Saul Newman

• Goldsmiths University of London

This paper will examine Max Stirner’s notion of ownness as an alternative paradigm of freedom. I argue that ownness – which implies a radical form of self-ownership or self-mastery – is not reducible to any of the familiar categories of freedom such as negative or positive liberty; nor does it fit in with the republican model of liberty as non-domi...

The aim of this article is to develop a theoretical understanding of the insurrection as a central concept in radical politics in order to account for contemporary movements and forms of mobilisation that seek to withdraw from governing institutions and affirm autonomous practices and forms of life. I will develop a theory of insurrection by invest...

This article uses the political philosophy of anarchism to critically interrogate the limits of legal authority, showing that the law’s claim to unconditional obedience ultimately is unjustified. Here I turn to Walter Benjamin to unmask the violent foundations of legal authority, and to explore critical and radical responses to this – through Georg...

This chapter explores some of the major problems, challenges and tensions that human rights face today. Human rights are situated on the horizon of the ubiquitous politics of securitization and immunity, in which the prerogatives of state sovereignty and the exigencies of protecting the community overtake human rights concerns. The properly transce...

Through ‘bare life, securitisation and the camp as its paradigm case ever tightens its grip. But what precisely is the nature of ‘bare life’ in Agamben's work and more generally? Such is the guiding question of this chapter. In particular, it shows that modernity's underlying framework is based on notions of need and scarcity: the human must, above...

In this chapter, Human rights in the formal modern sense are seen to have really come into being with the 1948 United Nations Declaration. However, there is also a strong eighteenth-century precedent in the form of the discourse of Natural Rights, and this is considered, as is Sophocles's Antigone. The key aspect of the chapter, however, is a retur...

This chapter explores and responds to a number of important critiques of Agamben's thinking, and considers the common perception that his thinking amounts to ethical nihilism and lacks political commitment. Firstly, it engages with the charge that Agamben downplays the significance and uniqueness of the Nazi camps by seeing them as part of a broade...

What is the precise relation of Agamben's and Guy Debord's notion of the image? But, even more, what is an image and how does it relate to the human? These are the guiding questions of this chapter. It is shown that the image is ubiquitous in today's society, but that there is little appreciation of the exact nature of the image. Agamben himself is...

The task of this chapter is to clarify what we see as Agamben's understanding of politics, a question which is otherwise very opaque in his work. It is argued here that seeing Agamben as a political thinker – which we do — relies on being able to make a coherent distinction between politics and power. Here this distinction is explored through, firs...

Ultimately, it is judged that sovereign power is the enemy of human rights, which must have a transcendent element. Securitisation (concern for the existing situation) always puts a damper on transcendence. Is it possible – and if so, how? – to escape the dominance of sovereign power? By analysing sovereignty (including the respective approaches on...

This chapter is concerned with the extent to which a theory of language as essentially ungrounded can contribute to a deeper appreciation of the human. In this light, Agamben emphasises Benveniste's distinction between énonciation (act of stating – the existential character of discourse) and énoncé (the completed statement). For Agamben, the human...

Can human rights protect the stateless? Or are they permanently excluded from politics and condemned to 'bare life'?. Human rights are in crisis today. Everywhere one looks, there is violence, deprivation, and oppression, which human rights norms seem powerless to prevent. This book investigates the roots of the current crisis through the thought o...

The key theme in this essay is the rethinking of the human, as inspired by the work of Giorgio Agamben and Hannah Arendt. The human here is not a model or concept to be realised, just as community to which the human is linked is not an ideal, but a ‘community to come’. This is revealed only by paying close attention to modes of bearing witness to t...

This chapter examines the conditions for radical politics today against the background of a rapacious globalising capitalism and an increasingly aggressive and authoritarian state sovereignty. Taking postmodernity as its theoretical background, and globalisation as its political background, it explores the ‘anti-globalisation’ movement. It argues t...

This chapter explores the crisis of democracy today — the way that, in the conditions of the ‘war on terror’ and with the ideological consensus that has emerged around the ‘free market’ and ‘security’, the term ‘democracy’ has become largely meaningless. However, rather than simply abandoning democracy, it suggests that democracy contains a radical...

