Kukovec, Damjan --- "Subject-object dialectics and social change" [2017] ELECD 925; in Bardutzky, Samo; Fahey, Elaine (eds), "Framing the Subjects and Objects of Contemporary EU Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 45

Book Title: Framing the Subjects and Objects of Contemporary EU Law

Editor(s): Bardutzky, Samo; Fahey, Elaine

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781786435736

Section: Chapter 3

Section Title: Subject-object dialectics and social change

Author(s): Kukovec, Damjan

Number of pages: 19

Abstract/Description:

This chapter will explore the intellectual history of thinking about subject-object dialectics in social and political theory that can assist us in seizing the transformative possibilities of society today. What does the subject-object dialectic teach us about the construction of legal subjects and how does it help us address and resist the existing global hierarchical structure? This chapter will explore how some understandings of the subject-object distinction in legal and social theory lead to misrepresentation of the phenomena of law and governance which results in analytically deficient proposals for social change in favour of hierarchically subordinate subjects. In particular, it will address the idea of political incapacity of weaker subjects and challenge the idea of the political as a goal of progressive social change. Furthermore, it will address the notion of law as background rules to bargaining and the importance of change in the background rules affecting the legal position of ‘weaker parties’. It is generally assumed in legal consciousness that the identity of the weaker party can be generalised and predetermined. However, it will be argued that the empty abstraction of the ‘weaker party’ often appears as an eternal entity for the sake of which we need to enforce social considerations or act paternalistically. It will be argued that the notion of ‘weaker party’ is subject to constant reinterpretation and that a regulatory regime, for example competition law or private law regime, in favour of the weaker party is bound to struggle with over- and under-inclusion. The chapter will conclude that, rather than devising normative regimes in favour of general classes of ‘weaker parties’, new tools need to be developed for the reconstruction of (hierarchically) constituted subjects. Keywords: subject-object dialectic, hierarchical structure