Defective institutions: A protocol for the Republic

Authors

  • Jacques Lezra University of California Riverside
  • Paula Cucurella University of California Riverside

Abstract

This essay asks why the concept of “institution” – ubiquitous, fundamental, the mark of what distinguishes human society from non-human animal groupings such as packs, herds, flocks, colonies or swarms – is so difficult to define. The essay introduces the concept of “defective institutions”. It offers definitions of “institution”, “defect” and “republicanism” in philological, philosophical, economic and sociological terms. It stresses the structural problem of offering definitions of these terms from within institutions that require such definitions, but which also serve as the condition of their intelligibility. Taking the anarcho-philosophical tradition as its starting point, it offers an alternative, which is also an alternative to the figures of governance associated with the liberal conception of the state: an aberrant republicanism comprised of defective institutions, and riddled with the necessity for its own abolition.

Keywords

republicanism, institution, Materialism, abolitionism, afropessimism, family abolition, police abolition, logic, political philosophy, democracy

Author Biography

Jacques Lezra, University of California Riverside

Jacques Lezra is professor of English and Hispanic Studies at the University of California, Riverside (USA). He has published Wild Republic: Of the Nature of Things (Santiago, Chile: Macul, 2020); On the Nature of Marx’s Things (English, 2018; Spanish, 2022); Wild Materialism: The Ethic of Terror and the Modern Republic (English, 2010; Spanish, 2012). In 2016 he published Contra todos los fueros de la muerte: El suceso cervantino (Buenos Aires). Forthcoming is his latest book, Defective Institutions: A Protocol for the Republic (Nueva York, 2024). With Hugo Rodríguez Vecchini, Lezra co-translated Paul de Man’s Blindness and Insight (1992) (Visión y ceguera: Ensayos sobre la retórica de la crítica contemporánea, 1991) into Spanish. He also translated Alain Badiou’s seminar “L’Un” (New York: Columbia, 2023) into English. With Georgina Dopico he coedited Sebastián de Covarrubias: Suplemento al “Tesoro de la lengua castellana, o española” (Madrid, 2001).

Published

2023-10-26

How to Cite

Lezra, J., & Cucurella, P. (2023). Defective institutions: A protocol for the Republic. Enrahonar. An International Journal of Theoretical and Practical Reason, 71, 43–63. https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/enrahonar.1484

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