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This book focuses on the paradoxical character of law and specifically concerns the structural violence of law as the political imposition of normative order onto a "lawless" condition. The paradox of law which grounds and motivates Christoph Menke's intervention is that law is both the opposite of violence and, at the same time, a form of violence. The book develops its engagement with the paradox of law in two stages. The first shows why, and in what precise sense, the law is irreducibly characterized by structural violence. The second explores the possibility of law becoming self-reflectively aware of its own violence and, hence, of the form of a self-critique of law in view of its own violence. The Book's philosophical claims are developed through analyses of works of drama: two classical tragedies in the first part and two modern dramas in the second part. It attempts to illuminate the paradoxical nature of law by way of a philosophical interpretation of literature. There are at least two normative orders within the European ethical horizon that should be called "legal orders" even though they forego the use of coercion and are thus potentially nonviolent. These are international law and Jewish law. Understanding the relationship between law and violence is one of the most urgent challenges a postmodern critical legal theory faces today. Self-reflection, the philosophical concept that plays a key role in the essay, stands opposed to all forms of spontaneity.
Benjamin has pointed out in trenchant terms,40 the critique of the violence of law, which aims at its manifest appearance (which is to say, its means), suffers from one of two weaknesses. It must “proclaim a quite childish anarchism” that “[refuses] to acknowledge any constraint toward persons and [declares], ‘What pleases is permitted’ ” (“Critique”, 241). This critique of the violent means of law proceeds “in the name of a formless ‘freedom’ ” (“Critique”, 242) in whose perspective any constraint or mere stipulation appears as violent privation and injury; yet as
indiscriminate persecution of Muslim, Christian, other-faith, and secular civilians, ostensibly, and unlike most liberatory movements, in the service of its own very selective interpretation of religion. The case of Kurdish military activity in the region therefore indicates a noteworthy contrast with neo-jihadism. Differences between these movements can also be highlighted through comparison of the ideology of neo-jihadism and that of the political philosophy of anarchism. Despite its definition as terrorism by some, the PKK in fact claims inspiration from the principles of
. 66 Habermas, cited in Payrow Shabani, Democracy, Power, and Legitimacy, 71. 67 R. Wolff, In Defense of Anarchism (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1970 ), 23–7. 68
at any other time in history, before or since’ (Jensen 2006 : 370). Anarchism is often regarded as a significant driver of such movements (for a review see Hubac-Occhipinti 2006 ), although the causal relationship between ideas and membership of clandestine organisations is, at best, tenuous (Stevens 2011 ). As Jackson et al. ( 2011 : 160) argue in the context of religious terrorism, a ‘key
investigate how AQ and IS exist in a dialectical relationship with the dominant political-economic paradigm of neoliberalism. The investigation begins from the premise that ‘power and resistance’ discourses from the Enlightenment period to international colonialism, anarchism, communism, and the birth of late modern capitalism have defined the limits of possibility for opposition to oppressive political, social, and economic conditions ( Bloom 2016 ). Drawing on propaganda produced by AQ and IS, these discourses and the political activity they justify are investigated here
individualistic tenets of social liberalism ( Schumpeter 2010 ). Anarcho-socialism (aka ‘social anarchism’) can refer to anarcho-collectivism, anarcho-communism, or anarcho-syndicalist traditions, variously combining the (non-authoritarian) socialist political-economic principles of collectivist, non-hierarchical, and decentralised organisation of workplaces and municipalities, with protections for social freedom and provisions of mutual aid (Bookchin 1996; Escobar 2005 ). Marxism, then, broadly represents the promotion of collective social emancipation via radically
Britain, or the PLO in Israel/Palestinian Occupied Territories. Ideological groups. These are secular terrorist groups motivated by different ideologies, such as Marxism, Maoism, Anarchism, etc. Examples of such groups are the former Red Brigades in Italy, the Red Army Fraction (RAF) or Baader-Meinhof Gang in Germany, the FARC in Colombia, or the Shining Path in Peru