rest of this section I will argue that these objection can be answered. To do so

I will proceed in two steps: first, I will illuminate the conditions that give rise to riots

and other types of uncivil disobedience. Second, I will show why a form of disobedience

that is as uncivil and intense as rioting might be justified despite the existence of other

political options. To start with the first: I will keep to the ‘Balibarian’ approach outlined

in chapter three. Thus, I maintain that political disobedience starts from those

conditions in which égaliberté is denied. The phenomena of domination, oppression,

exploitation, and marginalization are clear instances of such a denial. To start with

domination: to be dominated, John Medearis specifies, is to find oneself in a situation

in which your capacity to act is overshadowed by an agent, group or social force

(Medearis, 2015: 102-106). Oppression refers to a modality of personal domination. It

takes place when individuals or groups exercise their power in a way that is excessive

or cruel. When police harass or injure citizens, for example, we can say that this is a

form of oppression (Ibid.: 106). Exploitation takes place when a dominant party draws

on a subordinated person or group’s material, economic or moral resources to his, her,

or their own benefit. Finally, I want to add marginalization to this (undoubtedly

incomplete) list. This is the phenomenon, Iris Marion Young argues, in which a “whole

category of people is expelled from useful participation in social life and thus

potentially subjected to severe material deprivation and even extermination” (Young

1990: 53). Structural forms of un- and underemployment that create a more or less

permanent underclass, could be seen as instances of marginalization.

All of these phenomena can be seen as denials of égaliberté and for this reason they

can give rise to justifiable forms of political disobedience. Most large-scale riots that

shook liberal democracies in the last fifty years, responded to a combination of (racist

and political) domination, (capitalist) exploitation, (police) oppression, and

marginalization (in the form of structural unemployment). If rioters sometimes do not

organize around a single claim, this can be partly attributed to the fact that they are

not confronted with one specific instance of oppression but to a complex of structural

domination, exploitation, oppression and marginalization.

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Take, for instance, the unsurpassed analysis of crisis, racism, and policing provided

by Stuart Hall and his team in their Policing the Crisis. This monograph starts as a

study of the ‘mugging epidemic’ in the 70’s UK, but gradually, layer-by-layer charts the

historical movement from a welfare state capitalism in crisis to a law-and-order

neoliberalism. As consensus-oriented welfare capitalism was dismantled, social

conflict surged. The state, as Hall and his team note, responded to this crisis of

hegemony through an increase in naked coercion – thus, policing the crisis. However,

the central aspect of this transformation is that of racism. The heart of this book is the

analysis of the “synchronisation of the race and the class aspects of the crisis”: the way

in which “[p]olicing the blacks threatened to mesh with the problem of policing the poor

and policing the unemployed” (Hall et al., 2013 [1978]: 325-326).

The key to understanding this synchronization is the concept of ‘secondariness’.

Racism is, as we saw in chapters 6 and 7, a structural feature of society that serves to

reproduce the working class “in a racially stratified and internally antagonistic form”

(Idem: 340). One of the realms in which racial ascription plays an incredibly important

role is that of the economy. Hierarchies in the labour force are therefore structured

along racial lines. To give an example, in the UK that is the focus of Policing the Crisis,

black people (and certainly young men) were disproportionally represented in the

group of unskilled and semi-skilled workers, in the economic sectors with the highest

rate of exploitation and in the group of the un- and underemployed (Idem: 333-341).

Precisely because of their ‘secondariness’, these young black men were most at risk

of becoming un- or underemployed in periods of crisis. Thus, with the onset of economic

crisis and the dismantling of full employment welfare capitalism, Hall and his team

write, wagelessness became a “pertinent and growing condition for a greater and

greater proportion of black labour” (Idem: 371). In turn, the existence of this racialized

surplus population intensified what were already fraught relations between the black

community and the police. “Since the early 1970’s,” Hall’s team writes, “the police have

been, effectively, responsible for controlling and containing this widespread

disaffection amongst the black population” (Idem: 325). In other words: the existence

of high percentages of structural un- and underemployment creates the need for a

management of the discontent that inevitably accompanies it. “To persist,” Ruth

Wilson Gilmore and Craig Gilmore write, “systematic abandonment depends on the

agile durability of organized violence” (Gilmore and Gilmore, 2016: 188).

This is the kind of pattern – an increase in (racialized) un- and underemployment

‘managed’ through increased police surveillance – that is often present in those

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conditions that give rise to riots. Under such conditions, Tommie Shelby argues, it is

doubtful whether second-class citizens have the same political obligations (e.g.

obedience to the law) as their more privileged fellow citizens (Shelby 2007: 127).

Though we can expect of these second-class citizens that they still fulfill their natural

duties towards fellow human beings (e.g. the duty not to be cruel), their civic

obligations (i.e. the obligations one has as a citizen) become less pertinent (Ibid. 144-

146; also Pasternak 2018: 390-391). Under these conditions, urban riots, “where

looting, mass destruction of property, and brutal violence are on public display,” might

be justified (Ibid.: 156). In other words: under sustained conditions of domination,

oppression, exploitation and marginalization, we can no longer expect of second-class

citizens that they rigorously observe their civic obligations. Should someone then argue

that riots put the bonds of civic friendship under stress, Candice Delmas argues, we

can respond that “the majority may be bound by civic friendship, but for oppressed

minorities, it is an illusion” (Delmas 2018: 64).

Still, this doesn’t fully answer people’s misgivings about riots. Some would argue

that there are other, more appropriate forms of political action. Even if these socio-

political conditions are indeed intolerable, one could also contest or resist them by

organizing a protest, addressing political representatives, or practicing non-violent

civil disobedience. There are different ways to respond to these kinds of critiques. First,

there are cases in which extreme need (e.g. the imminence of starvation) justifies some

acts committed in riots. The looting of those goods needed for survival might, for

instance, be seen as the immediate exercise of a right of necessity (Mancilla 2012).

Needs might be so great and pressing, that other actions to address this deprivation

(such as pressuring an unresponsive government) will come too late. Still, this

argument holds only in a specific set of circumstances and few of these are pertinent

to the riots in western liberal democracies.

Therefore, a second, more common response is that people riot precisely because all

other political avenues are closed off. Thus, Tommie Shelby argues, “[w]hen legitimate

avenues for political action fail to produce results or are closed off, such public unrest

can seem to be the only power the ghetto poor can wield collectively that has a chance

of garnering concessions from the state” (Shelby 2007: 156; also Hooker 2016;

Pasternak 2018: 402-403). This is a situation that Will Smith calls “deliberative

inertia”: a situation in which subaltern discourses and claims are not taken up (Smith

2011: 153-156). Often this kind of situation, Guy Aitchison adds, is not merely

contingent, a case of mere oversight but structural. This is the case when “elites enjoy

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control over the production and transmission of information in society through direct

and indirect control of society’s major media, educational and cultural institutions”

(Aitchison 2018: 670). Under such conditions, it might be impossible to go through the

legitimate political avenues.

Similar arguments could be made against claims that there are more defensible,

civil forms of disobedience than rioting. To this we could respond that not only

governmental channels are structured by unequal relations of power but that the same

goes for civil society. This entails that the possibility to disobey civilly and have your

claims taken seriously can likewise be the result of privilege (Celikates 2014: 218).

