The London School of Economics and Political Science Toward a Negri-inspired theory of c/Constitution: A contemporary Canadian case study Jeffrey B. Meyers A thesis submitted to the Department of Law of the London School of Economics for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, London, September 30, 2011 1 of 242 Declaration I certify that the thesis I have presented for examination for the PhD degree of the London School of Economics and Political Science is solely my own work other than where I have clearly indicated that it is the work of others (in which case the extent of any work carried out jointly by me and any other person is clearly identified in it). The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. Quotation from it is permitted, provided that full acknowledgement is made. This thesis may not be reproduced without my prior written consent. I warrant that this authorisation does not, to the best of my belief, infringe the rights of any third party. I declare that my thesis consists of 99,997 words. 2 of 242 Acknowledgements Thanks to my supervisor, Igor Stramignoni, friend, mentor and taskmaster. For whatever works in this thesis he is owed much. Errors or omissions are mine and mine alone. Gratitude also to Antonio Negri's English language translators and editors who have made texts previously unavailable to non-Italian speakers increasingly open to research of the sort undertaken in this thesis. For everything, my family. 3 of 242 Abstract This thesis excavates Antonio Negri's theorization of the distinction between 'the material and formal constitution' (one which I distinguish throughout by way of capitalization as 'the material constitution' and 'the formal Constitution' or, in the shorthand contraction, 'c/Constitution'). In the first half of the thesis this is undertaken by way of a theoretical line of inquiry (Chapter I-III) and in the second as a series of concretized case studies drawn from contemporary Canadian constitutional historiography (Chapters IV-VI). The first chapter of this thesis (Chapter I) presents the October 1970 Front de libération de Québec (FLQ) Crisis as an event which contains within itself, not unlike similar events surrounding the kidnap and murder of Aldo Moro by the Brigate Rosse (BR) in 1978 Italy, the contours of a Negri-inspired entry into the subject matter. Chapter II offers a more situated analysis of some of Negri's key texts on the c/Constitution from the sixties, seventies, eighties and nineties to further ground the conceptual experiment underlying the thesis. Chapter III examines how Negri's thought is developed and brought up to date in his English language collaboration with Michael Hardt. Here, a significant detour will be taken through the critical literature responsive to Empire (2000). This is done first in a contemporary Canadian analysis of the form of sovereignty corresponding to 'Empire' (Chapter IV); second in a Canadian inquiry into the form of collective subjectivity understood by the concept of 'the multitude' (Chapter V); and, third in an Indigenous Canadian consideration of possible alternatives to the Constitution of the State in the 'constitution of the common' (Chapter VI). 4 of 242 Table of Contents PART I .......................................................................................................................... 9 Chapter I - Introduction ................................................................................................. 9 A. Social movements and terrorist violence: Italy and Canada of the sixties and seventies............................................................................................................ 11 An early transition to Empire ................................................................................ 15 The specificity of the Italian situation ................................................................... 18 The specificity of the Canadian situation .............................................................. 20 B. Toward a possible convergence in the Italian and Canadian examples .............. 21 The Indigenous question ..................................................................................... 23 The movement of bodies: (im)migration ............................................................... 24 The crisis of public and private rationalities .......................................................... 25 The emergence of the global metropolis .............................................................. 27 The legacy of violence ......................................................................................... 29 C. Canadian liberalism, the rule of law and rethinking the legacy of Trudeau: what can Negri contribute? ......................................................................................... 31 D. Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 35 Chapter II - Literature Review: Unearthing a ‗Negri-inspired‘ theory of c/Constitution . 38 A. Introduction ........................................................................................................ 39 B. The material and the formal c/Constitution ......................................................... 39 C. The constitution of language .............................................................................. 44 Locating Negri relative to his peers on the loosely ‗postructural‘ left .................... 46 Beyond the Constitution of the State and the subjectivity of ‗the People‘: Toward an alternative conceptual rubric ........................................................................... 47 D. A communist constitutionalism ........................................................................... 50 Beyond socialism: the critique of the social welfare state ..................................... 51 Realist or idealist? ............................................................................................... 53 E. Refusing the determination of labour by capital as much as constituent by constituted power ............................................................................................... 56 F. The Spinozian turn ............................................................................................. 57 The constitution of reality ..................................................................................... 58 Alternatives to the formal Constitution and the de-ontological normative science to which it corresponds ............................................................................................ 58 G. Insurgencies: previewing the collaboration with Hardt ........................................ 61 H. Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 63 5 of 242 Chapter III - Thinking about Empire: Updating a Negri-inspired theory of c/Constitution ................................................................................................................................... 64 A. Introduction ........................................................................................................ 64 B. The old question of form and content ................................................................. 66 C. The (new) question of constitution ..................................................................... 69 D. Why the multitude? ............................................................................................ 73 E. The problem of biopolitics and biopower ............................................................ 76 F. kairòs and the constitution of temporal events ................................................... 80 G. Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 83 PART II ....................................................................................................................... 87 Chapter IV - The APEC Affair and the Constitution of Empire ..................................... 87 A. Introduction ........................................................................................................ 88 B. Canada, APEC and Empire ............................................................................... 88 The question of locality: what does it mean to imagine a deterritorialized form of constitutionalism? ................................................................................................ 90 APEC‘s rules of entry and the logic of Capital ...................................................... 91 The APEC Affair: mise-en-scêne ......................................................................... 92 A ‗Charter-free zone‘? Reconsideration of ‗the Rule of Law‘ as much as the ‗autonomy of the Political‘ .................................................................................... 94 Bakan‘s hypotheses ............................................................................................ 96 Police Control (bio)Power: Understanding the relationship between ‗police right‘ and ‗the Rule of Law‘ ........................................................................................... 98 The strange confluence of the material and formal c/Constitution in ‗Police right‘ .......................................................................................................................... 100 The crumbling of the old and the emergence of the new ...................................