Papers by Thomas Clément MERCIER
Jacques Derrida delivered the basis of The Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of M... more Jacques Derrida delivered the basis of The Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, & the New International as a plenary address at the conference 'Whither Marxism?' hosted by the University of California, Riverside, in 1993. The longer book version was published in French the same year and appeared in English and Portuguese the following year. In the decade after the publication of Specters, Derrida's analyses provoked a large critical literature and invited both consternation and celebration by figures such as Antonio Negri, Wendy Brown and Frederic Jameson. This forum seeks to stimulate new reflections on Derrida, deconstruction and Specters of Marx by considering how the futures past announced by the book have fared after an eventful quarter century. In this fourth group of contributions, Thomas Clément Mercier shows how Der-rida's book, besides questioning reception and influence, yet remains to be read, especially in light of ongoing archival research on Derrida's engagements with Marx's writings in seminars from the 1970s; and Paulo Chamon offers a critical assessment of Derrida's promise of a 'New International' by considering how the book spooks itself in such a way as to raise serious questions in regard to sovereignty and subjectivity.
Balibar & Derrida on Gewalt — Barbarism, cruelty, extreme violence: economies of violence and legitimacy
2015, January 12th. I have decided to post this piece following the recent events in Paris, in re... more 2015, January 12th. I have decided to post this piece following the recent events in Paris, in reaction to the general media coverage, but also to many scholars’ and politicians’ comments — in reaction, notably, to a certain use of language, and in particular this omnipresent lexicon, “barbarians”, “barbarism”, that I still fail to fully understand…
This text was initially established as a chapter for my PhD thesis, “Violence and legitimacy: an articulation beyond power”. It had to be left out from the final version, because of word-limit constraints. I haven’t modified it in view of this publication. It is a very much unfinished draft, including a lot of rambling, absurdly long footnotes, and sometimes telegraphic notes. It is also a dense, adventurous, and certainly arduous piece of political philosophy, going from Balibar to Derrida and Hegel, Marx & Engels, with references to Foucault, Schmitt, Agamben and Mouffe ; but here it is. I hope this work will trigger comments and reflections. If you have any remarks, questions or criticism, please message me. I am very much looking forward to pursuing this analysis further through any sort of discussion.
This text was initially established as a chapter for my PhD thesis, “Violence and legitimacy: an articulation beyond power”. It had to be left out from the final version, because of word-limit constraints. I haven’t modified it in view of this publication. It is a very much unfinished draft, including a lot of rambling, absurdly long footnotes, and sometimes telegraphic notes. It is also a dense, adventurous, and certainly arduous piece of political philosophy, going from Balibar to Derrida and Hegel, Marx & Engels, with references to Foucault, Schmitt, Agamben and Mouffe ; but here it is. I hope this work will trigger comments and reflections. If you have any remarks, questions or criticism, please message me. I am very much looking forward to pursuing this analysis further through any sort of discussion.
The fabular structure of democratic legitimacy: "Terrorist intention" and "fundamental rights" in European law
The definition of terrorism within International Organisations (United Nations & European Union): Consensus or hegemony?
In guise of an abstract, here is a quote by Derrida, from 'Rogues' (xii, 2003):
"What is 'com... more In guise of an abstract, here is a quote by Derrida, from 'Rogues' (xii, 2003):
"What is 'coming to pass' or 'happening' [arrive] today in techno-science, in international law, in ethico-juridical reason, in political practices and rhetorical strategies? What happens when we put to work within them the concept and the name of sovereignty, especially when this concept and this name, in the power of their heritage and of their onto-theological fiction, appear less legitimate than ever?
What is happening to the notions of the “political” and of “war” (whether world war, war between nation-states, civil war, or even so-called partisan war)? What happens to the notion of “terrorism” (whether national or international) when the old phantom of sovereignty loses its credibility? For this has been happening for longer than is often believed, although it is happening today in a new way and at a different pace."
"What is 'coming to pass' or 'happening' [arrive] today in techno-science, in international law, in ethico-juridical reason, in political practices and rhetorical strategies? What happens when we put to work within them the concept and the name of sovereignty, especially when this concept and this name, in the power of their heritage and of their onto-theological fiction, appear less legitimate than ever?
What is happening to the notions of the “political” and of “war” (whether world war, war between nation-states, civil war, or even so-called partisan war)? What happens to the notion of “terrorism” (whether national or international) when the old phantom of sovereignty loses its credibility? For this has been happening for longer than is often believed, although it is happening today in a new way and at a different pace."