Juliet Hooker defends a variation on this argument in the context the ‘uncivil’ Black

Lives Matter protests: the idea that these violent protesters should adopt the non-

violent tactics of the civil rights movement relies on a “mistaken understanding of the

moral psychology of ‘the white citizen’” (Hooker 2016: 456). It is often assumed that the

tactical superiority of non-violent civil disobedience over violent and uncivil forms can

be explained through its ability to shame the oppressor. Non-violent and civil

resistance to oppression is supposed to bring about an ethical transformation in the

oppressors once they are touched by the dignity of the oppressed.

The problem with this psychological hypothesis, Hooker argues, is that the white

supremacist domination that African Americans resist, also colours their perception of

these resisters and their resistance. She gives the example of African American

resistance against US school segregation: the struggles against this particular form of

domination, though civil and non-violent, were interpreted as “motivated by self-

interest rather than as a sacrifice on behalf of the common good” (Ibid.: 459). The

consequence is that, rather than shaming the defenders of the racist status quo, it

further entrenched racial resentment (Ibid.: 460). This is not to say that civil and non-

violent forms of disobedience are useless, or that all white citizens were impervious to

these kinds of resistance. Rather, it shows that people that are strongly invested in

and indeed formed by a type of domination – in this case, white supremacist

domination – cannot be shamed through civil forms of disobedience or be persuaded by

the moral force of non-violent resistance.

The persistent critic could still argue that rioters should at the very least exhaust

all other political options. Here, we might offer a variation on our first argument: at

times, certain political issues are too pressing to wait. If it is clear, then, that certain

issues have time and again been blocked from the political agenda, or if regardless of

promises to the contrary appropriate actions have not been taken by the government,

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second-class citizens cannot be expected to keep ‘exhausting the other options’.

Generally, Mario Feit notes, it is assumed that patience is a democratic virtue: proper

democratic deliberation takes time. However, if second-class citizens are told to

exercise patience in the context of a long-lasting situation of domination, we can say

that this patience is imposed and therefore becomes itself a kind of domination.

Referring to Martin Luther King’s critique of democratic gradualism and piecemeal

reform, Feit writes that to “make African Americans wait was part and parcel of racial

oppression – of racial time,” adding that consequently a “patient pursuit of democracy

would […] be tantamount to giving into imposed patience – to delaying democracy and

justice indefinitely” (Feit 2016: 365-370, cit. 370).

In contrast, King recognized that democratic impatience, the refusal to submit to

the ‘natural’ time of the democratic process, could become a force of democratization

because it “accelerates political transformation” (Ibid.: 371). To return to the riot: there

may be good reasons to prefer other political actions on a strategic level, yet in the face

of the persistence of domination it cannot be expected that second-class citizens

repeatedly engage in fruitless attempts to alleviate their suffering through more civil

forms of political action.

The former arguments still operate through a process of exclusion: they maintain

that other political avenues are closed off or impose an unjust temporal regime. This

does not, however, tell us enough about the riot as an alternative form of political

action. Should one admit that the riot is a justifiable form of resistance in some

circumstances, the questions concerning the use of violence remain. Even if the other

political roads are blocked, it might be the case that riots are counterproductive

because they are violent. This is a common view which we might call the ‘backlash

theory’. It exists, as Jonathan Havercroft notes, in political theory: Hannah Arendt, for

example, once contended that riots “have never led to anything” (cited in Havercroft

2016: 19). It is even more widespread in public discourse: after the 2015 Baltimore

riots, for instance, US President Barack Obama condemned the violent protests, calling

them “counterproductive” (cited in Memoli and Parsons 2015).

Though I believe that it is unproductive to assess riots solely on the basis of their

immediate consequences, the historical and social-scientific evidence is varied enough

to put this backlash theory into doubt or at the least into perspective. For instance,

there is historical evidence that the late-sixties African American riots have led to more

attention to and a greater understanding of the predicament of African Americans

(Taylor 2016: 46). Similarly, there is social-theoretical evidence suggesting that these

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riots were an important factor in the expansion of welfare (Piven and Cloward 1993:

222-247, 461-462). Finally, it is not uncommon for large-scale riots to be followed up by

an official enquiry. Even more so: these reports, Avia Pasternak insists, are not always

impervious to the rioters’ claims, complaints and demands (Pasternak 2018: 399-400).

To conclude this section, I want to point out a gap in the normative literature that I

have built on in order to uncover the political and justifiable aspects of certain riots.

This gap, I argue, consists in its curious inattention to the form that violence takes in

riots. This is, as Yves Winter argues, not uncommon. The general tendency in political

theory is to depoliticize violence through (among others) its moralization. With the

latter, he denotes approaches (such as just war theory) that “approach violence

exclusively as a problem of justification” (Winter 2018: 5). Though there are certain

times that the above-mentioned normative theorists reflect on the different forms that

violence takes (e.g. Pasternak 2018: 391, 393, 396; Delmas 2018: 67), their principle

goal remains to elucidate the moral calculus of political violence.

In this, the specific forms that violence takes in riots remains unexplored. Often

these normative theories tend to ascribe a vaguely defined communicative function to

the violence in riots. The idea is that rioters want “to generate public attention or to

communicate their anger and defiance” (Pasternak 2018: 406). Success is then defined

in terms of the success of this communication. If the message gets through to the

government and if it then responds to the complaints and demands or rioters, we could

say that rioting is justified. This then leads to a moral calculus: if riots are judged on

their ability to communicate grievances and provoke a government response, the

violence committed should be conducive to this beneficial goal, while its harm should

not exceed its benefits. Thus, to give an example, rioters should restrain from inflicting

bodily harm on police, because it is unlikely that this kind of violence will lead to the

uptake of rioters’ demands (Ibid.: 406-418).

While I am not unsympathetic to the idea that violence in riots communicates

something, I assert that these theories fail to convey how exactly it does so. Moreover,

I also believe that riotous violence cannot be reduced to this specific function. In the

next sections, I hope to show that the concept of violence is more multifaceted and is

certainly so in the case of riots.

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9.5. Rioting as Disruption

One way to make sense of riotous violence is through Jacques Rancière’s concept of

politics as disruption (Dikeç 2004; Isin 2012: 130-135; Kaulingfreks 2017; Gündogdu

2017). Though it is not our goal to provide an extensive account of Rancière’s

philosophy, his concepts can help make sense of riots. Therefore, we will set out some

of these central concepts: the ‘distribution of the sensible’, the ‘logic of the police’, the

‘part of no part’ and ‘dissensus’. Rancière’s principal contention is that those activities

that are generally called politics – such as the act of leading and exercising power over

a people, representing certain interest groups and communities, and negotiating with

the representatives of other such groups – are in fact its opposite. The condition of

possibility for these activities, this argument goes, is the distinction between the

different parties that count in a polity and the unequal distribution of roles among

these parties, and this condition constitutes a betrayal of the egalitarian essence of

politics. For Rancière there is no such thing as politics without “a break with the axiom

of domination, that is, any sort of correlation between a capacity for ruling and a

capacity for being ruled” (Rancière 2010: 32).

