Giorgio Agamben

Agamben, Giorgio: Agamben suggests the word democracy has at least two, distinct meanings that often get mistakenly conflated. First, democracy refers to the political agreements (such as a constitution, public law, social norms) through which the people organize and make collective decisions. Agamben calls this a “political-juridical” rationality—meaning this aspect of democracy refers to the creation of laws, and the constant revision of law, by the people of any given collective.

Second, democracy refers to a technique of governing, or the set of administrative practices (such as a government, police, voting, legislation etc) through which the state and it’s citizens interact. Agamben calls this an “economic-managerial” rationality—this aspect of democracy assumes we must manage the power of the individual citizen by carefully regulating their freedom and obligations. The key distinction here is that the former refers the political activity of making laws, while the second refers to the executive activity of enforcing these laws (and enforcing is not a political activity in the same sense). To further clarify this distinction, Agamben distinguishes between the Sovereign—a body of persons (elected or not) which has the right to legislate—and a government—a purely executive power that administers laws created not of itself but (presumably) by the people. According to Agamben, contemporary democracy mistakenly refers most often to the system of government that enforces the laws, rather than constitution and agreements made by the people. Indeed, contemporary democratic politics even conflates the two, assuming enforcement or government is an extension of the constitution or sovereign, when in fact the former often serves to render law impermeable, and separates the people and creators of the law from their ability to revise and contest it. For Agamben, recognizing that law and it’s enforcement—the constitution and the government—are not the same is key to growing the potential of democracy. Agamben says, “the central mystery of politics is not sovereignty but government; not God, but his angels; not the king but his minister; not the law but the police.” For Agamben, the true space where new and better politics evolve is in between these two definitions. It is after the law is made but before it is permanently institutionalized and encoded through force. In this space, the meaning behind the law is still fresh and has not lost its power by becoming habitually repeated. In this in between space, politics can still be chosen freely rather than enforced, contested rather than obeyed, complicated rather than rendered mute. - Rebekah Sinclair

References:

• Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Translated by Daniel Heller-Roazen. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998; Homo sacer: Il potere sovrano e la nuda vita, Giulio Einuadi, 1995.
• “Introductory Note on the Concept of Democracy,” in Democracy in What State. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011.
• Means without End: Notes on Politics. Translated by Vincenzo Binetti and Cesare Casarino. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000; Mezzi sensa fine, Bollati Boringhieri, 1996. (ME)
• Potentialities: Collected Essays in Philosophy. Edited and Translated by Daniel Heller-Roazen. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999.