Defining Terrorism within the United Nations (the 2005 World Summit)
Translations by Thomas Clément MERCIER
The Undecidable Unconscious, 2020
This article describes and compares Deleuze-Guattari's and Derrida's respective readings of repet... more This article describes and compares Deleuze-Guattari's and Derrida's respective readings of repetition compulsion, the death drive, and fetishism in the works of Freud and Lacan. The essay also explores the political implications of these readings, and interrogates the possibility of transforming the concepts and practices of politics and law on the basis of a militant re-interpretation of psychoanalytic notions.
Conference Presentations by Thomas Clément MERCIER
Beyond Failure: Queer Theory at the Border
Queer experience is often characterized as a failure to conform to norms and expectations. In thi... more Queer experience is often characterized as a failure to conform to norms and expectations. In this talk, we will ask the question: What is failure? Can we think beyond the success/failure opposition? This will also be the occasion to reflect on “queer theory”, and on its relationship to its own success and failure as a discipline. What are the borders, the objects, and the territories of “queer theory”? Does “queer theory” fail at providing these requirements attached to disciplinarity? Can “queer theory” succeed beyond failure?
"The Force of the Event": Performativity and Queer Repetition in Austin, Butler, and Derrida
A lot has been written on Derrida’s and Butler's deconstructive readings of Austin’s concept of p... more A lot has been written on Derrida’s and Butler's deconstructive readings of Austin’s concept of performativity. However, one aspect has been neglected: why does performativity rely on the notion of ‘force’, and which force are we here talking about?
Here, I analyse Derrida’s articulation between performativity and the event, and show that his emphasis on force covers very different significations than Austin’s or Butler's.
For Austin, the force of the performative operates an enforcement, which implies a certain repetition and validation of prior conditions of legitimation. In other words, the force of the performative replaces the notion of truth (attached to constatives), resulting in what Austin names the ‘felicity’ or ‘success’ of the performative. According to Derrida, this close association between force and success through performative repetition closes off the eventness of the event, and already supposes a subsequent reconstruction, that is, a performative ontologisation of the event in the form of performative power. However, the performative, if it is to truly produce an event, must by definition exceed prior conditions of validation, and thus transform, in its performance, the conditions of validity that it was meant to repeat. It must be beyond power.
I then explore further the sort of 'force' which Derrida describes as the 'force of the event', an excessive force in the face of which 'performative force' must fail: what I call the fallibility of force. I analyse what this self-deconstructive force implies with respect to gender-performativity, by elaborating on Derrida’s notion of "queer", understood as non-ontological excess internal to ontology. This quasi-ontological excess distinguishes Derrida’s reflection on force from Butler’s, which maintains an ontological dichotomy between success and failure by preserving the (Foucauldian) distinction between power and resistance at the ontological level.
Here, I analyse Derrida’s articulation between performativity and the event, and show that his emphasis on force covers very different significations than Austin’s or Butler's.
For Austin, the force of the performative operates an enforcement, which implies a certain repetition and validation of prior conditions of legitimation. In other words, the force of the performative replaces the notion of truth (attached to constatives), resulting in what Austin names the ‘felicity’ or ‘success’ of the performative. According to Derrida, this close association between force and success through performative repetition closes off the eventness of the event, and already supposes a subsequent reconstruction, that is, a performative ontologisation of the event in the form of performative power. However, the performative, if it is to truly produce an event, must by definition exceed prior conditions of validation, and thus transform, in its performance, the conditions of validity that it was meant to repeat. It must be beyond power.
I then explore further the sort of 'force' which Derrida describes as the 'force of the event', an excessive force in the face of which 'performative force' must fail: what I call the fallibility of force. I analyse what this self-deconstructive force implies with respect to gender-performativity, by elaborating on Derrida’s notion of "queer", understood as non-ontological excess internal to ontology. This quasi-ontological excess distinguishes Derrida’s reflection on force from Butler’s, which maintains an ontological dichotomy between success and failure by preserving the (Foucauldian) distinction between power and resistance at the ontological level.
Resisting the Present: Biopower in the Face of the Event (Some Notes on Monstrous Lives)
In its hegemonic definition, biopolitical governmentality is characterised by a seemingly infinit... more In its hegemonic definition, biopolitical governmentality is characterised by a seemingly infinite capacity of expansion, susceptible to colonise the landscape and timescape of the living present in the name of capitalistic productivity. Indeed, the main trait of biopower is its normative, legal and political plasticity, allowing it to reappropriate critiques and resistances by appealing to bioethical efficacy and biological accuracy. Under these circumstances, how can we invent rebellious forms-of-life and alternative temporalities escaping biopolitical normativity?