The above needs further explaining. Throughout history, Rancière argues, politics

has been represented as “the set of procedures whereby the aggregation and consent of

collectivities is achieved, the organization of powers, the distribution of places and

roles, and the system for legitimizing this distribution” (Rancière 1999: 28). Rancière

calls this prevalent idea of politics ‘(the logic of) the police’: not the government body

that enforces the law (the “petty police”), but “a more general order that arranges that

tangible reality in which bodies are distributed in community” (Ibid.). The central

element of this logic is ‘the distribution of the sensible’: a symbolic ordering of our social

world that distinguishes “groups tied to specific modes of doing, to places in which

these occupations are exercised, and to modes of being correspond to these occupations

and these places” (Rancière 2010: 36). It is this distribution of the sensible that

determines that the household belongs to the private sphere and that parliament

belongs to the public sphere. This distribution of the sensible, as the original French

term (le partage du sensible) shows (partage could refer both to ‘sharing’ and ‘division’),

both constitutes a common world and distinguishes exclusive parts within it (Ibid.).

In doing so, however, the distribution of the sensible also performs another

operation: it constitutes “an order of the visible and the sayable that sees that a

particular activity is visible and another is not, that this speech is understood as

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discourse and another as noise” (Rancière 1999: 29). In distinguishing these different

places, roles and their associated ways of acting, it attempts to make other possible

perceptions or representations of the social world inconceivable. If, for instance, public

spaces are represented as spaces of circulation, then they cannot become visible as

spaces for political action. Or, if the workplace is seen as belonging to the private

sphere, the worker cannot appear as someone who can say anything of political value

(Ibid.: 30).

This distribution of the sensible is ordered in and as a hierarchy. This is what

Rancière calls logic of arkhê: the presupposition that some are uniquely suited to rule

over others who are, in turn, unable to govern themselves. This logic, Rancière insists,

cannot persist without the idea that people are born with inherent capacities to either

rule of be ruled (Rancière 2010: 30-32). There is thus no arkhê without certain

distinctions between and a distribution of social roles. The most important distinction,

however, is that between those with the qualifications – wealth, descent, or education

– to rule and “the mass of men without qualities […] who have ‘no part in anything’”

(Rancière 1999: 9). Michael Feola clarifies that for Rancière, what distinguishes this

part of no part, those who are of no account, is their marginal place within “a

compromised economy of speech”: what counts is not primarily economic or social

exclusion but exclusion from the community of speaking subjects (Feola 2014: 503-505,

cit. 503). It is on this ground that one’s position within a relation of arkhê is

determined: some are capable of issuing commands and others only of following them;

there are those capable of discussing political matters and those who can only express

(dis)pleasure.

For Rancière, politics happens when the logics of the police and arkhê are disrupted.

This disruption does not take the form of a confrontation between interest-groups or

communities. It does not come into being, for instance, as a conflict between classes or

as the conflict between ethnic communities. Rather, he writes, politics “before all else,

is an intervention in the visible and the sayable” (Rancière 2010: 37-38, cit. 37). In

other words: politics disrupts the distribution of the sensible. To reiterate: the

distribution of the sensible distinguishes different places, roles and ways of acting. In

addition, it purports to do this without surplus, without excluding. Everything has its

place in society, all have their social position, everything that we could want to say or

do, can be said or done (Ibid.: 36). Politics subverts this illusion.

However, this politics cannot be enacted by anyone and in any way. “Politics exists,”

Rancière writes, “because those who have no right to be counted as speaking beings

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make themselves of some account” (Rancière 1999: 27). Politics comes into being when

those who do not count due to their supposed lack of speech and qualifications, make

themselves heard. This should not be mistaken for a normal act of political

communication. In a normal communicative episode both the interlocutors and the

object of communication are already established. The situation looks different for those

with no part: “X cannot see the common object Y is presenting because X cannot

comprehend that the sounds uttered by Y form words and chains of words similar to

X’s own” (Rancière 1999: xii). Their place and location in the distribution of the sensible

inevitably determines both how and if their acts of communication are taken up. This

idea, “that there might be a mutually implicating relation between one’s occupation (in

the broad sense of occupying a certain time and space and undertaking certain

activities) and one’s communicative competence,” Matheson Russel and Andrew

Montin argue, “is passed over in Habermas’s analysis of the speech situation” (Russell

and Montin 2015: 547).

Hence: those of no account must somehow demonstrate that they are capable of

(political) speech and thus equals in a world that they share with their interlocutors.

They can do so through an act of dissensus “which makes visible that which had no

reason to be seen” (Rancière 2010: 38). The act of dissensus, Rancière writes, “places

one world in another” (Ibid.). It tries to make visible what cannot be seen in the existing

world and its attendant distribution of the sensible. For instance: it places a world in

which the worker is capable of political speech and the workplace a public space, in a

world that represents the worker as a mute producing body and the workplace as a

private space (Rancière 2017: 142). In this moment, the illusion of the naturalness of

the distribution of the sensible is punctured (Rancière 1999: 36).

This might raise the question of how this disruption takes place. If the speech of

those of no account registers as noise, then how are they able to contest this condition?

For Rancière, Michael Feola explains, politics always has a strong aesthetic component.

In the first place, the part of no part must show that it is capable of political action,

and it does so through a politicization of spaces and roles that were seen as natural

and thus apolitical. Pace the deliberative democrats, the excluded do not primarily

argue for their equality, somehow proving it through an exchange of reasons. Rather,

they must stage a political scene in which they reject the role and place allotted to

them.

Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her bus seat illustrates this brilliantly: she did not

necessarily provide arguments for her equality, but “her embodied presence itself [was]

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a kind of claim that problematized a set of norms regarding equality, corporeality, and

the geography of power” (Feola 2014: 510-511). Underlying this politics is the work of

dis-identification: the break with an inegalitarian order is not made in the name of a

substantive identity – for the African Americans, workers, women, or immigrants – but

through a rejection of the place and location one is assigned to (Rancière 2017: 119-

120; Russell and Montin 2015: 549).

How do we go from these concepts to the analysis of riots? In a set of incisive books

and articles, Mustafa Dikeç argues that we should focus on the spatial dimensions of

the concepts of ‘the police’ and the ‘distribution of the sensible’ (Dikeç 2004; 2007;

2017). What is remarkable about riots is that they often start in “stigmatized areas of

cities marked by discriminatory police action” and the object of top-down urban

development projects (Dikeç 2017: 215). In his book on the French banlieues, for

instance, he tracks how these areas were constituted as bad neighbourhoods and thus

as “objects of intervention”: “policy documents, spatial designations, mappings,

categorizations, namings and statistics,” he writes, “contributed to the consolidation of

a certain spatial order and a particular way to think about it” (Dikeç 2004: 21; also

Dikeç 2007: 197-200). In other words: the inhabitants of these neighbourhoods became

– through this spatial distribution – the objects of a top-down governance, their actions

subject to constant intervention.

