KEY CONCEPTS
The following is an evolving list of key concepts in critical legal theory, arranged by the thinker/theorist who elaborated or developed the concept. Wider, more thematic key concepts have been added in a separate section at the bottom of the page. We are keen to receive further contributions to key concepts: please refer to our call for contributions.
Theodor W. Adorno
Barbarism (Anna-Verena Nosthoff)
Giorgio Agamben
Oath (Sinan Oruc)
Messianic Kingdom (Signe Larsen)
Sovereign Exception (Amy O’Donoghue)
Stasis (Luca Siliquini-Cinelli)
Benedict Anderson
Imagined Community (Mikkel Flohr)
Hannah Arendt
The Right to Have Rights (Leila Faghfouri Azar)
Etienne Balibar
Equaliberty (Anna-Verena Nosthoff)
Roland Barthes
Myth (Shahd Hammouri)
Walter Benjamin
Anti-fetishism (James Martel)
Violence (Signe Larsen)
Pierre Bourdieu
Habitus (Liam Gillespie)
Sociodicy (Victor Shammas)
Judith Butler
Livability (Kathryn McNeilly)
Performativity (Stephen Young)
Gilles Deleuze
Ethics and Morality (Christos Marneros)
Jurisprudence (Christos Marneros)
Jacques Derrida
Democracy to Come (Daniel Matthews)
Declarations of Independence (Daniel Matthews)
Deconstruction (Catherine Turner)
Enrique Dussel
In Memoriam (Oscar Guardiola Rivera)
Frantz Fanon
Revolution (Josh Pallas)
Violence (Josh Pallas)
Denise Ferreira da Silva
Analytics of Raciality (Carson Cole Arthur)
Michel Foucault
Archaeology (Rachel Adams)
Biopolitics and Biopower (Rachel Adams)
Discipline (Stephen M Young)
Discourse (Rachel Adams)
Governmentality (Bal Sokhi-Bulley)
Parrēsia (Signe Larsen)
Power (Emre Kesser)
Nancy Fraser
Subaltern Counterpublics (Ioannis Kampourakis)
Hans-Georg Gadamer
Hermeneutics (Tanzil Chowdhury)
Paul Gilroy
Black Atlantic (Phil Kaisary)
Rene Girard
Mimetic Desire & the Scapegoat (Bernard Keenan)
Édouard Glissant
The Right to Opacity (Benjamin P Davis)
Luce Irigaray
Divinity (Abigale Rine Favale)
Equality (Yvette Russell)
Language (Yvette Russell)
Masculine Subjects (Ovidiu Anemtoaicei)
Space (Andrea Wheeler)
Teaching (Tomoka Toraiwa)
Touch (Jaleel Akhtar)
Frederic Jameson
Vanishing Mediator (Stephen M Young)
Martti Koskenniemi
Indeterminacy (Jean-François Thibault)
Karl Marx / Marxist Legal Theory
Alienation (Adriano Lotito)
Commodity-Form Theory of Law (William M. A. Chandler)
Dictatorship of the Proletariat (Dimitrios Kivotidis)
Security (George Rigakos)
State (Rafael Khachaturian)
Niklas Luhmann
Autopoiesis (Bernard Keenan)
Achille Mbembe
Necropolitics (Antonio Pele)
Jean-Luc Nancy
Abandonment (Gilbert Leung)
Jurisfiction (Gilbert Leung)
Right and Rights (Illan rua Wall)
Eco-Technics (Illan rua Wall)
Politics & the Political (Illan rua Wall)
Law (Gilbert Leung)
Human Rights (Jean-Luc Nancy)
Sovereignty (Jean-Luc Nancy)
Evgeny Pashukanis
Commodity-Form Theory of Law (William M. A. Chandler)
Rei Terada
Metaracial (Mackenzie Smith)
Carl Schmitt
Federation (Signe Larsen)
Katechon (Calvin Dieter Ullrich)
Baruch Spinoza
Conatus (Stephen Connelly)
Potentia (Stephen Connelly)
Natural right (Stephen Connelly)
Imperium (Stephen Connelly)
Interpretation (Stephen Connelly)
Iris Marion Young
Five Faces of Oppression (Mauricio Rebolledo)
THEMATICS
Critical Security Studies
Securitisation (Mikkel Flohr)
Settler Colonialism
Eliminationism (Faisal Al-Asaad)
Positions of Critique
Cynicism (Gilbert Leung)
TWAIL (Luis Eslava)
Critical Race Theory (series on ‘Our Favourite CRT’; various authors)