Levinas and Political Subjectivity in an Age of Global Biopower

A common way in which to apply Emmanuel Levinas? philosophy to legal and political theory is through an ?inverted? liberalist model, whereby the pre-political ethical duty to the other is politicized by the state, institutions, and rights. This paper argues such a position is untenable in the light of a progressive reading of sovereignty, and takes on the task of thinking an approach to Levinas and politics in the wake of law?s complicity with globalized sovereign biopower. In light of this complicity, and retaining the core of Levinas? philosophical thesis on subjectivity, it proposes ultimately that political subjectivity must be (i) structured against law, (ii) divorced from the goal of a just polity, and (iii) thought through a phenomenology of injustice.