The Destituent Urge Is Also a Destructive Urge: Agamben, Aristotle, and Benjamin on the Potentiality for Destitution

Abstract

This article argues that a theory of destituent power must imply a twofold strategic orientation toward the state, based simultaneously in desertion and destruction. The article opens by first situating Giorgio Agamben's account of destituent power within the broader framework developed throughout his Homo Sacer project. Through a close consideration of his engagements with both Aristotle's modal ontology and Walter Benjamin's political theology, it aims to demonstrate that, although Agamben tends to disavow their consequences, the theoretical resources on which his project depends nevertheless entail destructive capacities.