Democracy's Empire Sovereignty, Law, and Violence

The essays in this volume take on the challenge of explaining the current formation of the relation between sovereignty, law and violence in what is termed 'Democracy's Empire'. Democracy's Empire attempts to capture the co-appearance of the proliferation of democracy as the political formation that institutes and sustains freedom, equality, and emancipation - and along with it, the proliferation of death, destruction and the abject condition of life. A period of history where there was supposed to be some consensus about the legitimate source of authority and the legal structures that would administer such norms has turned out to be a time when war as a sovereign exception has been instituted in an ever increasing number of places. The volume contains a situated discussion of the institution of democracy and related juridico-political problems. Fir instance, South Africa was supposed to be the exemplary instance of democratization - an example of the constitutionalisation of politics for all the 'failed states' and post-conflict, post-racist societies to follow. From the death of politics in South Africa to the institution of a certain normalisation of death in the 'constitutional' process taking place in Iraq, this volume poses the problem of violence and death at the heart of the institution of democracy. The formation of the demos and its rule has long been attended by forms of sovereign violence, and these are examined through essays which reflect on the historical and philosophical legacies which inform Democracy's Empire - such as the Roman Republic, the separation between Church and State in the enlightenment, formations of revolutionary violence, and the relation between norm and exception. The volume contains essays which offer a mixture of historical and philosophical treatment of democracy as a juridical problem of constitutional violence.

Stewart Motha is Lecturer in Law at the University of Kent.