Urban riots, Dikeç’s argument goes, could then be seen as a form of politics as

defined by Rancière: as practices that question particular distributions of places and

positions (Dikeç 2004: 22).Yet, at the same time, he recognizes the challenges faced by

these riots: precisely because the banlieues and their inhabitants are subjected to and

constituted through a certain distribution of the sensible, the acts of rioters a perceived

in a specific way, that is, as meaningless acts of ‘urban violence’ (Dikeç 2007: 204-206).

This particular conundrum, Ayten Gündogdu argues, is also felt by Rancière himself.

It is one of the reasons why he refused to see the uprising in the banlieues as a form of

politics. The latter, he argues, failed to become political in a twofold sense. First, they

were violent and thus failed to demonstrate the rioters’ capacity for political speech;

and second, the banlieusards also failed to upset the distribution of the sensible since

their resistance remained stuck in the categories imposed by the government – the riot

reproduced the scheme of government/police vs. the banlieue (Gündogdu 2017: 192,

195).

For Rancière, Gündogdu argues, violent conflict does not have the capacity to

disrupt the distribution of the sensible. His preferred example is that of (Herodotus’

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account of) the Scythian slave revolt. This slave revolt failed, he argues, because the

Scythian slaves took up arms against their master without proving their equality in

speech (Ibid.: 203-207). “What they cannot do,” Rancière writes, “is transform equality

in war into political freedom” (Rancière 1999: 12-13, cit. 13).

If politics is the practice in which the part of no part introduces one world (that in

which the oppressed are capable of political speech) into another (that in which they

are mute), then an armed conflict cannot become a politics. Equality in war exists as a

conflict between two worlds, not as the manifestation of one world into another. A

similar reasoning, Gündogdu argues, returns in Rancière’s reflections on the urban

uprisings: they were “violent demonstrations that lacked speech and consequently

failed to set up a dissensus” (Gündogdu 2017: 208).

The problem, Gündogdu argues, is that Rancière, at least in this case, fails to think

through the complex entanglement of politics with police. Police orders do not only

distribute places and roles, they also determine what counts as speech and what

doesn’t. If we follow through on this insight, then, it should be clear that if certain

forms of resistance fail to register as political resistance, this is not always due to their

intrinsic characteristics but could also be the result of the constraints imposed by and

the distortions of the logic of the police (Ibid.: 194). This became clear, for instance,

during the Gilets Jaunes riots in France (which started in October 2018 and still

continue at the time of writing). Whereas these predominantly white rioters could

count on strong public support, the same could not be said of the earlier riots in the

French banlieues.

Though we should not underestimate the extent of the police repression to which

the Gilets are subjected, it is also true, as Youcef Brakni put it, that “if young black

behaved like the gilets jaunes in the centre of Paris, they were liable to get killed” (cited

in Harding 2019: 8). In other words: whether acts of (violent) rioting are seen and

treated as political acts or acts of war also depends on the distribution of the sensible:

who is seen as having a voice, and who is seen as making a noise. Therefore, we should

allow for the possibility that certain political actions, such as some acts of rioting, are

impure manifestations of politics: “what might appear to be an entirely military

confrontation […] can include or engender practices of logically or argumentatively

demonstrating equality” (Ibid.: 216).

I would argue that this is indeed the case for grievance riots. First of all, riots are

seldom reducible to violence. Often, acts of violence are accompanied by the staging of

political scenes. To give one example: in an act of détournement, the Parisian rioting

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youth shouted the slogan ‘93’, appropriating what was an administrative number

designating their ‘troublesome’ district, and transforming it into a badge of honour

(Ibid..: 214-215). In doing this, the banlieusards introduced one world – that in which

they are citizens of equal standing – into another – in which they are second-class

citizens, subjected to top-down urban governance practices.

This was even more clear for the Gilets Jaunes: they “position themselves

theatrically,” Jeremy Harding reports, their “demonstrations are produced and curated

as they unfold” (Harding 2019: 3). This strongly theatrical aspect of the protests also

explains why the Gilets could, in contrast to the banlieusards, count on Rancière’s

approval. In a short piece, he notes how their preferred method of action, the

occupation, “transforms the visibility of things and the sense of what is possible”

(Rancière 2019). Through the occupation of roundabouts, spaces normally reserved for

the circulation of goods, they slow down ordinary time and “assert one’s presence as a

community in struggle” (Ibid.).

But I would go even further: I believe Rancière is mistaken in ascribing muteness

to violence. In riots, violence is not mute: on the contrary, it is oftentimes of a highly

symbolical nature. The acts of violence committed in them are not undiscriminating:

expensive cars, public property, and the windows of big corporations are targeted. In

other words: certain types of violence are themselves of a theatrical nature (Winter

2018: 183). This is emphasized by Didier Fassin and Anne-Claire Deffosez: “[w]hat

made a difference in the case of the yellow vests,” they write, “was the spectacle of

violence” (Fassin and Deffosez 2019: 90). “Because the destructions and lootings during

the third demonstration on 1 December mostly took place in France’s famed capital,”

they argue, “the protest became a global phenomenon, eliciting supportive comments

from across the political spectrum” (Ibid.: 91). This argument builds on but also goes

further than the previous one: it is not only that riots have both violent and theatrical

aspects, we could even say that the violence itself is sort of political staging.

Third, neither is it true that rioters always fail to go through a process dis-

identification. To repeat: for Rancière, Matthias Lievens argues, acts of dissensus

cannot be “an affirmation of an identity that is part of the police order of

representations” (Lievens 2014: 12). If so, they would fail to disrupt the distribution of

the sensible, to make something invisible visible. However, Rancière argued, the young

rioters in the banlieues did exactly this: they affirmed their identities as

troublemakers, and the banlieues as dangerous and troublesome places (Gündoğdu

2017: 209-210).

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In part this is true, but it is also a limited reading of the riots. I want to argue that

in other senses they did go through a process of dis-identification. First, while it is true

that the conflict between the rioters and the police affirmed the idea that the

government and police were opposed to a hostile banlieue (and vice versa), it is also

true that the riots were as much a rejection of the banlieue and its place in society.

Second, both the actions and violence of the rioters are of a symbolical nature. One of

the things that riots symbolize is rage: not the apolitical rage of someone who doesn’t

get their way, but the political rage of someone who isn’t treated as a full human being.

“Racial hatred is real,” bell hooks writes, “[a]nd it is humanizing to be able to resist it

with militant rage” (Hooks 1995: 17). Rather than that the rage of rioters confirms

their identity as (sub-human) scum or as (potential) criminals, I would argue that it

affirms their humanity.

9.6. Rioting as Strike

I hope to have shown that the Rancièrian framework allows us to make sense of the

violence of riots. In particular, I believe it helps us see their purposely theatrical

aspects. However, there is also a feature that is missing in this account: the fact that

the violence of riots also has an immediate, coercive element. The riot is not only or

always the staging of a political conflict, it can also be a form of direct action. Writing

on the ’60 US urban riots, Joe Feagin and Harlan Hahn argue that we could see them

as “events in an urban power struggle” (Feagin and Hahn 1973: 50, 53). Ultimately,

riots allow the dispossessed to twist the arm of the powerful in a process of “collective

bargaining” (Idem: 181). In this last section, I will follow up on this insight and argue

that the actions of rioters could in this respect be compared to the actions of strikers.