Postmodernity, as a logic of differentiation, heterogeneity, and flux not only gives impetus to new struggles of emancipation, but, perversely, also defines a new field of power and domination which these struggles must contend with. The question of power has always been central to radical politics. This chapter examines the concept of power, argui...

This chapter outlines some of the characteristics of the ‘postmodern condition’ as defined by Jean-François Lyotard. The cultural condition of postmodernity, which emerges with late capitalism, has led to a dislocation of our accepted political reality. Instead of the universal discourses and ‘metanarratives’ of the past, which were founded on the...

In this article I will explore the paradoxical relationship between anarchism and realism in International Relations (IR) theory. I will do this in an oblique way by uncovering an uncomfortable complicity shared by that existentialist and heretical realist, Carl Schmitt, with his ideological arch-enemies the anarchists. In their diametrically oppos...

This chapter examines the ambiguous relationship between violence, law, and sovereignty in the context of terrorism today. It focuses, not on normative questions about terrorist violence, but on its structural relationship to law and the sovereign state. It substitutes states' differing approaches to the issue with the equally relevant "modern dial...

Social theory has, in recent times, taken a spatial turn. In the case of political theory, discussions about the spatial dimensions and imaginaries of politics have drawn on political geography in order to investigate the contours of pluralism, the public space, democratic agonism, social movements, and the post-national spaces of globalisation. If...

This article outlines a politics of postanarchism, which is based on a radical renewal—via poststructuralist theory—of classical anarchism's critique of statism and authority and its political ethics of egalibertarianism. I contend that while many of the theoretical categories of classical anarchism continue to be relevant today—and indeed are beco...

In the wake of the collapse of Marxism, the unseemly demise of social democracy and the increasingly illiberal nature of so-called liberal societies, questions are now being raised about the future direction of radical politics. Amidst a certain disengagement from mainstream political parties, and a crisis of legitimacy in the established political...

What is the relevance of anarchist thought for politics and political theory today? While many have dismissed anarchism in the past, Saul Newman contends that anarchism's heretical critique of authority, and its insistence on full equality and liberty, places it at the forefront of the radical political imagination today. With the unprecedented exp...

In 1844, Max Stirner, a little-known figure in German philosophical circles at that time, presented to the world a nuclear bomb in the form of a book. Der Einzige und sein Eigentum (The Ego and its Own) was described as the ‘most revolutionary book ever written’.1 It is certainly the most dangerous. In marking a break with all established categorie...

The aim of this book is to explore the contemporary significance of the German philosopher and Young Hegelian, Max Stirner. Stirner (1806-1856) whose real name was Johann Kaspar Schmidt, is a lesser-known figure whose relative obscurity, at least from the point of view of contemporary scholarship, is belied by his tremendous impact on some of the m...

This paper develops a postanarchist conception of power by using Foucault to reveal some of the tensions and limitations within classical anarchist theory. As a Foucauldian poststructuralist analysis shows, the operation of power is more complex and constitutive than was allowed in classical anarchist theory, which tended to focus on state sovereig...

This chapter revisits the classical anarchism of such thinkers as Godwin, Bakunin, Proudhon, and Kropokin, examining the key elements of their political philosophy: the rejection of the state and centralised political authority; the scepticism about democracy, the social contract and other legitimating discourses of the state; and the critique of p...

This chapter explores utopian moments of rupture and contestation as they emerge on the terrain of radical politics today, particularly in struggles against globalised capitalism. It argues that these diverse movements of resistance – indigenous groups, anti-capitalist networks, environmental activists, anti-war movements, and so on – are ultimatel...

This chapter re-examines the debate between anarchism and Marxism. It argues that anarchism provides an alternative theory of state power, one that sees the state as a largely autonomous political dimension which is not reducible to a class analysis or to the dominant mode of production. This alternative conceptualisation of the state led, during t...

This chapter explores certain problems with this conceptualisation of social relations. It engages in an interrogation of the Enlightenment humanist paradigm in which classical anarchism is conceived, showing that the deep ontological foundations which form the basis of its philosophy – foundations in human nature, scientific enquiry, and the imman...

