Poder Constituinte, O: Ensaios Sobre as Alternativas da Modernidade

by Antonio Negri

New Edition In the ten years since the initial publication of Insurgencies , Antonio Negri's reputation as one of the world's foremost political philosophers has grown dramatically. An invigorating appraisal of revolutionary thought, Insurgencies is both the precursor to and the historical basis for Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt's masterwork, Empire. At the center of this book is the conflict between "constituent power," the democratic force of revolutionary innovation, and "constituted power," the fixed power of formal constitutions and central authority. This conflict, Negri argues, defines the drama of modern rebellions. Now with a foreword by Michael Hardt, Insurgencies leads to a new notion of how power and action must be understood if we are to achieve a democratic future.

Genres: Politics, Philosophy, Nonfiction

Paperback

First published February 16, 2000

About the author

Antonio Negri was an Italian political philosopher known as one of the most prominent theorists of autonomism, as well as for his co-authorship of Empire with Michael Hardt and his work on the philosopher Baruch Spinoza. Born in Padua, Italy, Negri became a professor of political philosophy at the University of Padua, where he taught state and constitutional theory. Negri founded the Potere Operaio (Worker Power) group in 1969 and was a leading member of Autonomia Operaia, and published hugely influential books urging "revolutionary consciousness."
Negri was accused in the late 1970s of various charges including being the mastermind of the left-wing urban guerrilla organization Red Brigades (Brigate Rosse or BR), which was involved in the May 1978 kidnapping and murder of former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro. On 7 April 1979, he Negri was arrested and charged with a long list of crimes including the Moro murder. Most charges were dropped quickly, but in 1984 he was still sentenced (in absentia) to 30 years in prison. He was given an additional four years on the charge of being "morally responsible" for the violence of political activists in the 1960s and 1970s. The question of Negri's complicity with left-wing extremism is a controversial subject. He was indicted on a number of charges, including "association and insurrection against the state" (a charge which was later dropped), and sentenced for involvement in two murders.
Negri fled to France where, protected by the Mitterrand doctrine, he taught at the Paris VIII (Vincennes) and the Collège international de philosophie, along with Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Gilles Deleuze. In 1997, after a plea-bargain that reduced his prison time from 30 to 13 years, he returned to Italy to serve the end of his sentence. Many of his most influential books were published while he was behind bars. He hence lived in Venice and Paris with his partner, the French philosopher Judith Revel. He was the father of film director Anna Negri.
Like Deleuze, Negri's preoccupation with Spinoza is well known in contemporary philosophy. Along with Althusser and Deleuze, he has been one of the central figures of a French-inspired neo-Spinozism in continental philosophy of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, that was the second remarkable Spinoza revival in history, after a well-known rediscovery of Spinoza by German thinkers (especially the German Romantics and Idealists) in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Reviews

[Rodrigo · Rating 5 out of 5]

To hell with my professor. Negri does know what he is saying, and knows what a true work towards democracy looks like. Jesus I'm so sick of socialdemocrats

[Aaron Schuschu · Rating 4 out of 5]

On one hand, thanks to Negri, I think how and what Americans are taught regarding Machiavelli is horribly reductive and misleading. Negri is brilliant and well- read. On the other hand, I think that the bigger issue today is too much constituent power rather than constituted power limiting constituent power.

[Jacques le fataliste et son maître · Rating 4 out of 5]

Per descrivere la lotta fra potere costituente e potere costituito Negri passa in rassegna i grandi momenti di riflessione (e azione) rivoluzionaria, ciascuno dei quali individua un aspetto del potere costituente: «la sua natura democratica radicale così com’è descritta da Machiavelli; la temporalità delle masse rivoluzionarie parigine; il contropotere e l’appropriazione teorizzati da Harrington; la centralità del nuovo spazio politico costruito nella rivoluzione americana e dal costituzionalismo democratico: Rosa [Luxemburg] unifica ed esalta queste caratteristiche, rileggendone la sintesi e la crisi, il progetto e il limite nell’esperienza rivoluzionaria sovietica» (p. 364). Elementi che non corrono solo il rischio di essere soffocati e incatenati dal potere costituito («il costituzionalismo è trascendenza – ma soprattutto è la polizia che la trascendenza stabilisce sull’interezza dei corpi per imporgli l’ordine e la gerarchia. Il costituzionalismo è un apparato che nega il potere costituente e la democrazia», p. 397), ma anche di pervertirsi essi stessi e trasformarsi in mostruosità, come accade nell’esperienza rivoluzionaria sovietica: «il potere costituente leninista è rotto e subisce l’andarsene erratico dei suoi elementi costitutivi, ciascuno nella sua assolutezza, negli anni che immediatamente seguono la sua instaurazione. L’elemento machiavellico diviene dittatura, l’elemento temporale diviene teoria degli ‘stadi di sviluppo’, l’elemento spaziale diviene pratica imperialista, l’elemento di contropotere diviene burocrazia e difesa corporativa» (p. 367).
Il potere costituente, rivoluzionario, deve sfuggire a questi rischi e mantenersi forza sempre attiva: «occorre sdrammatizzare il concetto di rivoluzione rendendolo, attraverso il potere costituente, null’altro che il desiderio di trasformazione del tempo, continuo, implacabile, ontologicamente efficace. Una pratica continua e intrattenibile» (p. 413).
«La materialità metafisica del potere costituente si mostra in enormi incendi che illuminano di moltitudine le piazze degli imperi fatiscenti. Fra il 1968 e il 1989 le nostre generazioni hanno ben visto l’amore per il tempo opporsi a ogni e a tutte le manifestazioni dell’essere per la morte» (p. 414).

[Leonardo]

las antiguas nociones sobre el Imperio nos ayudan a articular mejor la naturaleza de este orden mundial en formación. Como nos enseñaron Tucídides, Livy y Tácito (junto con Maquiavelo comentando sus trabajos), el Imperio no se forma sobre la base de la fuerza propiamente, sino sobre la base de la capacidad para presentar a la fuerza colocada al servicio del derecho y la paz. Todas las intervenciones de los ejércitos imperiales son solicitadas por una o más de las partes involucradas en un conflicto ya existente. El Imperio no nace por su propia voluntad, sino que es llamado a ser y constituirse sobre la base de su capacidad para resolver conflictos. El Imperio se conforma y sus intervenciones se vuelven jurídicamente legitimadas sólo cuando se ha insertado en la cadena de consenso internacional orientada a resolver conflictos existentes. Retornando a Maquiavelo, la expansión del Imperio está enraizada en la trayectoria interna de los conflictos que se supone que debe resolver. El primer objetivo del Imperio es, por lo tanto, expandir el reino del consenso que sostiene su propio poder.

Acerca de las lecturas de Maquiavelo sobre el Imperio Romano, ver Antonio Negri, Il potree costituente (Milan: Sugarco, 1992), pp. 75-96; en inglés, Insurgencies: Constituent Power and the Modern State, trad. Maurizia Boscagli (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999)

Imperio Pág.18

[Paul.laytongmail.com · Rating 5 out of 5]

brilliant

[Carlo Mayer]

Finiti

[Nathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

omg, too hard to read!