That is: both rioters and strikers shut down economic activity to resist forms of

economic domination.

My starting point here is Joshua Clover’s Riot.Strike.Riot (Clover 2016). Clover sets

himself the task of applying (the social historian) E.P. Thompson’s magnificent

analysis of the eighteenth-century riots to the present age. To roughly summarize a

complex historical account: Thompson sets up an argument against “a spasmodic view

of popular history” that regards riots (and other popular disturbances) as “compulsive,

rather than self-conscious or self-activating” (Thompson, 1971: 76). In opposition to

this view, Thompson argues that we should see the riot as a form of (proto-)politics.

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Thompson’s theory of the riot has three elements: it has a moral aspect, it provides

a socio-economic definition of the riot and lays out a periodization. To start with the

first: he argues that it is possible to “detect in almost every eighteenth-century crowd

action some legitimizing notion” (Ibid.: 78). Rioters acted on the belief that they were

defending customary notions – social norms held by the community – regulating

behaviour in the marketplace. Therefore, the riot enacted a conflict between older

moral notions regarding the economy and the ascending laissez-faire ideology

(Thompson, 2013 [1963]: 73). For instance, when bakers sold their goods at market

prices and these prices soared, “Nottingham women ‘went from one baker’s shop to

another, set their own price on the stock therein, and putting down the money, took it

away’” (Ibid.: 70). Thompson’s second, more analytical claim is that while “[e]conomic

class-conflict in nineteenth-century England found its characteristic expression in the

matter of wages; in eighteenth-century England the working people were most quickly

inflamed to action by rising prices” (Thompson, 1971: 79). Examining the riot’s ‘wonder

year’ 1795, Thompson notes: “[a]s prices soared, direct action spread throughout the

country” (Thompson, 2013 [1963]: 70). In other words, the politics raging at the centre

of the riot has as its object the problems of reproduction and consumption and as its

location the marketplace (rather than the factory). Finally, there is also an additional

periodising claim underlying these arguments: as the embedded economy gave way to

disembedded markets and industrialisation ushered in the centrality of wage-labour,

the riot was replaced by the strike. This transition from riot to strike is an uneven

process taking place somewhere between 1790 and 1842 (Clover, 2016: 9; also see Tilly,

1983).

As we noted, Clover starts with this analysis but he does so selectively. He takes the

second and third elements but drops the moral argument. This allows him to focus on

the questions of definition and periodization. His central question is: Why does the riot

arise again in the current era? Clover maintains that our era of riots cannot be

understood without an understanding of the specifics of the contemporary economic

and social crisis (Clover, 2016: 1). Building on Giovanni Arrighi’s argument that

historical capitalism alternates between phases dominated by the logic of production

and phases dominated by circulation, he reasons that somewhere in the passage from

the sixties to the seventies we have entered a phase of “circulation prime” (Ibid.: 3). In

this stage of the historical development of capitalism, the economic centre of gravity

progressively comes to ‘rest’ in the financial sector instead of the factory (Ibid.: 19-20).

Profit is no longer realised in the workplace but in the marketplace. It is, for instance,

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realised through the circulation of goods (i.e. logistics) or the buying and selling of

stocks (i.e. finance). “In the shift that follows crisis,” Clover argues, “capital, unable to

generate adequate surplus value or growth through conventional manufacturing

production, is compelled into the space of circulation to compete for profits there, by

decreasing its costs and increasing turnover time for an ever-greater volume of

commodities” (Ibid.: 141).

The result – and this is both Clover’s most distinct and contested claim (Toscano

2016; Vasquez 2016; Webber 2019: 24) – is that the site of Western class struggles

shifts as well. Struggles leave the factory and enter public spaces. The strike as a

conflict over wage (or the price of labour) in the factory is replaced by the riot as a

conflict over consumption (or the price of market goods) in the streets (Clover, 2016:

16). What we are observing is a reversal of the historical process that Thompson

described. Whereas the statistical evidence concerning strikes shows a decrease in

their occurrence (Streeck, 2016: 81; Gourevitch, 2016: 308), the riot has risen to

prominence again (Dikeç, 2004: 201; Bertho, 2009: 233-270; Kotouza 2017: 383; Bertho

2018: 26-31).

These claims need further unpacking. They become more understandable if we look

at this transformation of capitalism not only from the point of view of capital but also

from the point of view of labour. Therefore, let us return to the dwindling importance

of the factory. Since the seventies we have seen a sharp fall in manufacturing

employment. In the major capitalist countries, Aaron Benanav and John Clegg note,

“[o]ver the past three decades, manufacturing employment fell 50 percent as a

percentage of total employment” (Benanav and Clegg, 2010: 586). However, Benanav

adds in a recent reprisal of this argument, this decline of the manufacturing sector

(both the stagnation of its growth rates and the falling demand for manufacturing

labour) has not been compensated by the growth of other sectors. “[N]o other sector,”

he writes, “appeared on the scene to replace industry as a major economic-growth

engine” (Benanav 2019a: 31). On the contrary, the decline of the manufacturing

industry has been accompanied by a general stagnation of the GDP-growth rate. In

turn, “[t]his tendency to economy-wide stagnation […] then explains the system-wide

decline in the demand for labour” (Ibid.: 32). As the manufacturing sectors dwindles

and the demand for manufacturing labour falls, it drags down the others sectors and

the demand for other kinds of labour with it.

However, this falling demand for labour, Benanav argues, does not necessarily lead

to mass unemployment. Rather, he writes, “it is critical that we reconceive of the

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present situation as marked not by the imminent arrival of mass unemployment […]

but by continuously rising under-employment” (Benanav 2019b: 118). In Europe this

kind of underemployment has taken the form of steady increases in ‘non-standard’

work where “workers have no access to employment protections and are obliged to

moderate their wage demands” (Ibid.: 123-124).

Now what do these historical transformations tell us about the riot? Clover sees a

direct connection between the plunge in formal wage labour, the increasing importance

of circulation to economic life, and the upsurge in rioting. The key factor in the genesis

of riots is the action of those “confronted by the old problem of consumption without

direct access to the wage” (Clover, 2016: 28). The point is that it is hard to go on strike

if you haven’t got a job in the first place. But “anyone can liberate a marketplace, close

a road, close a port” (Ibid.: 151). This is the situation then: people are increasingly

ousted from the formal wage relation and into the street, which also happens to be the

place where capital is operative. “The riot is a circulation struggle,” Clover writes,

“because both capital and its dispossessed have been driven to seek reproduction there”

(Ibid.: 46). In this conjuncture, then, the riot is restored as a labour tactic. Instead of

shutting down the factory in order to renegotiate your wage, you shut down the

circulation of goods (think of the gilets jaunes’ occupation of roundabouts) in order to

force the state to ensure that you can make ends meet.

To be clear, Clover’s argument has been subjected to criticism. First, as Alberto

Toscano argues, it makes periodizing claims that are too strict and characterized by a

strong economism. The idea that economic shifts (like the shift from production to

circulation) immediately entail shifts in political tactics is untenable: “Why,” Toscano

asks, “should tactical repertoires match the periodization of capital?” (Toscano 2016).