This chapter takes up this notion of politics outside the state, showing the relevance of this idea to continental radical thought today and situating anarchism within debates among continental thinkers such as Alain Badiou, Jacques Ranciére, Michael Hardt, and Antonio Negri. It shows that many of the themes and preoccupations of these thinkers ref...

This book explores the relevance of anarchism for contemporary politics. The author contends that this long neglected and almost heretical political philosophy is becoming increasingly central to radical struggles and movements today, especially in the wake of the collapse of the Marxist revolutionary projects and with the terminal decline of both...

This paper explores the relevance of anarchism for current debates in continental radical political philosophy. It argues that anarchism – as a form of politics which proposes the abolition of state power – is the unacknowledged referent for radical politics today, and that contemporary thinkers such as Alain Badiou, Jacques Ranciere and Michael Ha...

We’ve heard a lot of talk recently about ‘change’, the ‘need for change’. Was this not the catch-cry of the Obama presidential campaign in 2008? The precise changes proposed were never really spelled out — they merely signified the idea of a break with the past, a new direction for the future of the USA. Of course, it remains to be seen what kinds...

Ever since that global event, September 11, there has been—under the dubious banner of “security”—an unprecedented accumulation of state powers of control, detention and surveillance, and a severe curtailment of what were formally seen as vital civil liberties, legal protections, and democratic rights. Everything from the expansion of electronic an...

So far we have considered a number of dimensions to what we have seen as a new political paradigm that is emerging with the ‘war on terror’. The first of these has been the politics of security — that is, the overwhelming obsession with security that has come to dominate our societies. As we have shown, however, not only does the deliberate vaguene...

When it comes to everyday discourse about political agency, there is a disturbing asymmetry between the kinds of explanation that tend to be offered of one’s own group and those offered of foreign or enemy groups. The actions and motivations of political actors in one’s own camp, say Western politicians, tend to be rationalized and understood in te...

This chapter deals with an issue not much dealt with in the literature on terror — that of lying. It may at first seem a background or preliminary problem. It proves, however, to be very much at the centre of what has happened to politics as it responds to terrorism. It underpins a subversion of discourses on terror, tolerance and democracy, as wel...

Political responses to terror have to be understood in context of the kinds of prejudice and irrationality that underlie and mar relations between Western and non-Western cultures. But do orthodox liberal democratic conceptions of political justice and good political practice have the resources to combat these prejudices and their role in the forma...

On the 22 July 2005, a day after the attempted bombings on the London transport system, a young, semi-employed Brazilian electrician was shot dead at point blank range by plain clothes police officers as he boarded a train at a subway station in South London. At the inquest into the killing of this innocent commuter, the police defended their ‘shoo...

In the last chapter we explored the state of exception in terms of its implications for domestic politics. The moment of exception referred to the way that the sovereign defines a state of emergency and decides unilaterally on how to respond to it, suspending the legal framework which would otherwise limit it. The state of exception is therefore a...

The previous chapter explored some of the ethical and political tensions central to liberal democracy — tensions highlighted in Ignatieff’s ultimately unsuccessful attempt to reconcile liberal democratic principles and institutions with various forms of state violence and coercion in response to the threat of terrorism. Unlike Ignatieff, we have ar...

In this paper I will explore the paradoxical relationship between anarchism and utopianism, and examine the significance of utopian thinking for radical politics more generally. I will suggest that there has always been a utopian dimension in anarchist thought, not only in the more consciously utopian imagination of Le Guin, Morris and Landauer, bu...

This chapter explores the political implications of the new technology of control described by Gilles Deleuze in his essay on societies of control. It describes how a wide variety of new techniques of control immediately position people as subjects of risk and suspicion, and suggests that the emergence of the control society is coextensive with the...

How has September 11 and the declaration of the 'global war on terror' changed our conceptions of politics? How has it affected our understanding of democracy, human rights, personal freedom and government accountability? How should we respond in the face of growing violence and authoritarianism? In answering these questions, the authors engage in...

This article will explore William Connolly's notion of democratic pluralism—his attempt to develop a notion of agonistic democracy that is compatible with pluralism and difference, and that does not found itself on totalising ideas and essentialist identities. As part of the pluralisation of democracy, Connolly hints at the possibility of a democra...