In this paper, I interrogate the theoretical presuppositions of biopolitical rationality. I provide a deconstruction of the conceptual and temporal structures upholding the notion of biopolitics, in view of laying the ground for new forms of resistance. The articulation between life and power has a long philosophical history, which has been largely ignored by social theorists and political thinkers using biopolitics as an interpretative model. I wish to re-inscribe this model within the tradition of critical materialism, by articulating Foucault’s ‘critical ontology’ to Marx & Engels’s conception of ‘real life’ and to recent philosophical works on biological plasticity (Malabou). In these discourses, the logic of biopower depends on a representation of life – ‘the living’ – as living present. Biopower is thus anchored in the authority of the present, that is to say, of being-as-presence (ontology); it sustains presentist definitions of life and materiality, be it under the form of a ‘plastic’ ontology. By drawing on Derrida’s notions such as ‘spectrality’ and ‘life-death’, I wish to deconstruct these discourses on life and materiality, and to dissociate them from their ontological grounding, in order to suggest new paths of resistance to biopower. This concerns the im-possibility of a politics of the event, hospitable to otherly life forms — life-beyond-life — and to anachronistic timescapes.
In order to substantiate my argument, I follow the tracks of “the monster” in the works of Marx, Foucault, Derrida and Malabou. Foucault tells us that the monster is a singular figure, parasitic and subversive, beckoning a life beyond life, at once organic and non-organic, located at the limit between the normal and the exceptional, and exceeding the scope of biopolitical normativity in both theoretical and practical terms. It exists at the intersection of what Foucault names “the symbolics of blood” and “the analytics of sex”. As such, it materialises a self-transformative dimension of the living which remains, I argue, inadequate to Malabou’s representation of plasticity. The monstrous is a self-deconstructive motif calling for another biopolitical rationality, before or beyond ontological reductions or reconstructions.
In this paper, I interrogate the theoretical presuppositions of biopolitical rationality. I provide a deconstruction of the conceptual and temporal structures upholding the notion of biopolitics, in view of laying the ground for new forms of resistance. The articulation between life and power has a long philosophical history, which has been largely ignored by social theorists and political thinkers using biopolitics as an interpretative model. I wish to re-inscribe this model within the tradition of critical materialism, by articulating Foucault’s ‘critical ontology’ to Marx & Engels’s conception of ‘real life’ and to recent philosophical works on biological plasticity (Malabou). In these discourses, the logic of biopower depends on a representation of life – ‘the living’ – as living present. Biopower is thus anchored in the authority of the present, that is to say, of being-as-presence (ontology); it sustains presentist definitions of life and materiality, be it under the form of a ‘plastic’ ontology. By drawing on Derrida’s notions such as ‘spectrality’ and ‘life-death’, I wish to deconstruct these discourses on life and materiality, and to dissociate them from their ontological grounding, in order to suggest new paths of resistance to biopower. This concerns the im-possibility of a politics of the event, hospitable to otherly life forms — life-beyond-life — and to anachronistic timescapes.
In order to substantiate my argument, I follow the tracks of “the monster” in the works of Marx, Foucault, Derrida and Malabou. Foucault tells us that the monster is a singular figure, parasitic and subversive, beckoning a life beyond life, at once organic and non-organic, located at the limit between the normal and the exceptional, and exceeding the scope of biopolitical normativity in both theoretical and practical terms. It exists at the intersection of what Foucault names “the symbolics of blood” and “the analytics of sex”. As such, it materialises a self-transformative dimension of the living which remains, I argue, inadequate to Malabou’s representation of plasticity. The monstrous is a self-deconstructive motif calling for another biopolitical rationality, before or beyond ontological reductions or reconstructions.
L'Oreille Cannibale. Réflexions sur la Décolonialité et la Déconstruction
Ce texte présente un ensemble de réflexions sur la pensée décoloniale et sur le travail de Jacque... more Ce texte présente un ensemble de réflexions sur la pensée décoloniale et sur le travail de Jacques Derrida — en particulier autour du concept de "différence coloniale" tel que Walter Mignolo l'oppose à la philosophie occidentale, y compris à la déconstruction.
Il s'agit d'une communication donnée à l'occasion de l'École d'Été du groupe de recherche EuroPhilosophie. La rencontre a eu lieu à l'Université Toulouse-Jean-Jaurès du 24 au 27 août 2016, avec comme thème général "Philosophies Européennes et Décolonisation de la Pensée". Le titre initial de ma communication était "Déconstruction et Colonialité: Penser la singularité au-delà du principe de pouvoir".
