Ebook: Critiquing Sovereign Violence: Law, Biopolitics and Bio-Juridicalism

Criticises 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.

Rae engages with new translations of 'The Beast and the Sovereign' and 'The Death Penalty' to show that Derrida offers a radical and alternative angle in which violence is placed between law and life, simultaneously creating and regulating each through the other.