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Jacques Derrida delivered the basis of The Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, & the New International as a plenary address at the conference ‘Whither Marxism?’ hosted by the University of California, Riverside, in 1993. The longer book version was published in French the same year and appeared in English and Portuguese the following year. In the decade after the publication of Specters, Derrida’s analyses provoked a large critical literature and invited both consternation and celebration by figures such as Antonio Negri, Wendy Brown and Frederic Jameson. This forum seeks to stimulate new reflections on Derrida, deconstruction and Specters of Marx by considering how the futures past announced by the book have fared after an eventful quarter century. Maja Zehfuss, Antonio Vázquez-Arroyo and Dan Bulley and Bal Sokhi-Bulley offer sharp, occasionally exasperated, meditations on the political import of deconstruction and the limits of Derrida’s diagnoses in Specters of Marx but also identify possible paths forward for a global politics taking inspiration in Derrida’s work of the 1990s.

The Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) of the European Union came into being on 1 March 2007 and represents a new institution for human rights protection in the EU. This thesis undertakes a critical analysis of the FRA from a governmentality perspective. Governmentality refers to a particular critical standpoint, inspired by the work of Michel Foucault, which is concerned with power relations as processes of government. The features of the FRA, its structure and functions, are framed using "governance talk". The particular features which this thesis is interested in analysing are: the multiplicity of actors which make up the network structure of the Agency, their classification as experts, and the collection of information and data as statistics. The thesis demonstrates that these features, conceptualised as governance in institutional discourse, are actually features of governmentality. I therefore suggest that the rights discourse of the FRA is a discourse of governmentality. Moreover, I show how governmentality necessarily involves self-government: the actors and experts in the FRA's rights discourse govern themselves. This has significant implications for rights discourse: it reveals processes of governing (through) rights. On the one hand, we witness processes of the government of rights through experts and statistics. On the other, we are alerted to government in the name of rights. The thesis therefore intervenes within the EU's rights and governance discourses: it exposes the relations of power (as governmentality) that conventional "governance talk" tries to hide. It highlights the elusive novelty of theorising, and of critique, in EU legal scholarship on rights. By presenting a new perspective on the rights discourse of the FRA using governmentality, this thesis seeks to contribute to EU legal scholarship on rights, filling a glaring and significant gap in the literature.

The Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) of the European Union came into being on 1 March 2007 and represents a new institution for human rights protection in the EU. This thesis undertakes a critical analysis of the FRA from a governmentality perspective. Governmentality refers to a particular critical standpoint, inspired by the work of Michel Foucault, which is concerned with power relations as processes of government. The features of the FRA, its structure and functions, are framed using "governance talk". The particular features which this thesis is interested in analysing are: the multiplicity of actors which make up the network structure of the Agency, their classification as experts, and the collection of information and data as statistics. The thesis demonstrates that these features, conceptualised as governance in institutional discourse, are actually features of governmentality. I therefore suggest that the rights discourse of the FRA is a discourse of governmentality. Moreover, I show how governmentality necessarily involves self-government: the actors and experts in the FRA's rights discourse govern themselves. This has significant implications for rights discourse: it reveals processes of governing (through) rights. On the one hand, we witness processes of the government of rights through experts and statistics. On the other, we are alerted to government in the name of rights. The thesis therefore intervenes within the EU's rights and governance discourses: it exposes the relations of power (as governmentality) that conventional "governance talk" tries to hide. It highlights the elusive novelty of theorising, and of critique, in EU legal scholarship on rights. By presenting a new perspective on the rights discourse of the FRA using governmentality, this thesis seeks to contribute to EU legal scholarship on rights, filling a glaring and significant gap in the literature.

The Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) of the European Union came into being on 1 March 2007 and represents a new institution for human rights protection in the EU. This thesis undertakes a critical analysis of the FRA from a governmentality perspective. Governmentality refers to a particular critical standpoint, inspired by the work of Michel Foucault, which is concerned with power relations as processes of government. The features of the FRA, its structure and functions, are framed using "governance talk". The particular features which this thesis is interested in analysing are: the multiplicity of actors which make up the network structure of the Agency, their classification as experts, and the collection of information and data as statistics. The thesis demonstrates that these features, conceptualised as governance in institutional discourse, are actually features of governmentality. I therefore suggest that the rights discourse of the FRA is a discourse of governmentality. Moreover, I show how governmentality necessarily involves self-government: the actors and experts in the FRA's rights discourse govern themselves. This has significant implications for rights discourse: it reveals processes of governing (through) rights. On the one hand, we witness processes of the government of rights through experts and statistics. On the other, we are alerted to government in the name of rights. The thesis therefore intervenes within the EU's rights and governance discourses: it exposes the relations of power (as governmentality) that conventional "governance talk" tries to hide. It highlights the elusive novelty of theorising, and of critique, in EU legal scholarship on rights. By presenting a new perspective on the rights discourse of the FRA using governmentality, this thesis seeks to contribute to EU legal scholarship on rights, filling a glaring and significant gap in the literature.

