Politics beyond the law in Giorgio Agamben

Abstract

This article analyzes Giorgio Agamben's proposal to think politics beyond law. The study is divided into two parts. In the first, I develop the broader argument of how the coming politics is conceived through the possibility of common use, especially considering the process of desubjectivation experienced in the society of the spectacle. In the second part, I specifically discuss Agamben's reading of the Franciscan monasteries, the only empirical example thoroughly analyzed by the author of a collective form-of-life that puts its own way of living at stake. Despite the study's essentially descriptive purpose, I seek to demonstrate that, in complex, plural, and neoliberal societies like the ones we live in, the critique of biopolitics must be conceived beyond, yet cannot dispense with law.

Keywords: Giorgio Agamben; Rule of law; Biopolitics; Form of life.