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Tunisia and the Critical Legal Theory of Dissensus

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Abstract

Schmitt insists that the sovereign decision is unavoidable, that even an anarchist is caught in the trap of sovereignty when he tries to ‘decide against decision’. This article begins to think about a critical legal vocabulary that might suspend the necessity of the will to constitute, while emphasising the creativity of the constituent moment. The terms inoperativity, dis-enclosure and dissensus are developed and deployed in order to think about certain aspects of the Tunisian revolution. In particular, the article focuses upon the refusal of the state of the situation, the subtraction of loyalty and the insistence of a form of life beyond Ben Ali’s sovereign order.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the convenors of the Centre for the Study of Social & Global Justice at the University of Nottingham, the Law & Political Thought Seminar Series at Kings College, and the Art and Politics stream of the Political Studies Association (2012), for the opportunity to present this work during its gestation. Maria Aristodemou, Peter Edge, James Martel, Daniel Matthews, Bríd Spillane and Anastasiya Tataryn all read and provided incisive comments. Any errors or omissions are my own.

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  1. School of Law, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK

    Illan Rua Wall

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Wall, I.R. Tunisia and the Critical Legal Theory of Dissensus. Law Critique 23, 219–236 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10978-012-9107-8

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