Il s'agit d'une communication donnée à l'occasion de l'École d'Été du groupe de recherche EuroPhilosophie. La rencontre a eu lieu à l'Université Toulouse-Jean-Jaurès du 24 au 27 août 2016, avec comme thème général "Philosophies Européennes et Décolonisation de la Pensée". Le titre initial de ma communication était "Déconstruction et Colonialité: Penser la singularité au-delà du principe de pouvoir".
Cosmopolitanism and Antagonism in Marx, Schmitt, Balibar, Derrida: Heterogeneous Universalities, Deracination, and Plurality of Worlds
After a long period of suspicion towards universalism, the notion of cosmopolitanism has received... more After a long period of suspicion towards universalism, the notion of cosmopolitanism has received a renewed interest from critical theorists in the early 2000s. In this lecture, I expose and compare Marx's and Schmitt's critiques of cosmopolitanism, as well as their legacies in critical theory. Then, I turn to Balibar’s and Derrida’s accounts of cosmopolitics and analyse their divergence on the articulation between universality, violence, and political ontology.
Violence beyond Pólemos: A Derridean Deconstruction of Foucault’s Concept of Power
"Power is war, the continuation of war by other means": Foucault's famous phrase is indubitably m... more "Power is war, the continuation of war by other means": Foucault's famous phrase is indubitably memorable, though extremely problematic. Elaborated during his 1976 lectures, Society Must Be Defended, this work hypothesis theorises "basic warfare" [la guerre fondamentale] as the teleological horizon of all social and political relations: following Boulainvilliers, Foucault champions this methodological approach as a purely descriptive discourse on the reality of warlike politics, supposedly inaccessible to the philosophico-juridical conceptuality attached to liberal society (Hobbes' theory of state sovereignty being here the prime example).
However, in doing so, Foucault did not interrogate the conceptual validity of the notions of power and war, therefore interlinking them without questioning their ontological status. This problematic conflation was partly rectified in 1982, as Foucault proposed a more dynamic definition of power relations: "actions over potential actions".
I argue, somewhat polemically, that Foucault's hermeneutics of power still involves a teleological violence, dependent on a polemological representation of human relations as essentially instrumental: this resembles what Derrida names, in "Heidegger's Ear", an 'anthropolemology'. However, I will demonstrate that all conceptualisation of violence or power (all that Heidegger, in his reading of Heraclites, defines as "pólemos") implies its own deconstruction. This self-deconstructive (or autoimmune) structure suggests the reversal of pólemos into its opposite, and opens politics and warfare to the messianic call of a pre-political, pre-ontological disruption: the arche-originary force of différance. Such force, unconditional by definition, goes to subvert Foucault's concept of power, and suggests the arche-violence of a hyper-sovereignty located before or beyond all hermeneutics of power/knowledge.
However, in doing so, Foucault did not interrogate the conceptual validity of the notions of power and war, therefore interlinking them without questioning their ontological status. This problematic conflation was partly rectified in 1982, as Foucault proposed a more dynamic definition of power relations: "actions over potential actions".
I argue, somewhat polemically, that Foucault's hermeneutics of power still involves a teleological violence, dependent on a polemological representation of human relations as essentially instrumental: this resembles what Derrida names, in "Heidegger's Ear", an 'anthropolemology'. However, I will demonstrate that all conceptualisation of violence or power (all that Heidegger, in his reading of Heraclites, defines as "pólemos") implies its own deconstruction. This self-deconstructive (or autoimmune) structure suggests the reversal of pólemos into its opposite, and opens politics and warfare to the messianic call of a pre-political, pre-ontological disruption: the arche-originary force of différance. Such force, unconditional by definition, goes to subvert Foucault's concept of power, and suggests the arche-violence of a hyper-sovereignty located before or beyond all hermeneutics of power/knowledge.
Politics of aimance and unconditional friendship; Deconstructing Western figures of lovence and politicality
In Politics of Friendship, Derrida elaborates the notion of aimance, usually translated as 'loven... more In Politics of Friendship, Derrida elaborates the notion of aimance, usually translated as 'lovence', although Balibar considers the term 'amity' as a fair approximation. Aimance designates a universal structure of experience which precedes and subverts the concept of friendship in its Western acceptation, thus exceeding the limits of determined and conditional figures such as philia, amicitia, amitié, etc. I will argue that, far from constituting a mere theoretical abstraction, aimance (conceived as unconditional friendship) allows a performative-transformative reframing of Western politics, and a profound deconstruction of IR.
