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 a new construction: a materialist legal theory that is up to date and can avoid the shortcomings of existing theories - above all their disregard for gender relations and the reductive consequences of functionalist, economic or politicist approaches to law.

This book was originally published in German as Subjektivierung und Kohasion. Zur Rekonstruktion einer materialistischen Theorie des Rechts, by Velbruck Wissenschaft, 2007, ISBN 978-3-938808-29-0.