Stasis Before the State: Nine Theses on Agonistic Democracy

Such an agonistic democracy is not understood here as a constitutional form but rather as the form of the constitution. This story emerges in Spinoza’s Theological Political Treatise as well as his Political Treatise and then in Marx’s notes on Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. According to this narrative, democracy is counter¬posed to sovereignty—that is, it does not presuppose sovereignty but is in fact presupposed by sovereignty. As I have argued in Sovereignty and Its Other, this alternative narrative can come to the fore only if we think of democracy in agonistic terms, that is, as being involved in a struggle with sovereignty.6 In this, I have been following Derrida and Negri, who—in different ways—draw a distinction between democracy and sovereignty. What I want to add here is that this agonism is monist. By monism I understand both the ontological condition that existence is never isolated but is always a “being with” and the political insight that there is only ever one constitution, democracy, and that all other constitutions are effects of democracy. I will develop this position in the form of nine Theses. This form of presentation inevitably results in elliptical arguments, but the upside is a more synoptic perspective, which is my aim. Further, I will show how stasis plays a crucial role in the narrative that identifies democracy as the form of the constitution. There are multiple reasons for this, not least of all that the term “constitution” is in fact the Latin translation of stasis in forensic rhetoric