Second, it is also not immediately clear that the complexity and empirics of history

match Clover’s schematic claims. For instance: the seventies saw a steep increase in

deindustrialization and an increase in strikes (Kotouza 2017: 380). Neither, as

Benanav shows (see supra), is it clear that we are seeing huge spikes in unemployment.

While it is true that standard forms of wage labour are in decline, it does not

necessarily follow that people are forced into unemployment at massive rates.

Finally, there is also a constant oscillation in Clover’s central terms. Take, for

instance, the importance of ‘circulation’ to his analysis: riots disrupt circulation and

capital seeks profit in circulation. The question is whether ‘circulation’ refers to the

same thing in both cases (Toscano 2016; Vasquez 2016). If we say that capital is

increasingly seeking profit in the sphere of circulation, we are casting a wide net which

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includes the buying and selling of stocks, the logistics sector, e-commerce, and the new

platform economy. However, if we say that riots are circulation struggles, our claim is

more limited: riots disrupt the circulation of physical goods in the streets.

Nonetheless, I believe that Clover’s analysis is still invaluable for its elucidation of

the riot as a labour tactic analogous to the strike. Indeed, his ideas have only gained

in plausibility after the publication of the book. With the onset of the recent riots in

France and Argentinia we see that class struggles are (a) increasingly waged in the

street through the disruption of the circulation of capital and (b) have as their object

the increasing cost of living. In what remains of this chapter, I would like to pursue

and deepen this comparison between the strike and the riot. In particular, I want to

elucidate some of the political aspects of this comparison which are neglected in

Clover’s analysis. This analysis is, as Alberto Toscano notes, characterized by an “anti-

humanist iconoclasm” (Toscano 2016): rioters are not moved by moral and political

notions but economic shifts move rioters as their living conditions are increasingly

despondent. This is Marx’s immiseration-thesis for a new era. What this analytical

standpoint misses, is that social struggles also have strong political and moral

elements.

To start with the strike: if we look at the strike purely as a conflict over wage, Alex

Gourevitch writes, we fail to see what is political about them. Ultimately, the strike

cannot be reduced to a struggle over wage but is also always a conflict over and for the

freedom of workers. Strikers, that is, “claim their liberty not just as abstract persons

but as socially-situated agents, who find themselves in historically specific

relationships of domination associated with the labour market” (Gourevitch 2016: 308).

These relationships of domination have structural (or impersonal) and personal

aspect (see chapter 4). The labour market is a structural relationship of domination

because worker have no alternative but to sell their labour-power. This is the case as

most essential goods are only accessible in exchange for money. As a result, workers

“are forced to sell [their] labour power to some employer or another” which makes them

“vulnerable to exploitation” (Idem: 313-314, cit. 314; also Gourevitch 2018: 907). Until

labour becomes de-commodified, this structural domination and its attendant

vulnerability to exploitation will persist.

The personal domination of workers, on the other hand, is embodied in the arbitrary

authority possessed by employers over their employees. One dominant legal

assumption, Gourevitch explains, is that decisions concerning workplace organization

are the monopoly of employers, whereas workers simply must obey (Idem: 316; also

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Gourevitch 2018: 908). Finally, we should also point out that these forms of domination

are mutually implicated. For instance: the impersonal domination exercised by the

labour market makes workers vulnerable to exploitation which can be heightened

through the exercise of personal domination (e.g. curtailing toilet breaks in order to

increase the rate of exploitation) (Idem: 317).

Striking is a way to resist these relationships of domination. When workers go on

strike they momentarily reverse the power relationships they find themselves in. They

shut down the process of production and limit the employer’s ability to make contracts

with others (Idem: 315). This disruption of the process of production imposes costs on

the employers but is in itself not coercive. However, often strikers – certainly more

vulnerable and replaceable ones – will have to use more coercive tactics (such as mass

pickets or sitdowns) to make sure that no-one can work (Gurevitch 2018: 906). In order

for a strike to be successful, Guy Aitchison clarifies, it must shut down the workplace

and this necessitates widespread participation. In other words: a certain kind of

discipline must be maintained. Some of this discipline is self-imposed but there is

always a chance of non-participation (e.g. a crossing of the picket-line). In order to

maintain the strength of the strike, coercion towards strike-breakers might be

necessary. For instance, “an illegal strike or workplace occupation is enforced by

striking workers who use their bodies and other barriers to obstruct entry into the

workplace or engage in moderate forms of violence” (Aitchison 2018: 674).

How then to we transpose this scheme to the riot? Similarly, we miss what is

political about the riot if we simply see it as a conflict over the price of goods (e.g. the

occupation of roundabouts as a way to force down taxes on consumer goods). The riot

can also be seen as a political struggle over the relationships of domination embedded

in capitalist society. Yet, this time waged from the position of those who are no longer

fully included in the labour market.

Like the strikers, their structural domination consists in the fact that they live in a

society in which consumption, their ability to meet their needs and wants, is mediated

through the money commodity which they can only earn through wage labour. The

difference, however, is their position on the labour market. The striker is dominated

because he fears unemployment, the rioter is dominated either because his or her

structural un- and underemployment serves to keep the worker in his place, or he or

she has simply become superfluous to the labour market.49 In turn, this makes them

49 It should be stressed that unemployment, in its manifold forms, is a structural feature of capitalist

society (Mann, 2017: 281-334).

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especially vulnerable to exploitation and domination in short-term jobs or through

increased state surveillance.

However, unlike labourers those without work or without a fixed workspace can

evidently not withhold their labour. They can, however, obstruct the process of the

circulation of goods. That is, they can occupy the city and shut down vital processes of

market circulation. Here, Clover’s insistence on the tactical specificity of the riot

provides an important corrective to purely symbolic interpretations. The symbolic

aspect of the riot as a violent display of anger and discontent is, of course, key. But we

shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that the riot is also a form of direct action in the form of

a “blocking of traffic [and] the interruption of circulation” (Clover 2016: 182).

Supply chains, the logistical network behind our contemporary globalized

capitalism, have become a central strategic element in our economies. However, this

centrality also makes them vulnerable. A disruption at one point in the chain can

produce a domino-effect. Therefore, the disruption of this logistical network is a

powerful tactic (Clowen 2014). Couldn’t we then re-describe the riot as an instance of

these kinds of tactics? It is possible to see the riots as a strike of the un- and

underemployed, as a moment in which these populations momentarily reverse the

power relations they find themselves in, imposing an economic cost on a society that is

to an increasing extent expelling them.

9.7. Conclusion

I hope to have shown that some riots deserve a place, however uncomfortably, in the

(unfinished) history of the democratization of citizenship. In an ideal democracy, riots

would find no place. However, democracies are rarely ideal: as we argued in section

9.4., there might be multiple reasons why democratic institutions are unable to pick

up on justified grievances, or unable to deal with them. In such cases, I believe that

rioting is a justified form of insurgent citizenship.

Moreover, I hope that sections 9.5. and 9.6. have illuminated the specific role that

violence plays in such moments. If political theorists work on riots, they often attempt

to develop a moral calculus. This work is valuable: one cannot claim that some riots

belong to the history of the democratization of citizenship if one circumvents these

kinds of normative questions. However, at the same time I argued that something gets

lost in such normative theorizing. It is assumed that riots are violent, but riotous

violence itself is not interrogated.

