In this hybrid session, we propose to think with the concept of ‘global disorder’ in reflecting on contemporary reconfigurations of global governance. Our interest is not in ‘disorder’ as a state of affairs – that is to say, ‘disorder’ as compared to ‘order’ as a defining characteristic of the current state of the world – but rather ‘disordering’ as both a technology of rule and a strategy of emancipation.
On one side, ‘disordering’ speaks to the emancipatory aspirations of international law, and in particular to the contemporary condition of critical international legal practice. Even as critical international lawyers have subjected the Eurocentrism and fin de siècle liberal internationalism of international law to decades of trenchant critique, their work has reproduced as much of that legacy as it has destabilised. Critical international legal scholarship, as a whole, leans heavily on the epistemic legacy of liberalism, including its structuring binaries. In this context, a ‘disordering sensibility’ may be required to enact a more complete rupture with those legacies, to facilitate an openness to non-dualist alternative traditions and practices, and to pursue a more thoroughgoing critique and reinvention of international law.
At the same time, it is productive to situate the notion of a ‘disordering sensibility’ in relation to reflexive impulses within liberalism itself. We have in mind here the centrality afforded to capacities of self-reinvention and transformative innovation within liberal traditions of government – both as constitutive elements of freedom, and as legitimating objectives of rule. Famously, late 20th century neoliberalism works to produce flexible and adaptable subjects, as well as responsive market institutions, and enlists competitive markets in the pursuit of social as well as technological dynamism. To these ends, it involves the deployment of technologies of ‘disordering’, by which we mean techniques of governance which work by rendering their objects unstable, insecure, or provisional.
How should we understand the relation between contemporary practices of ‘disordering’ as a technology of rule, on one side, and a strategy of emancipation on the other? What do they share, and how do they differ? What, moreover, can we say about their historical conditions of possibility? In what sense might they be co-constitutive – or at least set conditions and limits on one another? In this seminar we will approach these questions from two directions: first, by reminding ourselves of a Foucauldian tradition of thinking about neoliberalism as itself a mode of critique and a means of ‘disenchanting’ politics; and second, by considering contemporary responses to the binaries that neoliberal ‘disenchantment’ generated. Specifically here, we will consider what approaches have been adopted by critical legal scholars when intervening in contemporary challenges of global governance and how their framing of international law affects any characterisation of the role of disordering in response.
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About Theory Talks
Theory Talks provides a forum for research fellows and visiting scholars of the Max Planck Institute to discuss questions relating to legal, political, and moral theory. The seminars take place quarterly, and include a short introductory talk (10-15 minutes) followed by a general discussion. Each seminar will focus on a new publication, a classic text, or a current development. All are welcome to participate in the discussions.
Contact: Annika Knauer and Anna Sophia Tiedeke
For previous sessions, please check the Archive.
Silvia Steininger and Tom Sparks co-founded the discussion group in 2018 and organized sessions until 2024. From 2021-2023, Francesca Iurlaro was part of the organizing team.
Fellows or visitors wishing to present in or to suggest a theme for a future edition of Theory Talks are warmly invited to contact theory-talks@mpil.de.