First, aimance subverts the masculine codes of traditional friendship and fraternalism underlying European and Western democratic politics, by re-injecting the question of sexual difference (or différance) at the heart of their inherent phallocentrism. Secondly, aimance signifies both loving and being-loved, therefore unsettling the activity/passivity dichotomy; aimance thus designates a pre-subjective experience, which undermines traditional hermeneutics of power founded on the subject-object dualism. Hence, aimance, paradoxically, does not suppress violence; it demands an asymmetric, non-homogeneous conception of equality, open to the force of infinite alterity (hospitality). This messianic call precedes and conditions all secondary forms of politicality or conflictuality.
First, aimance subverts the masculine codes of traditional friendship and fraternalism underlying European and Western democratic politics, by re-injecting the question of sexual difference (or différance) at the heart of their inherent phallocentrism. Secondly, aimance signifies both loving and being-loved, therefore unsettling the activity/passivity dichotomy; aimance thus designates a pre-subjective experience, which undermines traditional hermeneutics of power founded on the subject-object dualism. Hence, aimance, paradoxically, does not suppress violence; it demands an asymmetric, non-homogeneous conception of equality, open to the force of infinite alterity (hospitality). This messianic call precedes and conditions all secondary forms of politicality or conflictuality.
Margins (of philosophy) and 'marginality' according to Derrida. Political readings.
Works in progress by Thomas Clément MERCIER
The Violence of Legitimacy: Democracy, Power, Antagonism (PhD Thesis, Abstract and Contents)
"The Violence of Legitimacy. Democracy, Power, Antagonism" offers a deconstructive reading of the... more "The Violence of Legitimacy. Democracy, Power, Antagonism" offers a deconstructive reading of the articulation between violence and legitimacy, with a focus on democratic politics and critical IR theory.
The violence-legitimacy "couple" is a traditional staple in dominant strands of political theory, relying as they do on the possibility to distinguish rigorously between legitimate violence (power) and illegitimate violence. By contrast, and drawing on Derrida's deconstructive approach to performativity, I argue that violence and legitimacy are co-constitutive, both originating from the violence of an "originary performativity." This originary force implies a redefinition of the articulation between violence and legitimacy, now exceeding hermeneutics of power and metaphysics of presence.
The bulk of my thesis consists in contrasting this deconstructive reading of performativity to critical strands of political theory which posited the partition between legitimate power and illegitimate violence in the context of democratic politics: Marx & Engels' theory of ideology, Weber's sociology of legitimacy, Schmitt's onto-theological politics, Foucault's critical epistemology, Mouffe's radical democracy, and Balibar's dialectics of Gewalt.
The violence-legitimacy "couple" is a traditional staple in dominant strands of political theory, relying as they do on the possibility to distinguish rigorously between legitimate violence (power) and illegitimate violence. By contrast, and drawing on Derrida's deconstructive approach to performativity, I argue that violence and legitimacy are co-constitutive, both originating from the violence of an "originary performativity." This originary force implies a redefinition of the articulation between violence and legitimacy, now exceeding hermeneutics of power and metaphysics of presence.
The bulk of my thesis consists in contrasting this deconstructive reading of performativity to critical strands of political theory which posited the partition between legitimate power and illegitimate violence in the context of democratic politics: Marx & Engels' theory of ideology, Weber's sociology of legitimacy, Schmitt's onto-theological politics, Foucault's critical epistemology, Mouffe's radical democracy, and Balibar's dialectics of Gewalt.
The Violence of Legitimacy. Democracy, Power, Antagonism (PhD Thesis, Outline)
"The Violence of Legitimacy. Democracy, Power, Antagonism" offers a deconstructive reading of the... more "The Violence of Legitimacy. Democracy, Power, Antagonism" offers a deconstructive reading of the articulation between violence and legitimacy, with a focus on democratic politics and critical IR theory.
The violence-legitimacy "couple" is a traditional staple in dominant strands of political theory, relying as they do on the possibility to distinguish rigorously between legitimate violence (power) and illegitimate violence. By contrast, and drawing on Derrida's deconstructive approach to performativity, I argue that violence and legitimacy are co-constitutive, both originating from the violence of an "originary performativity." This originary force implies a redefinition of the articulation between violence and legitimacy, now exceeding hermeneutics of power and metaphysics of presence.
