Foucault News

News and resources on French thinker Michel Foucault (1926-1984)

Gavin Rae,Critiquing Sovereign Violence. Law, Biopolitics, Bio-Juridicalism Edinburgh University Press, 2019

Critiques the historically dominant classic–juridical model of sovereign violence and defends a bio-juridical model instead

  • Works across the disciplines of critical theory, political theory, biopolitical theory, poststructuralism and deconstruction
  • Develops three models – radical-juridical, biopolitical, and bio-juridical – to understand contemporary debates
  • Situates current thinking in relation to the classic–juridical model, thereby linking contemporary debates to historical ones
  • Moves beyond the dominant biopolitical model to a bio-juridical paradigm

Gavin Rae offers an original approach to sovereign violence by looking at a wide range of thinkers, which he organises into three models. Benjamin, Schmitt, Arendt, Deleuze and Guattari form the radical-juridical perspective; Foucault and Agamben the biopolitical; Derrida the bio-juridical – which Rae argues produces the most nuanced account.

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