In the post-Marxist era—in the time defined, in other words, by the eclipse of Marxism and the state socialist projects that emerged in its name—it would seem that radical left politics is adrift in uncertain waters. It would appear that we are living, as Jacques Rancière would say, in the age of "post-politics," where the global neo-liberal consen...

Ethicists working in either ‘just war’ and/or ‘human rights’ traditions continue to be embroiled with the definition of terrorism and the question of whether terrorism can ever be morally justified; obsessed with non-combatant immunity and criteria for distinguishing combatants from non-combatants; and examining ‘the doctrine of double effect’. The...

The authors argue that the 'war on terror' marks the ultimate convergence of war with politics, and the virtual collapse of any meaningful distinction between them. Not only does it signify the breakdown of international relations norms but also the militarization of internal life and political discourse. They explore the 'genealogy' of this situat...

Recentemente, as políticas radicais vêm enfrentan-do novos e numerosos desafios, dentre eles, a reemer-gência do Estado agressivo e autoritário, juntamente com seus novos paradigmas de segurança e biopolítica. A "guerra ao terror" serve como mais um disfarce para legitimar a reafirmação coercitiva do princípio de sobe-rania estatal, ultrapassando o...

This book explores the impact of poststructuralism on contemporary political theory by focussing on problems and issues central to politics today. Drawing on the theoretical concerns brought to light by the 'poststructuralist' thinkers Foucault, Derrida, Lacan, Deleuze and Max Stirner, Newman provides a critical examination of new developments in c...

This paper explores the implications of Lacanian psychoanalytic theory for radical politics today. Focusing on anarchism as a revolutionary alternative to Marxism, the paper develops Lacan's argument about the paradoxical relationship between freedom, transgression and authority, as well as his theory of the four discourses, in order to rethink the...

The aim of this paper is to explore, through key Lacanian psychoanalytic concepts, the theoretical dimensions of a post-Foucauldian understanding of power. It is argued that while Foucault's treatment of power freed it from its foundations in sovereignty and essentialist subjectivity, it nevertheless lacked a specific psychic dimension that would e...

This article examines the concept of a central, symbolic place of power in political theory. I trace the genealogy of “place” from sovereign conceptions of power in classical political theory to the problem of state power in radical politics. I then examine the theoretical and political implications of Foucault’s reconfiguration of the concept of p...

The aim of the paper is to examine the logic of empiricist pluralism in the work of Deleuze and Stirner. I suggest that there is a parallel between Max Stirner's critique of Hegelian idealism and Feuerbachian humanism, and Gilles Deleuze's philosophy of difference and empiricist pluralism. I will explore these similarities through a discussion of b...

The purpose of this paper is to explore and to develop a post-Kantian concept of freedom—that is, a notion of freedom that is not circumscribed by the categorical imperative or determined by pre-ordained rational and moral coordinates. The paper attempts this through an exploration of Max Stirner’s and Michel Foucault’s reflections on freedom. Both...

The aim of this essay is to Max Stirner's critique of liberalism and to show the ways in which his rejection of essential identities and universal rational structures allows us to reflect upon the limits and epistemological conditions of liberal political theory. Through his rejection of Feuerbachian humanism, Stirner unmasked the obscurantism and...

This paper explores Max Stirner's political philosophy and its importance for contemporary theory. While our time is characterized by the breaking down and dislocation of essential and universal identities, little has been written on the philosophical roots of this phenomenon. I show the ways in which Stirner's ‘epistemological break’ with Enlighte...

This paper examines Max Stirner's significance for contemporary theories of ideology. Stirner was one of the first to develop a radical political critique of ideology. In a time when the 'end of ideology' thesis has gained ground, both through post-structuralist and normative theories, Stirner's critique allows us to breathe new life into the conce...

In this paper I investigate the problem of voluntary servitude — first elaborated by Etienne de la Boëtie — and explore its implications for radical political theory today. The desire for one's own domination has proved a major hindrance to projects of human liberation such as revolutionary Marxism and anarchism, necessitating new under-standings o...

Postanarchism is emerging as an important new current in anarchist thought, and it is the source of growing interest and debate amongst anarchist activists and scholars alike, as well as in broader academic circles. Given the number of internet sites, discussion groups, and new books and journal publications appearing on postanarchism, it is time t...