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.1 Indeed, one is tempted to suggest that Empire hasbeen so successful in encapsulating current conditions of social and intellectualproduction that it has failed to escape them, and that it too has become justanother commodity undergoing metamorphosis in our globalized, networked,academic market. 2 But, whether because there is no outside to Empire orbecause, as Spivak has suggested, the mainstream has never run clean, perhapsnever can, 3 there is no way to write about Empire without becoming somehowimplicated in its reproduction and amplification.We can, however, seek toengage in a constructive, rather than disabling complicity 4 with our sources,which here include not only Hardt s and Negri s Empire but also that moredecidedly mainstream publication, the World Bank s annual World DevelopmentReport.Hence, as critical scholars interested in the legal aspects of internationaleconomic institutions, our concern in this chapter is to determine whether Empireprovides us with any new tools with which to advance or refine our analysis andcritique.More specifically, given Empire s self-professed juridical orientation,5we ask whether the text helps us to understand the role that law plays in thecurrent global order.So, in our reading of Empire, we investigate the legalcontours of the ostensibly new imperialism whose arrival it heralds.In particular, we ask what insights it might provide for an engagement withwhat must by implication be a central institution of Empire, the World Bank(336).In this chapter, we juxtapose Empire with a text that has played animportant role in the constitution of the current order of legal imperialism, theWorld Bank s flagship annual publication, the World Development Report.Herewe will focus on the two most recent such reports.This exercise in concurrentreading suggests that instead of helping us to understand the legal mechanismsby which the World Bank and other multilateral economic institutions haveconstructed, and construct in an ongoing way, the current, putatively empirial global order, Hardt and Negri conceal those mechanisms by adopting an 74 EMPIRE S NEW CLOTHESessentially unidirectional and positivist conception of the relationship betweenlaw, states, and markets.6This conception of law produces three effects.The first is that, somewhatironically for a book that purports in some senses to be a work of jurisprudence,there is no account in Empire of the constitutive role of law, in relation either tothe social or to the market.Rather, despite the purported immanence of Empire,7in Hardt s and Negri s account the constitution of the world market appearsontologically prior to law; that is, it is the market that produces the laws ofEmpire.The role that law itself plays in the constitution of global markets aswell as of the subjects who operate within them is missing from their analysis.The second effect of adopting this one-way conception of law and states is toproduce a misreading of the rise of international law as evidence of a decline innational sovereignty (and national law), whereas in our argument, internationallaw is not distinct from nation, but rather an extraversion of the nation itself.Because of this misreading, Hardt and Negri mistakenly ascribe to Empiremodes of governance that are better understood as practices or modes of nationalsovereignty itself.8 The third and related effect of this positivist conception of lawis that Empire fails to recognize the way in which the concept of the rule oflaw itself operates as a sustaining narrative both for nations and for theinternational system of multilateral institutions.As we illustrate by reference tothe World Bank, interventions undertaken by international economic institutionsare frequently legitimated by reference to the rule of law. 9 Indeed, it would notbe going too far to assert that the normative framework of the current worldorder is increasingly framed in terms of this indeterminate yet presumptivelyuniversal concept.We argue that Empire reproduces (and hence reinforces) ratherthan dismantles this pervasive myth [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.1 Indeed, one is tempted to suggest that Empire hasbeen so successful in encapsulating current conditions of social and intellectualproduction that it has failed to escape them, and that it too has become justanother commodity undergoing metamorphosis in our globalized, networked,academic market. 2 But, whether because there is no outside to Empire orbecause, as Spivak has suggested, the mainstream has never run clean, perhapsnever can, 3 there is no way to write about Empire without becoming somehowimplicated in its reproduction and amplification.We can, however, seek toengage in a constructive, rather than disabling complicity 4 with our sources,which here include not only Hardt s and Negri s Empire but also that moredecidedly mainstream publication, the World Bank s annual World DevelopmentReport.Hence, as critical scholars interested in the legal aspects of internationaleconomic institutions, our concern in this chapter is to determine whether Empireprovides us with any new tools with which to advance or refine our analysis andcritique.More specifically, given Empire s self-professed juridical orientation,5we ask whether the text helps us to understand the role that law plays in thecurrent global order.So, in our reading of Empire, we investigate the legalcontours of the ostensibly new imperialism whose arrival it heralds.In particular, we ask what insights it might provide for an engagement withwhat must by implication be a central institution of Empire, the World Bank(336).In this chapter, we juxtapose Empire with a text that has played animportant role in the constitution of the current order of legal imperialism, theWorld Bank s flagship annual publication, the World Development Report.Herewe will focus on the two most recent such reports.This exercise in concurrentreading suggests that instead of helping us to understand the legal mechanismsby which the World Bank and other multilateral economic institutions haveconstructed, and construct in an ongoing way, the current, putatively empirial global order, Hardt and Negri conceal those mechanisms by adopting an 74 EMPIRE S NEW CLOTHESessentially unidirectional and positivist conception of the relationship betweenlaw, states, and markets.6This conception of law produces three effects.The first is that, somewhatironically for a book that purports in some senses to be a work of jurisprudence,there is no account in Empire of the constitutive role of law, in relation either tothe social or to the market.Rather, despite the purported immanence of Empire,7in Hardt s and Negri s account the constitution of the world market appearsontologically prior to law; that is, it is the market that produces the laws ofEmpire.The role that law itself plays in the constitution of global markets aswell as of the subjects who operate within them is missing from their analysis.The second effect of adopting this one-way conception of law and states is toproduce a misreading of the rise of international law as evidence of a decline innational sovereignty (and national law), whereas in our argument, internationallaw is not distinct from nation, but rather an extraversion of the nation itself.Because of this misreading, Hardt and Negri mistakenly ascribe to Empiremodes of governance that are better understood as practices or modes of nationalsovereignty itself.8 The third and related effect of this positivist conception of lawis that Empire fails to recognize the way in which the concept of the rule oflaw itself operates as a sustaining narrative both for nations and for theinternational system of multilateral institutions.As we illustrate by reference tothe World Bank, interventions undertaken by international economic institutionsare frequently legitimated by reference to the rule of law. 9 Indeed, it would notbe going too far to assert that the normative framework of the current worldorder is increasingly framed in terms of this indeterminate yet presumptivelyuniversal concept.We argue that Empire reproduces (and hence reinforces) ratherthan dismantles this pervasive myth [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]