“Why do I need theory – my PhD is complex enough without it?” “Where can I find ideas about what to do to solve my research problems?” “I’m not a theorist – what’s the point in theory unless it is useful for my specific research project?” “What is a (legal) research methodology anyway?” “How can I help my PhD students to devise and successfully complete their PhD projects?” PhD students and their supervisors (including those in Law Schools) often ask these kinds of questions. Our aim in this book is to present a practical and theoretically informed approach to grappling with such questions, for those working either alone, or, ideally, in collaboration with others who are interested in EU law, international law, or legal research methodologies.

The Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) of the European Union came into being on 1 March 2007 and represents a new institution for human rights protection in the EU. This thesis undertakes a critical analysis of the FRA from a governmentality perspective. Governmentality refers to a particular critical standpoint, inspired by the work of Michel Foucault, which is concerned with power relations as processes of government. The features of the FRA, its structure and functions, are framed using "governance talk". The particular features which this thesis is interested in analysing are: the multiplicity of actors which make up the network structure of the Agency, their classification as experts, and the collection of information and data as statistics. The thesis demonstrates that these features, conceptualised as governance in institutional discourse, are actually features of governmentality. I therefore suggest that the rights discourse of the FRA is a discourse of governmentality. Moreover, I show how governmentality necessarily involves self-government: the actors and experts in the FRA's rights discourse govern themselves. This has significant implications for rights discourse: it reveals processes of governing (through) rights. On the one hand, we witness processes of the government of rights through experts and statistics. On the other, we are alerted to government in the name of rights. The thesis therefore intervenes within the EU's rights and governance discourses: it exposes the relations of power (as governmentality) that conventional "governance talk" tries to hide. It highlights the elusive novelty of theorising, and of critique, in EU legal scholarship on rights. By presenting a new perspective on the rights discourse of the FRA using governmentality, this thesis seeks to contribute to EU legal scholarship on rights, filling a glaring and significant gap in the literature.

The Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) of the European Union came into being on 1 March 2007 and represents a new institution for human rights protection in the EU. This thesis undertakes a critical analysis of the FRA from a governmentality perspective. Governmentality refers to a particular critical standpoint, inspired by the work of Michel Foucault, which is concerned with power relations as processes of government. The features of the FRA, its structure and functions, are framed using "governance talk". The particular features which this thesis is interested in analysing are: the multiplicity of actors which make up the network structure of the Agency, their classification as experts, and the collection of information and data as statistics. The thesis demonstrates that these features, conceptualised as governance in institutional discourse, are actually features of governmentality. I therefore suggest that the rights discourse of the FRA is a discourse of governmentality. Moreover, I show how governmentality necessarily involves self-government: the actors and experts in the FRA's rights discourse govern themselves. This has significant implications for rights discourse: it reveals processes of governing (through) rights. On the one hand, we witness processes of the government of rights through experts and statistics. On the other, we are alerted to government in the name of rights. The thesis therefore intervenes within the EU's rights and governance discourses: it exposes the relations of power (as governmentality) that conventional "governance talk" tries to hide. It highlights the elusive novelty of theorising, and of critique, in EU legal scholarship on rights. By presenting a new perspective on the rights discourse of the FRA using governmentality, this thesis seeks to contribute to EU legal scholarship on rights, filling a glaring and significant gap in the literature.

Vernacular rights cultures tells a different story of human rights. The book moves away from the dominant narrative of universal human rights, based on western history and epistemology, pointing readers towards ‘vernacular rights cultures’. Sumi Madhok complicates the unidirectional account instead, narrating a subaltern story of rights that is foregrounded in ‘struggles and contestations over rights’ in the south Asian context. This attentiveness to the ‘vernacular’ refers to the ways marginalized groups articulate rights claims, and to the political imaginaries and subjectivities that their articulations engender. In the first three chapters, Madhok critically engages with the multiple literatures on human rights and presents her conceptual framework. The author takes on board the robust and growing critique of the racialized basis underpinning the prevailing human rights law and discourse. Then, Madhok goes further and presents an alternative genealogy, embedded in the local notions of haq. According to the author, the word haq translates to ‘right’, but ‘in the course of its travels, it has gathered complex meanings and iterations that inform political imaginaries, subjectivities and political cultures of rights and rights claim-making’ (p. 1). This transregional term appears in multiple languages across the subcontinent, and the book conveys its historical roots and contemporary usage not only in south Asia, but also in the Middle East and North Africa. The fact that haq is transregional allows the author to traverse borders and trace power struggles over rights across states and institutions in India and Pakistan. This is particularly important in a postcolonial context of contestation over state borders and associated citizenship rights.