Subjectivation and Cohesion : Towards the Reconstruction of a Materialist Theory of Law

On the basis of a reconstruction of legal theory in the tradition of Marx―a current that has been more or less silenced since the end of the 1970s―Subjectivation and Cohesion develops a critical counter-pole to the theories of law that predominate in social theory today.

To this end, the works of Franz Neumann, Otto Kirchheimer, Evgeny Pashukanis, Oskar Negt, Isaac D. Balbus, the so-called 'State-derivation School', Antonio Gramsci, Nicos Poulantzas and Michel Foucault are first analysed for their strengths and weaknesses, and then combined to form something new and much needed: a materialist legal theory that is fit for the present and which avoids the shortcomings of existing theories – above all their disregard for gender relations and the reductive consequences of functionalist, economic or politicist approaches to law.

Sonja Buckel, Ph.D. (1969), Kassel University, is Professor of Political Theory and chair of the Association for Critical Social Research (AkG). She is a lawyer and political scientist and has published on legal theory, European migration policy and critical social theory.