Abstract
This article explores how and why contemporary nationalist ‘defence leagues’ in Australia and the UK invoke fantasies of law. I argue these fantasies articulate with Carl Schmitt’s theory of ‘nomos’, which holds that law functions as a spatial order of reason that both produces and is produced by land qua the territory of the nation. To elucidate the ideological function of law for defence leagues, I outline a theory of law as it relates to (political) subjectivity. Drawing on the work of Foucault, Agamben and Brown, I demonstrate how subjects form and are formed by historically contingent relationships to law in the contemporary neo-liberal moment. Turning to Lacan, I show how nationalistic invocations of law provide nationalists with a fantasy that the nation’s law represents them and holds them together (as the nation itself). Similarly, I argue that nationalists imagine that the other has their own law as well, which not only corresponds to the other, but functions as a legible index of the other’s otherness—a metonym for the threatening uncertainty and radical difference that the other represents. Drawing on Lacan’s concept of the big Other, I ultimately argue that nationalists aggressively (re)assert law not only to defend the nation, but to ensure their own symbolic and ontological security therein.
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Notes
Quoted in a video uploaded to YouTube (bs09b2s 2011).
Among such groups are included: the English Defence League, the South East Alliance (SEA) and the British National Front (BNP) in the UK; and the Australian Defence League (ADL), Reclaim Australia, the United Patriots Front (UPF), the True Blue Crew, and the Party For Freedom in Australia.
I refer to members of these groups as such not only because defence leagues are constructed as quasi-paramilitary organisations with their own uniforms, rankings, hierarchies and insignia, but more importantly, because members of these groups typically portray themselves as defenders of the nation.
To reiterate, I am not necessarily arguing that land and law really are what Schmitt says they are, but rather, that Schmitt's theory of nomos articulates with what land and law are for defence nationalists.
For Lacan's extended discussion, see ‘Production of the four discourses’ (Lacan 2007, pp. 11–26).
The elevation of the nation to the Other is facilitated by constructions of the nation in Western Liberal democracies. In these settings, nations are personified insofar as they are said to possess a 'will' of their own; in theories of popular sovereignty, this 'will' is said to reflect the collective will of the People, and is supposedly enshrined and protected in law. On this point, a number of foundational theorists of the Western nation and sovereignty can be read, including Locke (1689), Hobbes (1968), and Rousseau (1968).
To reiterate, throughout this article I am only suggesting that the nation and law function together in this way for defence nationalists. I am suggesting that a particular set of fantasies about self, nation and law—and the relationship(s) between these—lies at the core of defence nationalism. I am not suggesting that these orientations are universally or even broadly assumed. Indeed, many subjects, even many nationalists, assume entirely different orientations towards law and nation than those outlined in this article. There are a multitude of possible orientations towards law and nation that subjects can assume. Like the ‘defence nationalist’ orientation I theorise and historicise throughout this article, understanding any one of these possible formations would require (and merit) a detailed and sustained interrogation.
Kelsen’s theory of the Grundnorm—the ‘ground norm’ or ‘basic norm’—refers to the foundation of the legal system itself, which functions as the constant backdrop upon which legal debate and amendments occur (1967).
For an example, see Rush (2005) for a discussion of Mabo and Others v. The State of Queensland. As Rush elaborates, although the High Court of Australia ruled against the colonial declaration ‘terra nullius’, upon which the land called Australia and Australian law is founded, common law—and its ‘rule’—nevertheless continued.
For Lacan’s extended discussion, see ‘The function and field of speech and language in psychoanalysis’ (Lacan 2006, pp. 197–268).
This argument regarding the intrusion and extension of neo-liberalism articulates with Peter Sloterdijk’s analysis of widespread conceptualisations of globalisation. For Sloterdijk, these conceptualisations depict the ‘globe’ as an economic whole: ‘an enclosure so spacious one would never have to leave it’ (2013, p. 175), nor, it might be added, could one even leave if one desired.
For discussion, see Douzinas (2000).
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Gillespie, L. Laws of Inclusion and Exclusion: Nomos, Nationalism and the Other. Law Critique 31, 163–181 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10978-020-09264-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10978-020-09264-w