The bulk of my thesis consists in contrasting this deconstructive reading of performativity to critical strands of political theory which posited the partition between legitimate power and illegitimate violence in the context of democratic politics: Marx & Engels' theory of ideology, Weber's sociology of legitimacy, Schmitt's onto-theological politics, Foucault's critical epistemology, Mouffe's radical democracy, and Balibar's dialectics of Gewalt.
This text was initially established as brief summary of my PhD thesis. It presents its overall argument, elements of problematisation, and a chapter outline.
The violence-legitimacy "couple" is a traditional staple in dominant strands of political theory, relying as they do on the possibility to distinguish rigorously between legitimate violence (power) and illegitimate violence. By contrast, and drawing on Derrida's deconstructive approach to performativity, I argue that violence and legitimacy are co-constitutive, both originating from the violence of an "originary performativity." This originary force implies a redefinition of the articulation between violence and legitimacy, now exceeding hermeneutics of power and metaphysics of presence.
The bulk of my thesis consists in contrasting this deconstructive reading of performativity to critical strands of political theory which posited the partition between legitimate power and illegitimate violence in the context of democratic politics: Marx & Engels' theory of ideology, Weber's sociology of legitimacy, Schmitt's onto-theological politics, Foucault's critical epistemology, Mouffe's radical democracy, and Balibar's dialectics of Gewalt.
This text was initially established as brief summary of my PhD thesis. It presents its overall argument, elements of problematisation, and a chapter outline.
Economies of Violence & Power: Legitimacy, Antagonism, and the Democratic Decision
This is the introduction to my PhD thesis, "The Violence of Legitimacy: Democracy, Power, Antagon... more This is the introduction to my PhD thesis, "The Violence of Legitimacy: Democracy, Power, Antagonism", in which I offer a deconstructive reading of the violence-legitimacy 'couple' in the context of democratic theory and International Relations theory.
On the basis of my reading of Derrida, I propose new interpretative models in order to understand the violence consubstantial with democratic power, without falling into the traps of ideology and legitimacy. In other words: how may we criticise democratic violence without repeating the self-legitimating discourses and categories which have been imposed on us through dispositives of power or structures of domination? How may we 'invent' something, something truly different? And what conception of democratic legitimacy could help us think something like a properly democratic 'event' — beyond power, antagonism, and performativity? and, maybe, beyond legitimacy?
My starting point is to analyse and deconstruct the concept of legitimacy — first through a historical overview and a reflection in conceptual terms, then through a reading of its most famous theoretician, Max Weber. This leads me to reflect on the conditions of possibility of legitimacy, which inseparably binds it to violence and conflictuality. I then discuss agonistic theories of democracy: chiefly Connolly, Laclau & Mouffe, Honig, and Balibar. These authors offer an intricate articulation between democratic legitimacy and conflictuality, but do they actually define violence and antagonism in the context of democracy? On these premises, I try to conceive a more originary articulation between violence of legitimacy by clarifying Derrida's notions of 'economy of violence' and 'arche-violence'. Finally, after introducing to my following chapters, I analyse the notion of 'critique' in its articulation to power and violence: this involves a discussion of Weber and Balibar's characterisation of democratic politics as a 'tragic' negotiation with its own violence.
On the basis of my reading of Derrida, I propose new interpretative models in order to understand the violence consubstantial with democratic power, without falling into the traps of ideology and legitimacy. In other words: how may we criticise democratic violence without repeating the self-legitimating discourses and categories which have been imposed on us through dispositives of power or structures of domination? How may we 'invent' something, something truly different? And what conception of democratic legitimacy could help us think something like a properly democratic 'event' — beyond power, antagonism, and performativity? and, maybe, beyond legitimacy?
My starting point is to analyse and deconstruct the concept of legitimacy — first through a historical overview and a reflection in conceptual terms, then through a reading of its most famous theoretician, Max Weber. This leads me to reflect on the conditions of possibility of legitimacy, which inseparably binds it to violence and conflictuality. I then discuss agonistic theories of democracy: chiefly Connolly, Laclau & Mouffe, Honig, and Balibar. These authors offer an intricate articulation between democratic legitimacy and conflictuality, but do they actually define violence and antagonism in the context of democracy? On these premises, I try to conceive a more originary articulation between violence of legitimacy by clarifying Derrida's notions of 'economy of violence' and 'arche-violence'. Finally, after introducing to my following chapters, I analyse the notion of 'critique' in its articulation to power and violence: this involves a discussion of Weber and Balibar's characterisation of democratic politics as a 'tragic' negotiation with its own violence.