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I showed that riotous violence is both theatrical or symbolic, and direct and coercive.

Neither of these two elements can be dropped: if the riot is a form of theatrical address,

it might be necessary to force one’s fellow citizens to listen; but the effectivity of the

riot’s coercive aspects are, in turn, dependent on onlookers – fellow citizens who in one

way or another care about the conflict that is being staged.

To be clear, I do not believe that this list is comprehensive: there are other aspects

of riotous violence that remain untouched. In particular, there is the question of the

existential importance of violence exercised by oppressed groups. This argument is

(in)famously developed by Fanon: the idea that to attack one’s oppressor is to escape a

state of interiorized inferiority (Fanon 2001: 27-74). Some theorists offer tempered

versions of this argument in the context of riots. In such arguments, the exercise of

riotous violence – the destruction of property and confrontations with the police – is

seen as a way for “the ghetto poor to maintain their self-respect” (Shelby 2007: 156).

This particular aspect of riotous violence, or even violence in general, remains to be

illuminated (see MacDonald and Symmonds 2018). However, given the delicateness of

the topic, this is work for another essay.

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Conclusion

A. Summary of the Arguments

In this doctoral thesis, we have (re)constructed a theory of insurgent citizenship. Three

different lines of argument were proposed: first, that because modern citizenship is

ambiguous, it must be seen as forever “in the making” (Balibar 2001a: 211). Insurgent

citizenship, we argued, is the ‘motor’ that drives this process. Second, that this

insurgent citizenship can take the forms of emancipation and transformation. These

modalities, we argued, exist in a tense relationship. Third, that the exercise of

insurgent citizenship is not necessarily non-violent.

In the first part, I tried to steer a middle course between the recognition of modern

citizenship’s emancipatory aspects and the critique of its constant failure to deliver on

this promise. Both ideal/normative and critical theories of modern citizenship miss the

mark: citizenship is not inherently good or inherently bad, democratic or undemocratic,

emancipatory or oppressive. It is, as we demonstrated with Étienne Balibar, both. The

emancipatory element of modern citizenship must be understood as the near-constant

struggle, waged on different fronts, against its own de-democratizing tendencies. The

central actors in this dialectic of modern citizenship are the second-class or non-citizens

who exercise their right to politics – the right to rise up against exclusion, domination

or oppression. This is a right that cannot be granted by any instituted power, because

it is strictly speaking groundless and exists only in its exercise.

The second argument developed and expanded Balibar’s distinction between the

politics of emancipation and transformation. Both, we argue, can be seen as modalities

of insurgent citizenship because they are practices of self-emancipation. However, they

understand this self-emancipation differently. The politics of emancipation is mostly

focused on expanding the circle of citizenship. In doing so, it assumes that the domain

of politics is autonomous and leaves its boundaries with other domains of society more

or less intact. Its normative orientation is understood as the fulfilling or completion of

the democratic revolutions. The politics of transformation, on the other hand, acts on

the ‘non-political’ conditions of politics, all the while shifting, pushing or transforming

the boundaries between the political domain and its others. Its normative orientation

is more indefinite: while it finds a great deal worth salvaging in the values and

institutions of the democratic revolutions, it also senses the need to transform these

ideals.

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In a second step, I argued that these two modes can conflict in practice. In

particular, I defended the more specific argument that progression in the realm of

emancipation might present obstacles for the politics of transformation. Two cases of

the politics of emancipation were subjected to scrutiny: the struggle for subjective

rights and the struggle for recognition. In both of these studies, we demonstrated that

and in what way the pursuit of emancipation displaces transformative struggles.

The third argument shifted the focus to the question of means. Here, I argued that

a theory of insurgent citizenship, in both its emancipatory and transformative modes,

cannot rule out the (limited) use of violence. This conclusion, I suggest, follows from an

idea that runs throughout this thesis: that there are far more enduring and persistent

relations of domination in our democracies than we would like to admit. Given this

situation, the use of some kinds of violence might be an appropriate or even reasonable

exercise of the right to politics.

The prototype of such a violent exercise of the right to politics is the riot. The more

I read about the history of riots, and particularly about the recurrence of riots in

democratic societies, the less I’m convinced that they are a pathological phenomenon

or irrational outbursts of anger. More often than not, the riot picks up were a history

of nonviolent democratic action or resistance has come to a dead end. Though the riot

is spontaneous in its genesis, rioters develop their own tactics and forms of

organization, sometimes resorting to the repertoires passed on from riots past. This is

not to say that we can uncritically assume that those riots that respond to a form of

domination or exclusion, always have an emancipatory character. I would, however,

argue that it is possible to see such riots as a starting point or basis for such an

emancipatory politics.

B. Contributions

This thesis contributes to the political-theoretical literature in two ways. First: it

provides a reconstruction of Étienne Balibar’s theory of modern citizenship. Two: by

reconstructing this theory, it pushes the boundaries of the concept of citizenship.

To start with the first: though the thought of Balibar is hardly unexplored territory

(Hewlett 2007; Lievens 2007; Deleixhe 2014; Ota 2015; Ingram 2015; Bromberg 2018),

this thesis provides a comprehensive reconstruction of his theory of modern citizenship.

In reading his oeuvre through the lens of the concepts of the citizen-subject and, above

all, insurgent citizenship, I attempted to unearth a unified theory of citizenship in an

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expansive and rich oeuvre that often goes in many different directions. Moreover, by

bringing his ideas into contact with arguments that are better-known in Anglo-Saxon

tradition of political philosophy (e.g. those of James Tully and Iris Marion Young), I

hope to have shown how and why Balibar’s work might be of interest to these debates.

Moreover, in clarifying the concepts of emancipation and transformation, sometimes

accentuating contrasts or discrepancies that Balibar leaves ambiguous, I hope to have

contributed something to the understanding of his oeuvre. I’m aware that in

emphasizing this analytical distinction, at times enhancing the differences, it loses

some of the nuances and qualification present in Balibar’s writings. However, I believe

it helps us see the conflicts in his work in a new light (e.g. between his adherence to

radical bourgeois traditions, on the one hand, and his continued attachment to the

Marxist tradition, on the other).

Still, the contribution of this thesis is hopefully not only exegetical. In using

Balibar’s concepts, I also aimed to expand the idea of modern citizenship. I did so in

two ways: first, by introducing the mode of transformation. From the point of view of

citizenship studies, this decision could be controversial: it might seem like I smuggled

all kinds of radical activities into the concept and history of citizenship. Those working

in the traditions of Marxism or post-colonialism might even agree: in framing radical

forms of resistance against domination as practices of citizenship, I could be accused of

underestimating the conservative tendencies of modern citizenship. Against the first,

I argue that transformation is undeniably a part of the history of modern citizenship.

It is hard to understand the democratization of modern citizenship without

understanding how particular ideas of what is and is not political have been challenged

and changed through political action and forms of resistance. Whereas against the

second, I argue that the idea of a society in which the hard questions of democratic

citizenship have been eliminated (Who is excluded? How do we deal with inevitable

conflicts of values?) is not only unrealistic but also undesirable and dangerous.

Second, I have expanded the concept of citizenship to include violent forms of action

like riots. Again, there are precedents: political theorists who have written about the

use of coercion, or confrontational behaviour in democracies (e.g. Medearis 2015: 15-

52; Sokollof 2017: 1-11). However, these studies tend to stop short of dealing with the

question of violence. By introducing the riot into the study of the democratization of

citizenship, I have shown that the relation between democratic citizenship and violence

should at the very least be reconsidered.

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C. Limitations

Before I set out to point out some of the limitations of my argument, I should define

the outer limits of my argument. In writing on insurgent citizenship, the thesis was

mainly focussed on unequal relations of power between citizens. Of course, this is only

one aspect of a theory of democratic citizenship. Not all relations between citizens are

unequal, imbalanced or distorted. Hence, a more encompassing theory of citizenship,

should also tell us something about more cooperative interactions between citizens or

conflicts of values between more or less equal citizens.

I’m also aware of (at least some of) the limitations of my arguments. In the first

place, I know that the distinction between emancipation and transformation might not

be as strict as I sometimes make it out to be. The case of social citizenship, employed

in the introduction, provides a good example of how fuzzy the boundaries between

emancipation and transformation can be. Like T.H. Marshall noted (1.3.), the idea that

all citizens have a right to a certain material standard of living, can be derived from

modern citizenship’s core idea: that of equality. For Marshall, Richard Bellamy writes,

“it was natural […] to treat social rights as the culmination of the struggle for an ever

more inclusive and egalitarian form of citizenship” (Bellamy 2008: 50). Under this

interpretation, we should see the demand for social rights as a politics of emancipation.

However, these demands also entailed an immense restructuring of the boundaries

separating the political, economic and domestic spheres. Concerns that had since the

modern revolutions belonged to the private sphere, suddenly became matters of public

importance.

The point I’m getting at is that it is always possible that a politics of emancipation

has transformative effects. Nancy Fraser calls this (the possibility of) non-reformist

reform. The politics of social welfare, she argues, did not alter “the structure of the

capitalist economy per se” (Fraser in Fraser and Honneth 2003: 80). However, she adds,

“the expectation was that together [these welfare policies] would shift the balance of

power from capital to labour and encourage transformation in the long term” (Ibid.).

Similarly, she suggests that the struggle for recognition can have “long-term

transformative effects” (Ibid.: 81). For instance, the struggle for the valorisation of

traditionally female activities like care-work can in the long term have the effect of

encouraging men to take up these tasks, thus transforming the relation between men

and women. However, as Fraser acknowledges, whether or not these transformative

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effects take places is strongly dependent on context (Ibid.: 78-82). On this question,

more research is required.

This question of the conditions in which certain measures may have transformative

effects, brings us to a second flaw in my thesis. I argue that the politics of emancipation

can obstruct the politics of transformation. In making this argument, I rely on the idea

that the pursuit of emancipation displaces the project of transformation. However, I

lack a proper theory of the mechanism(s) of displacement. What are the mechanisms

that explain why the pursuit of one political end (e.g. recognition) comes to obstruct

another one (e.g. the transformation of economic conditions)? I should stress that the

notion of ‘obstruction’ is stronger than the banal idea that in ordering one’s political

goals, ends and strategies, some of these will inevitably suffer. I want to ask a sharper

question: could it be that the pursuit of certain political ends, closes off other kinds of

politics or at least presents it with great obstacles?

One possible avenue towards the development of an answer, can be found in Wendy

Brown’s work on the link between emancipation and identity (Brown 1995). Brown

looks for explanations in the “regulatory dimension of identity-based rights” (Brown

2002: 422). In asking the state to be recognized, included or protected as a worker,

woman, or person of colour, she argues, the misrecognized, excluded or vulnerable fail

to contest the forms of power that are constitutive of this identity. Even more so, as

Brown points out: it will reinforce the latter as such claims “are more likely to encode

a definition of women premised on our subordination” (Ibid.). This mechanism seems

to be in play in struggles for recognition. On the other hand, one could also look into

theories of social action. John Medearis, for instance, revives the concept of alienation

to refer to the phenomenon where “their common action returns to people in the form

of social forces, relations, or institutions that dominate some or all of them” (Medearis

2015: 90-91). Perhaps a similar mechanism is in play in the displacement of this or that

type of politics: in pursuing certain political ends, our actions might return to us in the

form of obstacles to other ways of political acting.

The last limitation concerns the central tension in this thesis between, on the hand,

the idea that citizenship is ‘forever in the making’ because it always returns to a state

of domination and, on the other hand, the aspiration – so central to the modality of

transformation – to strive towards the complete abolition of structures of domination.

I believe that neither of the two ideas can be dropped. It is thanks to the post-Marxist

tradition that I am aware of the dangers of believing that a society can be free from

exclusion and domination. Chances are that a society that believes it has reached such

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a stage is probably just not acknowledging the forms of exclusion and domination that

persist. However, neither am I willing to give up on the ideal of the abolition of the

central structures of domination – those of class, race, and gender. Though I believe

that it is not strictly speaking contradictory to hold onto to both ideas, I do acknowledge

that it attests to conflicting ideas and ideals. Confronted with this tension, I was struck

by a passage in one of Balibar’s essays on Louis Althusser. Balibar writes of an

“amazing contradiction in Althusser”: “[h]ow to combine the idea that capitalism is not

an ‘eternal’ mode of production and the idea that there is no ‘reconciliation’, that

antagonism should not be conceptualized against the background of social unity as a

universal telos?” (Balibar 1996: 117). I believe that a similar tension runs through this

thesis but have no immediate solutions to offer.

D. Avenues for Further Research

Finally, I would like to point out two avenues for further research. First, I think that

there is still much work to be done in tracing the historical genesis of Balibar’s thought.

For one, a thorough study of the changing conceptualizations of the state throughout

his oeuvre, and his interactions with different intellectual traditions (e.g. Marxism,

French Republicanism, Foucauldianism) and other theorists (e.g. Nicos Poulantzas) on

this specific question could be very useful. The research in this thesis has been mainly

conceptual. However, the work of intellectual history can change our perception of such

concepts. The work of Warren Montag on Althusser’s relation to different intellectual

traditions is a good example of the advantages of such an approach (Montag 2013).

Second, there is room for more work on concept of transformation. Table 2 (in section

3.7.) and the case-studies give us some idea of what a politics of transformation looks

like. However, some aspect could use further study. For one, I’m not fully satisfied with

my own answer to the question of the transformation of democratic ideals. For instance:

what does it mean to transform an ideal as opposed to offering new interpretations (e.g.

democratic iterations)? As noted, Rahel Jaeggi’s work on immanent transformative

criticism provides a promising starting point (Jaeggi 2018). On the other hand, I did

not address, what Balibar calls, the aporia(s) of transformation (Balibar 2002a: 21).

Such aporias consist in the fact that in a politics of transformation “we are presented

with a protagonist (society, the subject) that is both subject and object of a process,

both determined and determining” (Ingram 2015: 224). To deal with such aporias, more

reflection is needed.

291

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